ARCHIVED: On XSEDE, how do I manage my software environment using Modules?

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Digital services on the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) provide an environment management package called Modules for managing your software environment.

Modules is a command-line interface that provides commands for setting and modifying shell environment variables. These environment variables define values used by both the shell and the programs you execute on the shell command line.

The Modules environment management package simplifies the management of environment variables associated with various software packages, and lets you automatically modify environment variables as needed when switching between software packages.

All XSEDE digital services automatically enable Modules for environment management. Every new user account is provided a default .modules file in its home directory. To enable a package listed in the default .modules file, edit the file, removing the # in front of the desired module load package line.

Some common Modules commands include:

Command Action
module avail List all software packages available on the system.
module avail package List all versions of package available on the system; for example:

  module avail openmpi
module list List all packages currently added to your user environment.
module load package Add the default version of the package to your user environment; for example:

  module load intel
module load package/version Add the specified version of the package to your user environment; for example:

  module load intel/11.1
module unload package Remove the specified package from your user environment.
module swap package_A package_B Swap the loaded package (package_A) with another package (package_B). This is synonymous with:

  module switch package_A package_B
module show package Show the changes loading the specified package makes to your user environment (e.g., environment variables set, library paths added). This is synonymous with:

  module display package

For more about using Modules on XSEDE digital services, see Computing Environments on the XSEDE website. For general information about using Modules, see the Modules manual page.

This document was developed with support from National Science Foundation (NSF) grants 1053575 and 1548562. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

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Last modified on 2018-01-18 16:19:49.