What is EasyBuild?

EasyBuild is a software build and installation framework that allows you to manage (scientific) software on High Performance Computing (HPC) systems in an efficient way. It is motivated by the need for a tool that combines the following features:

• a flexible framework for building/installing (scientific) software
• fully automates software builds
• divert from the standard configure / make / make install with custom procedures
• allows for easily reproducing previous builds
• keep the software build recipes/specifications simple and human-readable
• supports co-existence of versions/builds via dedicated installation prefix and module files
• enables sharing with the HPC community (win-win situation)
• automagic dependency resolution
• retain logs for traceability of the build processes

Some key features of EasyBuild:

• build & install (scientific) software fully autonomously
  • also interactive installers, code patching, generating module file, ...
• easily configurable: config file/environment/command line
  • including aspects like module naming scheme
• thorough logging and archiving (see Understanding EasyBuild logs)
  • entire build process is logged thoroughly, logs are stored in install directory;
  • easyconfig file used for build is archived (install directory + file/svn/git repo)
• automatic dependency resolution (see Enabling dependency resolution, –robot / -r and –robot-paths)
  • build entire software stack with a single command, using --robot
• building software in parallel
• robust and thoroughly tested code base, fully unit-tested before each release
• thriving, growing community

Take a look at our HUST‘14 workshop paper Modern Scientific Software Management Using EasyBuild and Lmod (download PDF here) and use that as a reference in case you present academic work mentioning EasyBuild.