1 Overview
2 Listing Available Modules
3 Loading a module
4 Listing Loaded Modules
5 Unloading modules by name
6 Unloading all loaded modules
7 Example
8 Using Modules in SBATCH Job Scripts
9 Installing Software as Modules
10 Additional Support

Overview

Supercomputing software environments are highly domain dependent, and to prevent conflicts while balancing ease of use, the software that your research needs will likely need to be loaded into the environment as a software module.

No software modules are loaded when you start a new session, so you must load software in every session.

Listing Available Modules

The following command will list all available software modules.

$ module avail

To search available modules with a keyword, i.e. “rust”:

$ module avail rust

You can also see available modules from the web portal.

Sol: https://links.asu.edu/sol-modules

Phoenix: https://links.asu.edu/phx-modules

Research Computing uses two methods to create modules, which is reflected in two naming schemes. Modules that are built manually follow the naming scheme software/version.number. Modules that are built with a program called Spack follow the naming scheme software-version.number-compiler-version.number. There is no difference between the methods otherwise.

Loading a module

To use software, you must first load the module into your shell environment using the module load command.

module load aspect/2.3.0

In this example, Aspect software has been loaded and can be used as normal.

Tip: you can use “ml” as a shorthand for “module load”

Listing Loaded Modules

To see a list of modules that are currently loaded use the following command.

Unloading modules by name

To unload only a single module use the following command.

Unloading all loaded modules

To unload all modules that are currently loaded run the following.

Example

Using Modules in SBATCH Job Scripts

Many sbatch scripts will include a module load command as part of the script.

Examples of this can be found here: Slurm - SBATCH Job Scripts

Installing Software as Modules

If the software you need is not installed as a module yet, please create a support ticket by reviewing our RTO Request Help page. Please indicate the URL to the software downloading source, the version of the software needed, and other related information in the email.

Using Software Modules