Software installation

Installation requests

Note

We encourage system users to self-install software; we prioritize software installations that cannot be installed without administrative privileges.

We are happy to consider requests to install open-source, proprietary, and licensed software on the Hoffman2 Cluster if we can determine that the software does not pose a threat to system security and there are no technical barriers to installing it. To request software installation, please submit a ticket to our online helpdesk.

We reserve the right to approve or decline software installation requests at the discretion of our staff. The overall goal is to preserve the performance, stability and maintainability of the cluster for all users. When appropriate, we can provide guidance for installing software in user directories or project space.

We adhere to the following guidelines when determining the software installation location:

  • We handle the installation of license managers for software that requires centralized license management, because this type of software must run as a continuous process on the cluster’s designated license-manager host. This specialized software administration is a core part of our Research facilitation services.

  • If the licensing terms do not allow the software to be installed in a shared location, we will help users install it in their home directory or, when appropriate, in project storage.

  • If software is required by more than one user in the same research group, we will encourage and help users install it in a project directory, where access can be managed through Unix group membership and file permissions.

  • Home directories are intended for personal use and should not be used to share data or software with other users. Exposing your $HOME to users in a Unix group (see: Unix file permissions) can allow other users to change, overwrite or delete your files, making it difficult to audit changes, ensure data consistency or apply backup policies reliably.

  • If software is required by several users who do not share a common Unix group, we will install it in a common area.

Interactive applications

The Hoffman2 Cluster is a high performance computing environment designed for numerically intensive applications and as such is oriented primarily for batch computing. Therefore it does not have a lot of interactive applications which are more suitable to local environments. It is assumed that all users will have access to laptop or desktop computers for this purpose.

An exception is made in the case of licensed commercial software, especially those software applications that are useful for research and which have hefty license fees. Interactive licensed applications are made available as a means of providing these applications to campus users. UCLA faculty may purchases additional commercial licenses that may be limited to people belonging to their resource group.

When run interactively, applications must be started from within interactive sessions on compute nodes requested via the scheduler (see Computing overview). This policy applies to software that users may install in their home directory, as well as software installed in common areas by OARC staff.

Export controlled software

You must tell us if you intend to install export controlled software on any file system mounted on the Hoffman2 Cluster, including your home directory and/or purchased storage file systems. See Export controlled software for more information.