MadNkLO docker image: madnklo_docker

This is a first attempt at providing a Docker image for the python branch of MadNkLO. The docker image itself is ndeutschmann/madnklo and is available on the Docker hub.

Quick start

run the madnklo_docker.sh command provided in this repository in your desired working directory

Setup

Pre-requisites

• Docker

Install

• run git clone https://github.com/ndeutschmann/madnklo_docker.git

Setting up the system

• ensure the Docker is running

  • for Linux look here
  • for OSX/Windows start the app or use docker-machine

• Setup a working directory, there are two options

  1. if the environment variable DOCKER_MNK_PERSISTENT is set, the program will use it as a working directory for input/output. This variable can be set using source madnklo_docker.sh --set_persistent $DESIRED_PERSISTENT_PATH
  2. just run the program from your desired working directory

Running the program

Usage

run madnklo_docker.sh [args] to start the image and immediately start MadNkLO with all the necessary tools pre-compiled. Any arguments [args] provided which are NOT --set_persistent or --docker_build will be passed to the mg5_aMC executable.

What's under the hood

Image info

• The base Docker image is python:2 which runs on Debian Buster
• MadNkLO is installed in /home/hep/madnklo
• The entrypoint is /home/hep/madnklo/bin/mg5_aMC
• The default working directory is /var/madnklo_persistent which is the expected volume mountpoint to be shared with the host

To inspect the system you can run docker run -it --entrypoint /bin/bash --rm ndeutschmann/madnklo

Run script

The run script madklo_docker.sh provided with this repository has the default command

docker run -it --rm -v $DOCKER_MNK_PERSISTENT:/var/madnklo_persistent ndeutschmann/madnklo $1

which mounts $DOCKER_MNK_PERSISTENT (if undefined, uses the current host workdir) on the host to the default workdir /var/madnklo_persistent. If a command is provided for the executable this is where it should be placed and MadNkLO outputs processes here.

Rebuilding the image

You can re-build the image locally using madnklo_docker.sh --docker_build inside the repository (./docker_src should be available).