Firedrake

Firedrake is a finite element software.

Pull a docker image

There are images for both x86 and arm.

docker pull firedrakeproject/firedrake:latest

Start a container

docker run -it --name firedrake -p 8888:8888 \
           -v $(pwd):/root/shared -w /root/shared \
           firedrakeproject/firedrake:latest

If you want to create your own docker image, then read on. These instructions do not seem to work correctly now. You will need to use an ubuntu image instead of debian. Even then I had trouble compiling.

Install inside a docker image

Firedrake does not provide a Docker image for arm, so we build it ourselves.

Pull Debian image

docker pull debian:stable

Start it

docker run -it --name debian debian:stable

Inside the container, run the commands

cd ~
apt update
apt upgrade
apt install wget vim
wget https://github.com/cpraveen/cfdlab/raw/refs/heads/master/bin/firedrake_debian.sh
bash ./firedrake_debian.sh

You can read the commands here.

Add some settings in ~/.bashrc file

PS1="$ "

# Git branch in prompt.
parse_git_branch() {
    git branch 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/ (\1)/'
}

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;@docker:${PWD/$HOME/\~}$(parse_git_branch)\007"'

export LS_OPTIONS='--color=auto'
alias ls='ls $LS_OPTIONS'
export OMP_NUM_THREADS=1
export VIRTUAL_ENV_DISABLE_PROMPT=1

. /root/firedrake/bin/activate

Subsequently, if you exit the container, you can start and attach to it like this

docker start debian
docker attach debian

Activate the env if not already done

. /root/firedrake/bin/activate

Now you can run firedrake programs inside the container.

Create an image

Create an image called firedrake out of the debian container.

docker commit debian firedrake

cd to the directory you want to share with the container (dont do this from your HOME directory) and run the firedrake image (it likely has tag latest)

docker run -it --name firedrake -p 8888:8888 \
           -v $(pwd):/root/shared -w /root/shared \
           firedrake:latest

That directory will now be accessible inside the container at /root/shared.

You can start jupyter inside container

. /root/firedrake/bin/activate
jupyter-lab --ip 0.0.0.0 --port 8888 --no-browser --allow-root

and access it from the host at displayed url. Subsequently you can join this container

docker start firedrake
docker attach firedrake

Publish image to dockerhub

You can also upload the firedrake image to your docker hub and you can use it from another computer and others can also use it.

docker tag firedrake:latest cpraveen/firedrake:latest
security unlock-keychain
docker login -u cpraveen
docker push cpraveen/firedrake:latest

You can see the image in my docker hub. Since I have a free account, images may get deleted after some days.

Using my image

You can pull my image

docker pull cpraveen/firedrake:latest

and run it

docker run -it --name firedrake -p 8888:8888 \
           -v $(pwd):/root/shared -w /root/shared \
           cpraveen/firedrake:latest

Praveen Chandrashekar