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Building uenv

uenv build service

CSCS provides a build service for uenv that takes as its input a uenv recipe, and builds the uenv using the same pipeline used to build the officially supported uenv.

The command takes two arguments:

uenv build <recipe> <label>
  • recipe: the path to the recipe
    • A uenv recipe is a description of the software to build in the uenv. See the stackinator documentation for more information.
  • label: the label to attach, of the form name/version@system%uarch where:
    • name is the name, e.g. prgenv-gnu, gromacs, vistools.
    • version is a version string, e.g. 24.11, v1.2, 2025-rc2
    • system is the CSCS cluster to build on (e.g. daint, santis, clariden, eiger)
    • uarch is the micro-architecture.

Building a uenv

The image will be built on daint for the gh200 node type. 

uenv build $SCRATCH/recipes/myapp myapp/v3@daint%gh200

The output of the above command will print a URL that links to a status page where you can follow the progress of the build. After a successful build, the uenv can be pulled using a name from the status page:

uenv image pull service::myapp/v3:1669479716

Note that the image is given a unique numeric tag, provided on the status page for the build.

Info

To use an existing uenv recipe as the starting point for a custom recipe, uenv start the uenv and take the contents of the meta/recipe path in the mounted image (this is the recipe that was used to build the uenv).

All uenv built by uenv build are pushed into the service namespace, where they can be accessed by all users logged in to CSCS. This makes it easy to share your uenv with other users, by giving them the name, version and tag of the image.

Danger

If, for whatever reason, your uenv can not be made publicly available, do not use the build service.

Search user-built uenv

To view all of the uenv on daint that have been built by the service: 

uenv image find service::@daint

Building with Stackinator

CSCS develops and maintains the Stackinator tool that is used to configure and build uenv.

Note

The tool is currently maintained for internal use, and is used by automated pipelines, including the one used by the uenv build command. As such, CSCS provide limited support for the tool.