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Building AMD ROCm from Source on a Supercomputer

Authors: Cristian Di Pietrantonio (Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre)

Abstract: ROCm is an open-source software development platform for GPU computing created by AMD to accompany its GPU hardware that is being increasingly adopted to build the next generation of supercomputers. We argue that the fast-pacing evolution of their software platform and the complexities of installing software on a supercomputer mandate a more flexible installation process for ROCm than the available installation methods.

ROCm-from-source is a set of BASH scripts developed at Pawsey to configure and build ROCm in a way that is not possible with the provided with the pre-built binaries, nor with the installer script found in the repository of each ROCm project. For instance, ROCm-from-source does not require root privileges, and a custom install location, possibly on a parallel filesystem, can be specified. It can do so by building ROCm and all its dependencies from source. The challenge in this task is represented by the substantial number of projects ROCm is made of as well as their dependencies, the intricate interplay between them, and the continuous changes in the structure of the projects.

Pawsey would like to share the knowledge acquired while developing ROCm-from-source so that other supercomputing centres can benefit from it.


Long Description: ROCm is an open-source software development platform for GPU computing created by AMD to accompany its GPU hardware that is being increasingly adopted to build the next generation of supercomputers. We argue that the fast-pacing evolution of their software platform and the complexities of installing software on a supercomputer mandate a more flexible installation process for ROCm than the available installation methods.

ROCm-from-source is a set of BASH scripts developed at Pawsey to configure and build ROCm in a way that is not possible with the provided with the pre-built binaries, nor with the installer script found in the repository of each ROCm project. For instance, ROCm-from-source does not require root privileges, and a custom install location, possibly on a parallel filesystem, can be specified. It can do so by building ROCm and all its dependencies from source. The challenge in this task is represented by the substantial number of projects ROCm is made of as well as their dependencies, the intricate interplay between them, and the continuous changes in the structure of the projects.

Pawsey would like to share the knowledge acquired while developing ROCm-from-source so that other supercomputing centres can benefit from it.


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