Environment Modules User Guide¶

Environment Modules is a utility for the dynamic modification of a user’s environment via modulefiles. There is a modulefile for each of available software packages installed on the system. Therefore, users may use the module command to check available software on the system. Users can issue a module command to dynamically set or remove shell environment variables such as PATH, INCLUDE, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, MANPATH, etc. for the corresponding software package/version. Users may put a module command in the job script file as needed, and can also add a module command into their ~/.bashrc.

Check available modules/packages¶

The command to check the module files for installed software packages is

$ module avail

More module files will become available when software packages are added.

Example:

 $ module avail

--------------------------------------------------- /opt/modulefiles/Core ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
crystal/09.1.0.1        intel/2019.1.144          mkl/2019.1.144          mpich                     plask/openblas        qchem/mpich
crystal/09.2.0.1        intel/2021.1.1   (L,D)    mkl/2020.0.166          openmpi/2.1.0             python/default        qchem/openmp
crystal/17.1.0.2 (D)    meep             (L)      mkl/2021.1.1   (L,D)    openmpi/4.0.3rc4 (D)      python/2.7            qchem/serial (D)
intel/2013.2.146        mkl/default               mpb            (L)      plask/mkl        (L,D)    python/3.8     (D)    turbomole

------------------------------------------- /usr/share/lmod/lmod/modulefiles/Core -------------------------------------------------------------------
lmod/6.6    settarg/6.6

 Where:
   L:  Module is loaded
   D:  Default Module

List loaded modules/packages¶

The command to list loaded modules/packages is module list:

$ module list

  Currently Loaded Modules:
    1) intel/2021.1.1   2) meep   3) mpb   4) mkl/2021.1.1   5) plask/mkl

Load/add a module to set the environmental variables¶

The command to set the environmental variables for a software package is module load [modulefile]. You may check the loaded modules using module list after you load a module/package.

$ module load crystal
$ module list

  Currently Loaded Modules:
    1) intel/2021.1.1   2) meep   3) mpb   4) mkl/2021.1.1   5) plask/mkl   6) crystal/17.1.0.2

To display what environmental variables have been set in a module use command module display [modulename]:

$ module display crystal

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     /opt/modulefiles/Core/crystal/17.1.0.2.lua:
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  help([[
  This module loads CRYSTAL.
  ]])
  whatis("Name: crystal ")
  whatis("Description: This module loads CRYSTAL. ")
  whatis("Version: 17.1.0.2 ")
  setenv("CRY_EXEDIR","/opt/crystal/Linux-ifort17_XE_emt64/v1.0.2")
  setenv("CRY_SCRDIR","/tmp")
  setenv("CRY_MPIBIN","/opt/openmpi-2.1.0/bin/mpirun")
  prepend_path("PATH","/opt/crystal/bin")
  family("crystal")

To display basic help information for a module use help subcommand:

$ module help [modulefile]

Unload/remove a module from the shell environment¶

The command to unset the environmental variables for a software package is module unload [modulefile]. You may check the loaded modules using module list after you unload the module/package.

$ module unload crystal
$ module list

Currently Loaded Modules:
  1) intel/2021.1.1   2) meep   3) mpb   4) mkl/2021.1.1   5) plask/mkl

Unload all loaded modules¶

The command to unload all the loaded modules is module purge.

$ module purge

`ml`: a convenient tool¶

For those of you who can’t type the mdoule, moduel, err module command correctly, Lmod has a tool for you. With ml you won’t have to type the module command again. The two most common commands are module list*and *module load <something> and ml does both:

$ ml

means module list. And:

$ ml foo

means module load foo while:

$ ml -bar

means module unload bar. It won’t come as a surprise that you can combine them:

$ ml foo -bar

means module unload bar; module load foo. You can do all the module commands:

$ ml spider
$ ml avail
$ ml show foo

If you ever have to load a module name spider you can do:

$ ml load spider

If you are ever force to type the module command instead of ml then that is a bug and should be reported.

Institute