Installation from source

Requirements

EAR requires some third party libraries and headers to compile and run, in addition to the basic requirements such as the compiler and Autoconf. This is a list of these libraries, minimum tested versions and its references:

Library	Minimum version	References
MPI	-	-
MySQL*	15.1	MySQL or MariaDB
PostgreSQL*	9.2	PostgreSQL
Autoconf	2.69	Website
GSL	1.4	Website

* Just one of them required.

These libraries are not required, but can be used to get additional functionality or metrics:

Library	Minimum version	References
SLURM	17.02.6	Website
PBS**	2021	PBSPro or OpenPBS
CUDA/NVML	7.5	CUDA
CUPTI**	7.5	CUDA
Likwid	5.2.1	Likwid
FreeIPMI	1.6.8	FreeIPMI
OneAPI/L0**	1.7.9	OneAPI
LibRedFish**	1.3.6	LibRedFish

** These will be available in next release.

Also, some drivers has to be present and loaded in the system:

Driver	File	Kernel version	References
CPUFreq	kernel/drivers/cpufreq/acpi-cpufreq.ko	3.10	Information
Open IPMI	kernel/drivers/char/ipmi/*.ko	3.10	Information

Lastly, the compilers: EAR uses C compilers. It has been tested with both Intel and GNU.

Compiler	Comment	Minimum version	References
GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)	For the library and daemon	4.8.5	Website
Intel C Compiler (ICC)	For the library and daemon	17.0.1	Website

Compilation and installation guide summary

1. Before the installation, make sure the installation path is accessible by all the computing nodes. Do the same in the folder where you want to set the configuration files (it will be called $(EAR_ETC) in this guide for simplicity).
2. Generate Autoconf's configure program by typing autoreconf -i.
3. Read sections below to understand how to properly set the configure parameters.
4. Compile EAR components by typing ./configure ..., make and make install in the root directory.
5. Type make etc.install to install the content of $(EAR_ETC). It is the configuration content, but that configuration will be expanded in the next section. You have a link at the bottom of this page.

Configure options

configure is based on shell variables which initial value could be given by setting variables in the command line, or in the environment. Take a look to the table with the most popular variables:

Variable	Description
MPICC	MPI compiler.
CC	C compiler command.
MPICC_FLAGS	MPI compiler flags.
CFLAGS	C compiler flags.
CC_FLAGS	Also C compiler flags.
LDFLAGS	Linker flags. E.g. ‘-L<lib dir>’ if you have libraries in a nonstandard directory <lib dir>.
LIBS	Libraries to pass to the linker. E.g. ‘-l’.
EAR_TMP	Defines the node local storage as 'var', 'tmp' or other tempfs file system (default: /var/ear) (you can alo use --localstatedir=DIR).
EAR_ETC	Defines the read-only single-machine data as 'etc' (default: EPREFIX/etc) (you can also use --sharedstatedir=DIR).
MAN	Defines the manual directory (default: PREFIX/man) (you can use also --mandir=DIR).
DOC	Defines the documentation directory (default: PREFIX/doc) (you can use also --docdir=DIR).
MPI_VERSION	Adds a suffix to the compiled EAR library name. Read further down this page for more information.
USER	Owner user of the installed files.
GROUP	Owned group of the installed files
MAKE_NAME	It adds an additional Makefile with a suffix.

• This is an example of CC, CFLAGS and DEBUG variables overwriting: ./configure CC=icc CFLAGS=-g EAR_ETC=/hpc/opt/etc

You can choose the root folder by typing ./configure --PREFIX=<path>. But there are other options in the following table:

Definition	Default directory	Content / description
<PREFIX>	/usr/local	Installation path
<EAR_ETC>	<PREFIX>/etc	Configuration files.
<EAR_TMP>	/var/ear	Pipes and temporal files.

You have more installation options information by typing ./configure --help. If you want to change the value of any of this options after the configuration process, you can edit the root Makefile. All the options are at the top of the text and its names are self-explanatory.

Adding required libraries installed in custom locations

The configure script is capable to find libraries located in custom location if a module is loaded in the environment or its path is included in LD_LIBRARY_PATH. If not, you can help configure to find SLURM, or other required libraries in case you installed in a custom location. It is necessary to add its root path for the compiler to see include headers and libraries for the linker. You can do this by adding to it the following arguments:

Argument	Description
--with-cuda=<path>	Specifies the path to CUDA installation.
--with-freeipmi=<path>	Specify path to FREEIPMI installation.
--with-gsl=<path>	Specifies the path to GSL installation.
--with-likwid=<path>	Specifies the path to LIKWID installation.
--with-mysql=<path>	Specify path to MySQL installation.
--with-pgsql=<path>	Specify path to PostgreSQL installation.
--with-pbs	Enable PBS components.
--with-slurm=<path>	Specifies the path to SLURM installation.

• This is an example of CC overwriting the CUDA path specification:
  ./configure --with-cuda=/path/to/CUDA

If unusual procedures must be done to compile the package, please try to figure out how configure could check whether to do them and contact the team to be considered for the next release. In the meantime, you can overwrite shell variables or export its paths to the environment (e.g. LD_LIBRARY).

Additional configure flags

Also, there are additional flags to help administrator increase the compatibility of EAR in nodes.

Argument	Description
--disable-rpath	Disables the RPATH included in binaries to specify some dependencies location.
--disable-avx512	Replaces the AVX-512 function calls by AVX-2.
--disable-gpus	The GPU monitoring data is not allocated nor inserted in the database.
--disable-mpi	Compiles the non-mpi version of the library.

Pre-installation fast tweaks

Some EAR characteristics can be modified by changing the value of the constants defined in src/common/config/config_def.h. You can open it with an editor and modify those pre-procesor variables to alter the EAR behaviour.

Also, you can quickly switch the user/group of your installation files by modifying the CHOWN_USR/CHOWN_GRP variables in the root Makefile.

Library distributions/versions

As commented in the overview, the EAR library is loaded next to the user MPI application by the [EAR Loader](EAR Loader). The library uses MPI symbols, so it is compiled by using the includes provided by your MPI distribution. The selection of the library version is automatic in runtime, but in the compiling and installation process is not required. Each compiled library has its own file name that has to be defined by the MPI_VERSION variable during ./configure or by editing the root Makefile. The name list per distribution is exposed in the following table:

Distribution	Name	MPI_VERSION variable
Intel MPI	libear.so (default)	it is not required
MVAPICH	libear.so (default)	it is not required
OpenMPI	libear.ompi.so	ompi

If different MPI distributions shares the same library name, it means that its symbols are compatible between them, so compiling and installing the library one time will be enough. However, if you provide different MPI distributions to the users, you will have to compile and install the library multiple times.

Before compiling new libraries you have to install by typing make install. Then you can run the ./configure again, changing the MPICC, MPICC_FLAGS and MPI_VERSION variables, or just opening the root Makefile and edit the same variables and MPI_BASE, which just sets the MPI installation root path. Now type make full to perform a clean compilation and make earl.install, to install only the new version of the library.

If your MPI version is not fully compatible, please contact ear-support@bsc.es. We will add compatibility to EAR and give you a solution in the meantime.

Other useful flags

You can install individual components by doing: make eard.install to install EAR Daemon, make earl.install to install EAR Library, make eardbd.install EAR Database Manager, make eargmd.install EAR Global Manager and make commands.install the EAR command binaries.

Installation content

This is the list of the inner installation folders and their content:

Root	Directory	Content / description
<PREFIX>	/lib	Libraries.
<PREFIX>	/lib/plugins	Plugins.
<PREFIX>	/bin	EAR commands.
<PREFIX>	/bin/tools	EAR tools for coefficients.
<PREFIX>	/sbin	Privileged components.
<PREFIX>	/man	Documentation.
<EAR_ETC>	/ear	Configuration file.
<EAR_ETC>	/ear/coeffs	Coefficient files store.
<EAR_ETC>	/module	EAR module.
<EAR_ETC>	/slurm	ear.plugstack.conf.
<EAR_ETC>	/systemd	EAR service files.

Fine grain tuning of EAR options

Some options such as the maximum number of CPUs or GPUs supported are defined in src/common/config files. It is not recommended to modify these files but some options and default values can be set by modifying them.

Next step

For a better overview of the installation process, return to our [Quick installation guide](Admin guide#quick-installation-guide). To continue the installation, visit the configuration page to set up properly the EAR configuration file and the SLURMs plugin stack file.