# Notes for 2023-03-02 meeting

* date & time: Thu 2 Mar 2023 - 14:00 CEST (13:00 UTC)
* (every first Thursday of the month)
* venue: *(online, see mail for meeting link, or ask in Slack)*
* agenda:
- Quick introduction by new people
- EESSI-related meetings in last month (incl. BioHackathon report)
- First experiments with RISC-V
- Progress update per EESSI layer (incl. bot for software layer)
- 2021.12 version of pilot repository + outlook to next pilot version
- AWS/Azure sponsorship update + OCRE funding opportunity
- Update on MultiXscale EuroHPC project
- Upcoming events
- Q&A

### Slides

* https://github.com/EESSI/meetings/blob/main/meetings/EESSI_meeting_20230302.pdf

### Meeting notes

*(by Kenneth)*

#### Quick introduction by new people

- No new people

#### EESSI-related meetings in last month

*(see slides)*

- Collecting questions for the next CVMFS coordination meeting: https://hackmd.io/7otdq5tSRuyIWAJaF7NH6A
- Usage tracking addressed, more later
- Possible to Stratum 1 to create a Stratum 1, requires an opt-in
- Meetings with AWS/Azure/MultiXscale
- AWS meeting next week important as credits will expire soon
- Notes available for all (see slides)

#### Progress update per EESSI layer

##### Filesystem layer

*(see slides)*

- How will we do removal of versions in the long run?
- There are a lot of options/ideas here (tarball, squashfs,...)
- Nothing decided yet

##### Compatibility layer

*(see slides)*

- Some changes in bootstrap script that can cause the bootstrap to fail
- libc.so script now has file paths without prefix path, but requires that --sysroot is passed down to linker
- we should use older OS + kernel to bootstrap compat layer
- but using older kernel also exposes more problems in bootstrap
- set up focused working group on compat layer?

##### Software layer

*(see slides)*

- some issues opened by Alan for GPU-related stuff to fix/change in eessi_container.sh script
- CUDA is being "promoted" from runtime to build-only dependency (via EasyBuild hooks)
- design choice, you won't see CUDA module being loaded even when software is GPU-aware
- GPU drivers are accessible in container via $LD_LIBRARY_PATH (in `.singularity` directory that is automatically created)
- Apptainer bases this on output of `ldconfig -p`
- non-priviledged Apptainer install can be included in compat layer (like Alliance is doing)

##### Usage "tracking" of EESSI

- Caspar: any privacy concerns w.r.t. collecting data like this?
- could/should check with legal department of our institution?
- Terje: it would be (too) easy to feed fake data into counting server...
- may need to not use UDP to partilaly avoid making this too easy?
- Alex: this may need to (always) to opt-in to be on the safe side w.r.t. data collection

##### Build-and-deploy bot

*(see slides)*

- Terje: largst missing feature right now is being able to request rebuild of a specific CPU target
- would also be nice to "communicate" with bot through other means than labels (via comments)
- bot should hide its own old comments, to help the human who can't otherwise see the forest through the trees (comments) anymore...

##### EESSI pilot repository

*(see slides)*

#### AWS/Azure sponsored credits

*(see slides)*

#### MultiXscale EU project

*(see slides)*

- open position at HPC-UGent: https://www.ugent.be/hpc/en/news-events/news/job-multixscale

#### Upcoming events

* HPCKP'23: https://hpckp.org/annual-meeting
* submission deadline 7 April 2023
* BioHackathon Europe 2023
* deadline for project proposals 10 April 2023

#### Q&A

- ...