Applies to SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3

2 Installation and upgrade #

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing comes with preconfigured system roles for HPC. These roles provide a set of preselected packages typical for the specific role, and an installation workflow that configures the system to make the best use of system resources based on a typical use case for the role.

2.1 System roles for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3 #

You can choose specific roles for the system based on modules selected during the installation process. When the HPC Module is enabled, the following roles are available:

HPC management server (head node)

This role includes the following features:

Uses Btrfs as the default root file system
Includes HPC-enabled libraries
Disables the firewall and Kdump services
Installs a controller for the Slurm workload manager
Mounts a large scratch partition to /var/tmp

HPC compute node

This role includes the following features:

Based on the minimal setup configuration
Uses XFS as the default root file system
Includes HPC-enabled libraries
Disables firewall and Kdump services
Installs a client for the Slurm workload manager
Does not create a separate /home partition
Mounts a large scratch partition to /var/tmp

HPC development node

This role includes the following features:

Includes HPC-enabled libraries
Adds compilers and development toolchains

The scratch partition /var/tmp/ is only created if there is sufficient space available on the installation medium (minimum 32 GB).

The environment module Lmod is installed for all roles. It is required at build time and runtime of the system. For more information, see Section 7.1, “Lmod — Lua-based environment modules”.

All libraries specifically built for HPC are installed under /usr/lib/hpc. They are not part of the standard search path, so the Lmod environment module system is required.

MUNGE authentication is installed for all roles. MUNGE keys are generated and must be copied to all nodes in the cluster. For more information, see Section 3.4, “MUNGE authentication”.

For the Ganglia monitoring system, the data collector ganglia-gmond is installed for every role, while the data aggregator ganglia-gmetad needs to be installed manually on the system which is expected to collect the data. For more information, see Section 6.3, “Ganglia — system monitoring”.

The system roles are only available for new installations of SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing.

2.2 Upgrading to SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3 #

You can upgrade to SLE HPC 15 SP3 from SLE HPC 15 SP2.