7.7 Spack Package Manager

Spack Package Manager

Spack is a package manager designed for supercomputers and HPC environments. It handles complex dependency trees and supports multiple compilers and architectures.

This guide covers Spack in more depth than the PCluster quick setup. Use it as a reference when you need to go beyond the basics.

What You’ll Learn

• Installing and configuring Spack
• Using the binary cache for fast installs
• Installing packages with custom options
• Creating reproducible Spack environments
• Troubleshooting failed builds

Quick Reference

spack list <name>          # Search for packages
spack info <name>          # Package details and variants
spack install <name>       # Install a package
spack load <name>          # Load into your environment
spack find                 # List installed packages
spack env create myenv     # Create a named environment
spack env activate myenv   # Activate an environment