How to use environment modules

The process for using environment modules is convenient and simple. You can load and unload them as you please, enabling and disabling different software. You can list currently active modules with module list, search for modules with module avail, and unload all active modules with module purge. The following guide outlines each of these processes.

While the modules work on the login nodes, the login nodes have strict CPU and memory limits. Jobs that do heavy lifting should always be scheduled through Slurm.

List All Available Modules

To list all available modules, use any of the four commands listed below:

module available
module avail
module av
ml av

An output is returned that looks something like the following code sample:

------------------------------------------------- /modules/modulefiles -------------------------------------------------
   R/3.6.2             cuda/10.1.243 (D)    gcc/9.2.0               julia/1.1.1         openmpi/4.0.4
   cmake/3.7.2         cuda/11.0.1          glxgears/1.0            jupyter/3.6.8       python/2.7.16
   cmake/3.15.0 (D)    fd3dspher/1.0        gmsh/4.4.1              mathematica/12.0    python/3.7.4  (D)
   cuda/8.0.61         gcc/5.5.0            gpu-burn/default        mesa/19.0.8         qt/5.13.1
   cuda/9.0.176        gcc/6.5.0            gromacs/2020.2C         miniconda/3.7       stress/1.0.4
   cuda/9.2.148        gcc/7.4.0     (D)    gromacs/2020.2G  (D)    opencl/2.2.11       vtk/8.2.0

Search for modules

To filter the output of module avail for just the gcc modules, use the following command:

module avail gcc

Load modules

To load modules, use the following command:

module load gcc/9.2.0

Unload modules

To unload modules, use the following command:

module unload gcc

Unload all modules

To unload all modules, use the following command:

module purge

List currently loaded modules

To list the modules that are currently loaded, use the following command:

module list