The pulsar group servers (dogmatix0/1 and miraculix/miraculix2) used to have Docker installed. Since Docker needs root permissions to execute, and therefore a security hazard, the service was discontinued on the group servers. Instead, we have decided to use the Singularity container, which can be also be used to run previously built Docker containers without the need for root privileges.

Here is a short how-to on getting access to PSRCHIVE/DSPSR based on a previously build Docker container.

• If you are in a hurry and have to use psrchive/dspsr, use a prebuilt Singularity container:

singularity shell -B /fpra/timing/01 /homes/ramesh/dspsr_fits_mt.sif

• In the above -B /fpra/timing/01 is the directory that needs to visible inside singularity.
• Access all other commands/utilities as you normally do:

 ramesh@dogmatix0 ~ $ singularity shell -B /fpra/timing/01 /homes/ramesh/dspsr_fits_mt.sif 
 bash: warning: setlocale: LC_ALL: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8)
 Singularity dspsr_fits_mt.sif:~> pwd
 /homes/ramesh
 Singularity dspsr_fits_mt.sif:~> cd /fpra/timing/01/MAGNETARS/
 Singularity dspsr_fits_mt.sif:/fpra/timing/01/MAGNETARS> cd J1818-1607/PSRIX0/20200314/search/
 Singularity dspsr_fits_mt.sif:/fpra/timing/01/MAGNETARS/J1818-1607/PSRIX0/20200314/search> vap -c "freq bw" 2020-03-14-06:37:20.ar
 filename   freq   bw
 2020-03-14-06:37:20.ar   1358.926   -250.000
 Singularity dspsr_fits_mt.sif:/fpra/timing/01/MAGNETARS/J1818-1607/PSRIX0/20200314/search>

Note that the container above has only tempo2.

• Make sure that a prebuilt Docker container exists on Dockerhub
• Build a singularity image by: 'singularity pull docker:/ /mpifrpsr/dspsr:fits_mt'.

(NOTE: no extra space between the forward slashes - unable to find the escape sequence in this Wiki).

• The above will create a singularity image dspsr_fits_mt.sif in the current directory.

The instructions to use Vivek's container are given here: https://github.com/vivekvenkris/pulsar_docker

A while back Henning gave a tutorial on using singularity. The PDF document is here

paf0:~> setenv SINGULARITY_TMPDIR /media/titan0/sing paf0:~> singularity shell -c -e -B /media/titan0/ docker:bhcpsr/presto:r4.0''