Sapelo2 scheduled maintenance for July 29-31, 2025

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Upcoming Sapelo2 maintenance

Per GACRC's standing policy on regular maintenance, our next scheduled window is on July 29-31, 2025. The main tasks to be performed are:

  • Update the cluster Linux operating system from Rocky 8 to Rocky 9.
  • Migrate user home directories to a new storage device.
  • Update firmware of some computing and network hardware.

Sapelo2, including the Open OnDemand interface, the xfer nodes, and Globus will be unavailable during this time.


Why is a major Operating System (OS) update necessary?

  • Existing OS is End of Life - There is no more active support for the existing operating system and newer versions of some software applications are not supported by the current OS version.
  • Newer kernel - The updated Linux kernel enable us to better support new CPUs, GPUs, and storage devices.
  • Security improvement - To retain compliance with current and future security requirements, we must keep using a supported version of the operating system.


What does this mean to you and your workflows?

  • While the storage device serving user home directories will be updated, all existing /home, /scratch, /work, and /project spaces will retain their existing data.
  • The compiler toolchains and many software packages will be updated to newer versions.
  • Because this is a major OS update, we need to recompile all the applications and ensure that they work with the new version of OS.


Software available on the updated system

We will have as comprehensive a software suite available on the new OS as possible, but some less widely used applications and older version software will not be immediately available. A list of the software modules already installed is available at Software installed on Rocky 9.


What if software I need is not available on the updated system yet?

If the software you need is not in the list above and you would like us to install it for you, please let us know ahead of time, by submitting a software installation ticket using the form accessible from https://uga.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/2060/Portal/Requests/ServiceDet?ID=25850 and making a note that the request is for the Rocky 9 system.


More information

More information about the Rocky 8 to Rocky 9 update is available at Rocky 9 Transition Guide.

As software modules will be reinstalled and updated, all pending jobs will be canceled during the maintenance window, to prevent job failure due to changes in the module names post maintenance.

Because all Sapelo2 jobs still running when the maintenance begins will be terminated, we have implemented a "reservation" on the queueing system that will only start jobs whose requested walltime would permit them to complete running before 10 p.m. on July 28, 2025.

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