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Examples#

Running gnuplot from the EESSI repository#

In this example, we will cache and run gnuplot from the EESSI (European Environment for Scientific Software Installations) repository. EESSI provides a scalable and reproducible set of scientific software installations for high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud environments. For more detailed information, please see the official EESSI documentation.

Filling out the CVMFS application form#

Fill out the form with the following values:

  1. Repository names: cms.cern.ch,software.eessi.io. You are specifying two repositories here. The EESSI repository provides the software, while the CERN repository may be needed for dependencies or other CVMFS configurations.
  2. Internet access: Yes. This is required to populate the local CVMFS cache with the necessary files from the repositories.
  3. Memory: 4 GB. This is sufficient for this demonstration.
  4. Do you want to create a new persistent image filesystem? Yes.
  5. Persistent image filesystem name: cv-eessi.img. This follows the required naming convention: the file name must start with cv and end with .img.
  6. Persistent image filesystem size in GB: 1 GB. Critical: This space is allocated from your blkdir quota. Ensure you have sufficient available quota before proceeding.

The figure below shows the form filled out with these inputs:

eessi-input-form

Press the Launch button. After a few seconds (depending on the size of the image file), a new application card will appear, as shown below:

cvmfs-card

Running the application and gnuplot#

  • Click Launch on the new card. A desktop environment will open in your browser. ⚡
  • Open a terminal from the desktop.
  • Source the EESSI initialization script to set up the environment: 
    source /cvmfs/software.eessi.io/versions/2023.06/init/bash
    Wait a moment for the environment to be configured.

  • Load the gnuplot module:

    ml gnuplot
    and run:

    echo "plot [-10:10] sin(x)/x * cos(x); pause 10" | gnuplot
    This should open a window displaying the plot for 10 seconds. 👏

cvmfs-eessi-desktop

Saving the cache#

After populating the cache and finishing your work, do not forget to log out properly from the desktop session before your session is terminated by the maximum job time. This ensures that all your changes and the CVMFS cache state are correctly saved in the persistent image file for your next use.