Installing a container engine

Overview

Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• What does the procedure to install a container engine looks like, and what are its main caveats?

• What are the key aspects that can be configured by system administrators for container engine deployments?

Objectives

• Familiarise with the high-level procedure to install container runtimes

• Familiarise with the syntax of configuration files for Singularity and other runtimes

Key Points

• Installation of some runtimes is relatively simple, however some require administrative privileges or certain features to be enabled

• Charliecloud can be installed by unprivileged users

• Typical configurations include runtime authorisations, image registry locations, default host directory mounts, default environment variables, GPUs and MPI settings