StackHPC Slurm Appliance

This repository contains playbooks and configuration to define a Slurm-based HPC environment. This includes:

• Rocky Linux-based hosts.
• OpenTofu configurations to define the cluster’s infrastructure-as-code.
• Packages for Slurm and MPI software stacks from OpenHPC.
• Shared fileystem(s) using NFS (with in-cluster or external servers) or CephFS via Openstack Manila.
• Slurm accounting using a MySQL database.
• Monitoring integrated with Slurm jobs using Prometheus, ElasticSearch and Grafana.
• A web-based portal from OpenOndemand.
• Production-ready default Slurm configurations for access and memory limits.
• Packer-based image build configurations for node images.

The repository is expected to be forked for a specific HPC site but can contain multiple environments for e.g. development, staging and production clusters
sharing a common configuration. It has been designed to be modular and extensible, so if you add features for your HPC site please feel free to submit PRs
back upstream to us!

While it is tested on OpenStack it should work on any cloud with appropriate OpenTofu configuration files.

Demonstration Deployment

The default configuration in this repository may be used to create a cluster to explore use of the appliance. It provides:

• Persistent state backed by an OpenStack volume.
• NFS-based shared file system backed by another OpenStack volume.

Note that the OpenOndemand portal and its remote apps are not usable with this default configuration.

It requires an OpenStack cloud, and an Ansible “deploy host” with access to that cloud.

Before starting ensure that:

• You have root access on the deploy host.
• You can create instances using a Rocky 9 GenericCloud image (or an image based on that).
  • NB: In general it is recommended to use the latest released image which already contains the required packages. This is built and tested in StackHPC’s CI. However the appliance will install the necessary packages if a GenericCloud image is used.
• You have a SSH keypair defined in OpenStack, with the private key available on the deploy host.
• Created instances have access to internet (note proxies can be setup through the appliance if necessary).
• Created instances have accurate/synchronised time (for VM instances this is usually provided by the hypervisor; if not or for bare metal instances it may be necessary to configure a time service via the appliance).

Setup deploy host

The following operating systems are supported for the deploy host:

• Rocky Linux 9
• Rocky Linux 8

These instructions assume the deployment host is running Rocky Linux 8:

sudo yum install -y git python38
git clone https://github.com/stackhpc/ansible-slurm-appliance
cd ansible-slurm-appliance
./dev/setup-env.sh

You will also need to install OpenTofu.

Create a new environment

Run the following from the repository root to activate the venv:

. venv/bin/activate

Use the cookiecutter template to create a new environment to hold your configuration:

cd environments
cookiecutter skeleton

and follow the prompts to complete the environment name and description.

NB: In subsequent sections this new environment is refered to as $ENV.

Activate the new environment:

. environments/$ENV/activate

And generate secrets for it:

ansible-playbook ansible/adhoc/generate-passwords.yml

Define and deploy infrastructure

Create an OpenTofu variables file to define the required infrastructure, e.g.:

# environments/$ENV/terraform/terraform.tfvars:

cluster_name = "mycluster"
cluster_net = "some_network" # *
cluster_subnet = "some_subnet" # *
key_pair = "my_key" # *
control_node_flavor = "some_flavor_name"
login_nodes = {
    login-0: "login_flavor_name"
}
cluster_image_id = "rocky_linux_9_image_uuid"
compute = {
    general = {
        nodes: ["compute-0", "compute-1"]
        flavor: "compute_flavor_name"
    }
}

Variables marked * refer to OpenStack resources which must already exist. The above is a minimal configuration - for all variables and descriptions see environments/$ENV/terraform/terraform.tfvars.

To deploy this infrastructure, ensure the venv and the environment are activated and run:

export OS_CLOUD=openstack
cd environments/$ENV/terraform/
tofu apply

and follow the prompts. Note the OS_CLOUD environment variable assumes that OpenStack credentials are defined using a clouds.yaml file in a default location with the default cloud name of openstack.

Configure appliance

To configure the appliance, ensure the venv and the environment are activated and run:

ansible-playbook ansible/site.yml

Once it completes you can log in to the cluster using:

ssh rocky@$login_ip

where the IP of the login node is given in environments/$ENV/inventory/hosts.yml

Overview of directory structure

• environments/: See docs/environments.md.
• ansible/: Contains the ansible playbooks to configure the infrastruture.
• packer/: Contains automation to use Packer to build machine images for an enviromment - see the README in this directory for further information.
• dev/: Contains development tools.

For further information see the docs directory.