Containers are lightweight, isolated software environments that encapsulate an application along with its dependencies and runtime settings. They provide a consistent and reproducible way to package, distribute, and run software across different computing environments.
Tillicum offers a shared computing environment with a baseline software stack and commonly used tools pre-installed. For security, users do not have root or sudo access and are responsible for managing any additional software required for their research. Guidance and support are available through documentation and the Research Computing help desk. Containers enable researchers to build and run customized software stacks on Tillicum in a secure, portable, and fully reproducible way—without requiring elevated system access.
🎯 By completing this tutorial, you’ll learn how to:
- Work with Apptainer containers on Tillicum, including pulling, inspecting, and running containers.
- Create sandbox environments and build customized container images.
- Access and use shared datasets from the Tillicum Data Commons.
- Run GPU-accelerated deep learning inference inside a container.
- Submit and monitor batch jobs on Tillicum using Slurm.
Each topic in this tutorial is contained in its own Markdown file for easy navigation:
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| 00-preparation.md | Logging in via SSH and setting up your working directory |
| 01-apptainer-basics.md | Introducing Apptainer and commonly commands when working with containers on Tillicum |
| 02-sandbox.md | Practice building a custom container interactively |
| 03-def-file.md | Practice building custom containers from definition files |
| 04-task.md | Hands-on exercise: Run GPU-accelerated deep learning inference inside a container |
- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - DockerHub
- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - NVIDIA NGC and For NVIDIA Containers for AI specifically
- BioContainers
- Google search: "your-software-name Dockerfile"
Novemeber 13, 2025 Tillicum Containers workshop full recorded session.
We’d love your feedback to help improve this tutorial and future Tillicum trainings. After completing the tutorial or attending the workshop, please take a moment to fill out our feedback form.