Three UQ high-performance computing clusters—Awoonga, Tinaroo and FlashLite—will undergo an upgrade of their operating system, from CentOS6 to CentOS7.
This change is likely to affect some of the currently installed software and user compiled programs. Due to this, there will be a staged changeover, to give users the ability to test programs, and if necessary recompile, to make sure they are working on the new operating system.
As Tinaroo has the most nodes, most of the initial testing will be performed on some of its nodes before the change is rolled over to Awoonga and FlashLite.
Here is the current plan of the staged change:
- Configure and build CentOS7 Rocks and Rocks software rolls (those that are found under /opt/modulefiles) (completed).
- Bring up some CentOS7 nodes on Tinaroo for testing purposes (completed).
- Admins will test "key" software on CentOS7 and rebuild/reinstall where necessary. So far, admins have tested Matlab, Ansys and singularity. Most Rocks software (those under /opt/modulefiles) passes the "basic" tests. However, these tests are not very rigorous and users will be asked at some point to test their used software and report back if things are not working as expected. Where possible, admins will test software but might enlist some help from user groups at some point during this process.
- Next, Tinaroo will be reconfigured as a CentOS7 Rocks cluster. To ensure users can continue to run their HPC jobs, even if their software does not work under CentOS7 yet, a limited number of nodes will be retained with the old setup, so there is time to get applications working under CentOS7. This will be available for a limited time, so all applications will have to move to the CentOS7 at some point. The old setup nodes (CentOS6) will most likely be accessible via a separate queue. The old CentOS6 setup will also still be available on Awoonga and FlashLite and current CentOS6 Rocks software (at the moment under /opt/modulefiles) will still be available. Software currently found under /sw/Modules will also remain available. Some of these might run under CentOS7 but will need to be tested.
- Once there are no significant issues anymore, the change will be rolled out on Awoonga and FlashLite. Due to the limited number of nodes it might not be practical to retain CentOS6 nodes on Awoonga.
The RCC team is hoping to start the changeover in the second half of August, but users will be given notice before this happens.
Please contact the RCC Support Desk if you have any queries or encounter technical problems during the changeover: rcc-support@uq.edu.au.
