summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/lib/spack/docs/site_configuration.rst
blob: b03df29573befd17b5130a616564e1f8cc2246cc (plain) (blame)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
.. _site-configuration:

Site configuration
===================================

.. _temp-space:

Temporary space
----------------------------

.. warning:: Temporary space configuration will eventually be moved to
   configuration files, but currently these settings are in
   ``lib/spack/spack/__init__.py``

By default, Spack will try to do all of its building in temporary
space.  There are two main reasons for this.  First, Spack is designed
to run out of a user's home directory, and on may systems the home
directory is network mounted and potentially not a very fast
filesystem.  We create build stages in a temporary directory to avoid
this.  Second, many systems impose quotas on home directories, and
``/tmp`` or similar directories often have more available space.  This
helps conserve space for installations in users' home directories.

You can customize temporary directories by editing
``lib/spack/spack/__init__.py``.  Specifically, find this part of the file:

.. code-block:: python

   # Whether to build in tmp space or directly in the stage_path.
   # If this is true, then spack will make stage directories in
   # a tmp filesystem, and it will symlink them into stage_path.
   use_tmp_stage = True

   # Locations to use for staging and building, in order of preference
   # Use a %u to add a username to the stage paths here, in case this
   # is a shared filesystem.  Spack will use the first of these paths
   # that it can create.
   tmp_dirs = ['/nfs/tmp2/%u/spack-stage',
               '/var/tmp/%u/spack-stage',
               '/tmp/%u/spack-stage']

The ``use_tmp_stage`` variable controls whether Spack builds
**directly** inside the ``var/spack/`` directory.  Normally, Spack
will try to find a temporary directory for a build, then it *symlinks*
that temporary directory into ``var/spack/`` so that you can keep
track of what temporary directories Spack is using.

The ``tmp_dirs`` variable is a list of paths Spack should search when
trying to find a temporary directory.  They can optionally contain a
``%u``, which will substitute the current user's name into the path.
The list is searched in order, and Spack will create a temporary stage
in the first directory it finds to which it has write access.  Add
more elements to the list to indicate where your own site's temporary
directory is.


.. _concretization-policies:

Concretization policies
----------------------------

When a user asks for a package like ``mpileaks`` to be installed,
Spack has to make decisions like what version should be installed,
what compiler to use, and how its dependencies should be configured.
This process is called *concretization*, and it's covered in detail in
:ref:`its own section <abstract-and-concrete>`.

The default concretization policies are in the
:py:mod:`spack.concretize` module, specifically in the
:py:class:`spack.concretize.DefaultConcretizer` class.  These are the
important methods used in the concretization process:

* :py:meth:`concretize_version(self, spec) <spack.concretize.DefaultConcretizer.concretize_version>`
* :py:meth:`concretize_architecture(self, spec) <spack.concretize.DefaultConcretizer.concretize_architecture>`
* :py:meth:`concretize_compiler(self, spec) <spack.concretize.DefaultConcretizer.concretize_compiler>`
* :py:meth:`choose_provider(self, spec, providers) <spack.concretize.DefaultConcretizer.choose_provider>`

The first three take a :py:class:`Spec <spack.spec.Spec>` object and
modify it by adding constraints for the version.  For example, if the
input spec had a version range like `1.0:5.0.3`, then the
``concretize_version`` method should set the spec's version to a
*single* version in that range.  Likewise, ``concretize_architecture``
selects an architecture when the input spec does not have one, and
``concretize_compiler`` needs to set both a concrete compiler and a
concrete compiler version.

``choose_provider()`` affects how concrete implementations are chosen
based on a virtual dependency spec.  The input spec is some virtual
dependency and the ``providers`` index is a :py:class:`ProviderIndex
<spack.packages.ProviderIndex>` object.  The ``ProviderIndex`` maps
the virtual spec to specs for possible implementations, and
``choose_provider()`` should simply choose one of these.  The
``concretize_*`` methods will be called on the chosen implementation
later, so there is no need to fully concretize the spec when returning
it.

The ``DefaultConcretizer`` is intended to provide sensible defaults
for each policy, but there are certain choices that it can't know
about.  For example, one site might prefer ``OpenMPI`` over ``MPICH``,
or another might prefer an old version of some packages.  These types
of special cases can be integrated with custom concretizers.

Writing a custom concretizer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To write your own concretizer, you need only subclass
``DefaultConcretizer`` and override the methods you want to change.
For example, you might write a class like this to change *only* the
``concretize_version()`` behavior:

.. code-block:: python

   from spack.concretize import DefaultConcretizer

   class MyConcretizer(DefaultConcretizer):
       def concretize_version(self, spec):
           # implement custom logic here.

Once you have written your custom concretizer, you can make Spack use
it by editing ``globals.py``.  Find this part of the file:

.. code-block:: python

   #
   # This controls how things are concretized in spack.
   # Replace it with a subclass if you want different
   # policies.
   #
   concretizer = DefaultConcretizer()

Set concretizer to *your own* class instead of the default:

.. code-block:: python

   concretizer = MyConcretizer()

The next time you run Spack, your changes should take effect.


Profiling
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spack has some limited built-in support for profiling, and can report
statistics using standard Python timing tools.  To use this feature,
supply ``-p`` to Spack on the command line, before any subcommands.

.. _spack-p:

``spack -p``
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

``spack -p`` output looks like this:

.. code-block:: sh

   $ spack -p graph dyninst
   o  dyninst
   |\
   | |\
   | o |  libdwarf
   |/ /
   o |  libelf
    /
   o  boost

         307670 function calls (305943 primitive calls) in 0.127 seconds

   Ordered by: internal time

   ncalls  tottime  percall  cumtime  percall filename:lineno(function)
      853    0.021    0.000    0.066    0.000 inspect.py:472(getmodule)
    51197    0.011    0.000    0.018    0.000 inspect.py:51(ismodule)
    73961    0.010    0.000    0.010    0.000 {isinstance}
     1762    0.006    0.000    0.053    0.000 inspect.py:440(getsourcefile)
    32075    0.006    0.000    0.006    0.000 {hasattr}
     1760    0.004    0.000    0.004    0.000 {posix.stat}
     2240    0.004    0.000    0.004    0.000 {posix.lstat}
     2602    0.004    0.000    0.011    0.000 inspect.py:398(getfile)
      771    0.004    0.000    0.077    0.000 inspect.py:518(findsource)
     2656    0.004    0.000    0.004    0.000 {method 'match' of '_sre.SRE_Pattern' objects}
    30772    0.003    0.000    0.003    0.000 {method 'get' of 'dict' objects}
    ...

The bottom of the output shows the top most time consuming functions,
slowest on top.  The profiling support is from Python's built-in tool,
`cProfile
<https://docs.python.org/2/library/profile.html#module-cProfile>`_.