Wednesday Exercise 2.3: Python Installation¶

In this exercise, you will write a wrapper script that installs Python and then use it to run jobs. This exercise should take about 10 minutes.

Background¶

In the previous exercise, we used a method that pre-built Python and then used that pre-built package to run Python scripts. In this exercise, we will use an alternative method for running Python jobs, by writing a wrapper script that installs Python with every job. This exercise should be done in the same directory as the previous exercise - you will need the same Python source code and fib.py script.

Wrapper script¶

Our wrapper script will need to install Python from the source code and then run our fib.py script.

Based on the previous exercise, what are the steps we need to install Python? What file can we use for reference?
We put our installation steps from the previous exercise into a file called python_install.txt. Based on this, put the installation steps into a script called run_py.sh

Check your script against the file below

#!/bin/bash

export PATH

mkdir python
tar xzf Python-3.7.0.tgz
cd Python-3.7.0
./configure --prefix=$(pwd)/../python
make
make install
cd ..

We also need to run our fib.py script. We can do so by adding our installation location to the PATH, or by referencing the installation directly:
```
export PATH=$(pwd)/python/bin:$PATH

python3 fib.py 90
```
or
```
python/bin/python3 fib.py 90
```
Choose whichever method you prefer, and add it to your run_py.sh script.
Make your run_py.sh script executable.

Submit file¶

The submit file for this exercise can be very similar to the last one from Exercise 1.7.

Make a copy of the submit file from the last exercise. What lines need to change? Make changes as appropriate.
You need to change the transferred tarball (the Python source, instead of our prebuilt_python.tar.gz) and the job's executable. Once you've made these changes, submit the job using condor_submit.
Check for the results in the .out file.