SingularityCE User Guide — SingularityCE User Guide 4.3 documentation (original) (raw)

Welcome to the SingularityCE User Guide!

This guide aims to give an introduction to SingularityCE, brief installation instructions, and cover topics relevant to users building and running containers.

For a detailed guide to installation and configuration, as well as upgrading or uninstalling, please see the separate Admin Guide for this version of SingularityCE at https://sylabs.io/guides/4.3/admin-guide/.

Getting Started & Background Information

• What's New in SingularityCE 4.3
  • OCI-Mode
  • Runtime
  • Build
• Introduction to SingularityCE
  • Why use SingularityCE?
  • Why use containers?
  • Use Cases
• Quick Start
  • Quick Installation Steps
  • Overview of the SingularityCE Interface
  • Download pre-built images
  • Interacting with images
  • Working with Files
  • Building images from scratch
  • SingularityCE on a shared resource
• Security in SingularityCE
  • Security Policy
  • Background
  • Setuid & User Namespaces
  • Runtime & User Privilege Model
  • Singularity Image Format (SIF)
  • Configuration & Runtime Options

Building Containers

Learn how to write a definition file that can be used to build a container. Understand the environment within a build, how to perform remote builds, and how to use the --fakeroot feature to build as a non-root user.

• Build a container
• The Definition File
• Build Environment
• Fakeroot feature

Container Signing & Encryption

SingularityCE allows containers to be signed using a PGP key. The signature travels with the container image, allowing you to verify that the image is unmodified at any time. Encryption of containers using LUKS2 is also supported. Encrypted containers can be run without decrypting them to disk first.

• Sign and Verify
• Key management commands
• Encrypted Containers

Sharing & Online Services

Sylabs offers a suite of container services, with a free tier and on-premise options. Learn how to make use these services to simplify the process of building, signing, and sharing your containers.

• Remote Endpoints
• Keyserver Management
• OCI Registries
• SCS Library

Advanced Usage

Once you’ve understood the basics, explore all the options which SingularityCE provides for accessing data, running persistent services in containers, manipulating the container environment, and applying networking and security configuration.

• Bind Paths and Mounts
• Persistent Overlays
• Data Containers
• Instances - Running Services
• Environment and Metadata
• Plugins
• Security Options
• Network Options
• Limiting Container Resources
• Nested Containers

Compatibility

SingularityCE has unique benefits and supports easy access to GPUs and other hardware. It also strives for compatibility with Docker/OCI container formats. Understand the differences between SingularityCE and Docker, as well as how to use containerized MPI and GPU applications.

• Support for Docker / OCI Containers
• OCI Runtime Support
• Singularity and MPI applications
• GPU Support

Get Involved

We’d love you to get involved in the SingularityCE community! Whether through contributing feature and fixes, helping to answer questions from other users, or simply testing new releases.

• Contributing

Reference

• Appendix

  • SingularityCE’s environment variables
  • Build Modules

• Command Line Reference

• Licenses