Linux User Environment#
This page covers some basic information about the user environment on Aire.
New to Linux?
To use Aire successfully, you should have some experience using a Linux-based command line interface (CLI). If you are new to Linux systems, check out Training for courses and other learning resources offered by the Research Computing team.
Environment variables#
Aire is built on Linux. The user environment on Linux systems makes heavy use of environment variables. For example this is how the module system works. The modules set up or modify environment variables which affect the environment of your jobs.
In addition to the standard Linux variables, Aire provide some additional ones:
Variable |
Description |
|---|---|
|
User’s home directory, a permanent storage location. Equivalent to |
|
Shared scratch directory, high-performance storage ideal for large files or datasets actively being processed. |
|
Flash on Lustre, high-performance NVMe storage for temporary data during job execution. |
|
User’s local storage on compute nodes, for temporary files accessible only during job execution. Equivalent to |
Note
When you load a module, additional variables are added to your environment.
See also
Check out Storage and Filesystems for an overview of the storage system on Aire, or, for more comprehensive user information, check out File and Data Management.
Tailoring your environment#
There are two Linux files which you can use to tailor your environment:
.bashrcUsed exclusively for defining shell functions and sourced for every new shell which is spawned. It should not be used for updates to your environment, or for executing any commands.
.bash_profileExecuted at the start of each new login session, and at the start of each batch job. If you wish to set up a tailored environment just for yourself, this is where you should do it. Any path and environment variable settings in
.bash_profilewill be automatically exported to all the child processes in that particular job or session.
Warning
DO NOT include module load commands in .bash_profile. Doing so can cause unintentional conflicts with modules you load in your run scripts.
If you do this and then request support from the Research Computing team, you will be asked to remove them first.