Mason

Mason is a collection of scripts that help you to create isolated packaged environments. Think Docker, but much lighter. Think virtual env, but more powerful.

As Mason automatically adds a well-proven packager manager (Linuxbrew/Homebrew), it is able to provide you with apt-get like powers without the necessarity of being root.

Dependencies

bash
perl

Directory tree

mason/	../bin	../gravel	../images
root directory	mason binary	submodules	distribution images

Setting up environments

Set an environment variable ENVIRONMENTS_HOME which will serve as a root folder for environments.

We recommend ~/Environments

If you have no clue how to do this, just run this on the terminal:

~$ touch ~/.profile && echo "export ENVIRONMENTS_HOME=$HOME/Environments"  >> ~/.profile

Choose an image script

Choose an appropriate image script for your OS.

If you are on a GPU server, you can identify your OS via

~$ lsb_release -a

Install

You may need to make the script executable via

~/mason/images$ chmod +x ./image_script

If done, you can run the installer via

~/mason/images$ ./install_script

The installer will ask you for an ENVIRONMENT name, however, the rest should be done automatically. This may take a few minutes. The process create a local anaconda environment as well as a bashrc script to setup your shell.

Startup

When finished, you can either source the created bashrc file

~/Environments/ENVIRONMENT$ source ./env.bashrc

or alternatively you can use mason

mason load ENVIRONMENT