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Cray Programming Environment (CPE)

The Cray Programming Environment (CPE) is provided to users on Alps as containers, with limited support from CSCS.

CPE is not supported by CSCS

CSCS offers full support for building software using uenv-based programming environments. See the programming environment documentation for supported programming environments.

The CPE is a suite of software: programming environments, compilers, libraries and tools. The CPE will be familiar to users of previous CSCS systems, including Piz Daint, and users of HPE/Cray systems at other sites. It provides modules for programming environments including Prgenv-gnu and Prgenv-cray, and packages like cray-python and cray-fftw.

The cray module is deprecated

On Eiger and Daint the outdated version 24.7 of CPE is installed, and can be loaded using the cray module.

  • this module will be removed soon (the timeline will be communicated to the community);
  • this version of CPE is out of date, and is missing key updates required for compatibility and performance for gh200 on Daint.
  • CSCS can’t provide support when the cray module is loaded.

The recommended method for building and running software is to use uenv or containers. See the programming environment documentation for alternative programming environments.

CPE in a container

The CPE is provided on Eiger and Daint in containers.

Available versions

CPE containers are provided for zen2 and gh200 micro-architectures. The zen2 containers are intended for use on Eiger, and the gh200 images are available for Grace-Hopper systems for the systems below:

uarch system
zen2 Eiger
gh200 Daint, Santis

The PrgEnv-gnu and PrgEnv-cray programming environments are provided as separate containers, named gnu-$version and cray-$version respectively, where version is the CPE version in the container.

zen2 gh200
cpe-gnu-24.7 ✅ ✅
cpe-cray-24.7 ✅ ✅
cpe-gnu-25.3 ✅ ✅
cpe-cray-25.3 ✅ ✅
Where are CPE containers stored?

Deployed versions can be found at /capstor/store/cscs/cscs/public/containers/edf/<microarchitecture>.

Listing all available CPE containers

$ find /capstor/store/cscs/cscs/public/containers/edf -type f -printf '%P\n'
zen2/cpe-cray-24.07.toml
zen2/cpe-cray-25.03.toml
zen2/cpe-gnu-25.03.toml
zen2/cpe-gnu-24.07.toml
zen2/.cpe-base.toml
gh200/cpe-cray-24.07.toml
gh200/cpe-cray-25.03.toml
gh200/cpe-gnu-25.03.toml
gh200/cpe-gnu-24.07.toml
gh200/.cpe-base.toml

How to use

To start a session with the CPE with a specific version above): 

$ srun --environment=cpe-cray-24.07 --pty bash
Once the container starts up you can directly use the programming environment, because there will be modules loaded by default at startup.

$ srun -p debug --environment=cpe-cray-24.07 --pty bash
$ module list

Currently Loaded Modules:
  1) craype-arm-grace     4) cce/18.0.0          7) cray-mpich/8.1.30
  2) craype-network-ofi   5) craype/2.7.32       8) cuda/12.6
  3) xpmem/2.9.6          6) PrgEnv-cray/8.5.0   9) craype-accel-nvidia90


$ module avail

---- /opt/cray/pe/lmod/modulefiles/mpi/crayclang/17.0/ofi/1.0/cray-mpich/8.0 ----
   cray-hdf5-parallel/1.14.3.1    cray-parallel-netcdf/1.12.3.13

---------- /opt/cray/pe/lmod/modulefiles/comnet/crayclang/17.0/ofi/1.0 ----------
   cray-mpich-abi/8.1.30    cray-mpich/8.1.30 (L)

------------- /opt/cray/pe/lmod/modulefiles/compiler/crayclang/17.0 -------------
   cray-hdf5/1.14.3.1    cray-libsci/24.07.0

------------------ /opt/cray/pe/lmod/modulefiles/mix_compilers ------------------
   cce-mixed/18.0.0

---------------- /opt/cray/pe/lmod/modulefiles/cpu/arm-grace/1.0 ----------------
   cray-fftw/3.3.10.8

------------- /opt/cray/pe/lmod/modulefiles/craype-targets/default --------------
   craype-accel-amd-gfx908        craype-hugepages16M     craype-network-none
   craype-accel-amd-gfx90a        craype-hugepages1G      craype-network-ofi  (L)
   craype-accel-amd-gfx940        craype-hugepages256M    craype-network-ucx
   craype-accel-amd-gfx942        craype-hugepages2G      craype-x86-genoa
   craype-accel-host              craype-hugepages2M      craype-x86-milan-x
   craype-accel-nvidia70          craype-hugepages32M     craype-x86-milan
   craype-accel-nvidia80          craype-hugepages4M      craype-x86-rome
   craype-accel-nvidia90   (L)    craype-hugepages512M    craype-x86-spr-hbm
   craype-arm-grace        (L)    craype-hugepages64M     craype-x86-spr
   craype-hugepages128M           craype-hugepages8M      craype-x86-trento

---------------------- /opt/cray/pe/lmod/modulefiles/core -----------------------
   PrgEnv-cray/8.5.0 (L)    cray-libsci_acc/24.07.0    cray-python/3.11.7
   cce/18.0.0        (L)    cray-pmi/6.1.15.19         craype/2.7.32      (L)

----------------------------- /opt/cray/modulefiles -----------------------------
   xpmem/2.9.6 (L)

----------------------------- /opt/cscs/modulefiles -----------------------------
   cuda/12.6 (L)

$ CC --version
Cray clang version 18.0.0  (0e4696aa65fa9549bd5e19c216678cc98185b0f7)
Target: aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /opt/cray/pe/cce/18.0.0/cce-clang/aarch64/share/../bin

The recommended way of using CPE in a container is to start the container, and use $SCRATCH and $STORE to interact with persistent data. Please remember that any data that is written to a directory that is not mounted from the host system will be lost, after the container stops.

Note

By default, the paths /capstor, /iopsstor are mounted to the same paths inside the container.

Note

/users will not be mounted by default. If you need your home directory, you need to override the mounts directive. The recommended way is to derive from existing EDF file using the key base_environment, further details at EDF file reference.