FireWorks Setup

Introduction

FireWorks can be used to dispatch and monitor workflows, particularly those made using Jobflow. Follow the instructions below for how to use FireWorks with Jobflow. For additional details, refer to the full Fireworks documentation.

Installation

To install FireWorks, run pip install fireworks.

FireWorks DB Setup

If you plan to use FireWorks to dispatch your Jobflow workflows, you will also need to make a few configuration files: FW_config.yaml, my_fworker.yaml, my_launchpad.yaml, and my_qadapter.yaml. To begin, make a directory called fw_config where you will store the four files described in greater detail below. The directory structure will look like the following:

fw_config
├── FW_config.yaml
├── my_fworker.yaml
├── my_launchpad.yaml
└── my_qadapter.yaml

FW Config File

For the FW_config.yaml, you can use the following template. Make sure to update the path to the fw_config folder where the file resides.

CONFIG_FILE_DIR: </path/to/fw_config>
QUEUE_UPDATE_INTERVAL: 2

FWorker

For the my_fworker.yaml, you can use the following template. You do not need to make any modifications.

name: my_fworker
category: ""
query: "{}"

Launchpad

For the my_launchpad.yaml, you can use the following template. Replace the entries in <> with the appropriate values for your Mongo database.

host: <host name>
port: 27017
name: <database name>
username: <username>
password: <password>
logdir: null
Istrm_lvl: DEBUG
user_indices: []
wf_user_indices: []

If you are accessing your MongoDB via a URI (e.g. as with MongoDB Atlas), then you will use the following my_launchpad.yaml template instead.

host: <URI>
port: 27017
name: <database name>
uri_store: true
logdir: null
Istrm_lvl: DEBUG
user_indices: []
wf_user_indices: []

QAdapter

Assuming you plan to use a queuing system for your compute jobs, you will need to make a my_qadapter.yaml file. For this, you will need to follow the instructions in the FireWorks documentation for your specific job scheduling system. An example my_qadapter.yaml file is shown below for SLURM.

_fw_name: CommonAdapter
_fw_q_type: SLURM
rocket_launch: rlaunch -w /path/to/fw_config/my_fworker.yaml singleshot
nodes: 2
walltime: 00:30:00
account: <account>
job_name: my_firework
qos: regular
pre_rocket: |
  module load vasp
  export ATOMATE2_VASP_CMD="srun -N 2 --ntasks-per-node=24"

In the above example, you would need to change the path in the rocket_launch field to the correct path to your my_fworker.yaml. The nodes, walltime, account, and qos are the corresponding parameters for your queuing system. Finally, anything in the pre_rocket field will be executed before the job begins running. It is a good place to load modules and set environment variables. A representative example has been provided above.

Finally, you will need to define a FW_CONFIG_FILE environment variable pointing to the FW_config.yaml file you made. For instance, in your ~/.bashrc file, add the following line: export FW_CONFIG_FILE="/path/to/config/fw_config/FW_config.yaml".

Database Initialization

Warning

Running lpad reset will clear your FireWorks launchpad, so only use this command if you are a new user.

To check that everything is working right with FireWorks, run lpad reset to ensure there is a connection to the database.