Build infrastructure

Most users of ACCESS-ESM1.6 will not need to build the model. Released versions of the model are deployed by ACCESS-NRI to Gadi and available to users. Check the Deployment page to learn about available deployments. If you require your own build of the model, typically because you need to modify one or several model components, you will find the required information on this Building page.

Info

To understand the difference between a release of the model and its deployment, refer to this website.

ACCESS-NRI is using Spack, a build from source package manager designed for use with high performance computing.

Software structure

ACCESS-ESM1.6 being a Earth System model, it is constituted of several model components, each residing in its own repository on GitHub. In addition, some model components need other utilities at compilation time that are stored in separate repositories. This results in a complex software structure involving a number of repositories, including:

• deployment repository:
  • ACCESS-NRI/ACCESS-ESM1.6
• model components:
  • ACCESS-NRI/cice5
  • ACCESS-NRI/GFDL-generic-tracers
  • ACCESS-NRI/MOM5
  • ACCESS-NRI/UM7
  • CABLE-LSM/CABLE
• other software:
  • ACCESS-NRI/FMS
  • ACCESS-NRI/mocsy
  • ACCESS-NRI/GCOM4

Note

The UM7 and GCOM4 repositories are private because these software are not open-source. They are covered by the UKMO's Momentum Partnership licence. To gain access to these repositories, please request an invitation via this ACCESS-Hive forum topic.

Note

ACCESS-ESM1.6 has other dependencies such as Fortran compilers, netCDF and more. These dependencies are considered model infrastructure and are rarely changed by end-users. The build infrastructure we provide will find these dependencies for you.

Building ACCESS-ESM1.6 using the deployment infrastructure

ACCESS-NRI has developed a build and deployment infrastructure for ACCESS-ESM1.6 on GitHub. With minimal setup, it allows all users to build the model and make their build available on Gadi under the vk83 project. It is the recommended method because it does not require users to have access to all the repositories, it handles the build automatically and it provides traceability and shareability of the deployment.

This method is explained on the ACCESS-Hive page for creating pre-releases and releases of ACCESS models. For ACCESS-ESM1.6, you will need write permissions on the ESM1.6 deployment repository and on any model component you need to modify. Request these permissions via this ACCESS-Hive forum topic.

Warning

This method to build the model only works if your modifications are committed in branches of the model repositories on GitHub listed in the software structure. This method can not be used if your modifications sit in a fork of one of the repositories or a local clone.

Local build of ACCESS-ESM1.6

The Spack infrastructure allows you to create your own local build on Gadi for ACCESS-ESM1.6. Once setup, this might be faster than using the deployment infrastructure since it can build from your local copy of the source code. This is especially useful when you want a lot of small incremental builds during development.

However, this method has several drawbacks. It requires users to install the Spack software which can make it harder for ACCESS-NRI to provide support. It requires users to have at least read permissions on all the repositories required by ACCESS-ESM1.6 listed in the Software structure section. It builds the model in the user space on Gadi thus potentially exposing licensed source code to unlicensed users, limiting the shareability of the build and consuming a potentially non-insignificant amount of inodes. Finally, contrary to the deployment infrastructure, it does not provide an easy way to access several test builds from the same model component branch at the same time.

This method is explained on the ACCESS-Hive page for modifying an ACCESS model's source code.