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Apptainer: Difference between revisions
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Using an <code>SIF</code> image is recommended as disk performance (from the container image) will be faster than storing each file, etc. separately on Alliance cluster filesystems (which are set up to handle large files and parallel I/O). Using an <code>SIF</code> file instead of a sandbox image will also only use a quota file count amount of 1 instead of thousands (e.g., images will typically contain thousands of files and directories). | Using an <code>SIF</code> image is recommended as disk performance (from the container image) will be faster than storing each file, etc. separately on Alliance cluster filesystems (which are set up to handle large files and parallel I/O). Using an <code>SIF</code> file instead of a sandbox image will also only use a quota file count amount of 1 instead of thousands (e.g., images will typically contain thousands of files and directories). | ||
Many Linux distributions' package managers require root in order to use them. This implies that Apptainer version 1.0.x and the older Singularity cannot be used on compute clusters to build images as a normal user. Should such occur, submit a ticket asking for help to create that image or use a computer with Apptainer installed and you have root permissions. | |||
Apptainer has a <code>--fakeroot</code> feature that can be used to build and manipulate images. Before Apptainer version 1.1, one wanting to use this feature on a cluster requires submitting a ticket requesting a system administrator to consider adding that person so Apptainer's <code>--fakeroot</code> for a specific cluster. (This may or may not be done --such will be responded to in that ticket.) With Apptainer version 1.1, <code>--fakeroot</code> can be used without being formally added. | |||
Know that some containers will not build successfully without using a <code>root</code> account to build them. These images cannot be built on our clusters. | |||
If all you need is to use a Docker image as-is with Apptainer, often those images can be built and run without issues, e.g., without any need to have additional permissions or explicitly use <code>--fakeroot</code>. Should you need to modify the image after creating it, such may require elevated permissions to successfully do this, e.g., if the image's Linux distribution's package manager requires such and you need to install a package using it. For this reason, the examples shown below assume one only needs to use a Docker image as-is. | |||
===Building a Sandbox Image=== | ===Building a Sandbox Image=== | ||