FreeBSD Status Report

FreeBSD HPC Modernization Initiative: Ecosystem Expansion and Upstream Integration

Links:
sysutils/slurm-wlm URL: https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/tree/sysutils/slurm-wlm/
net/pmix URL: https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/tree/net/pmix/
net/prrte URL: https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/tree/net/prrte/
net/openmpi URL: https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/tree/net/openmpi/
net/ucx URL: https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/tree/net/ucx/
benchmarks/py-reframe-hpc URL: https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/tree/benchmarks/py-reframe-hpc/
sysutils/mpifileutils URL: https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/tree/sysutils/mpifileutils/

Contact: Generic Rikka <rikka.goering@outlook.de>

This report continues the ongoing FreeBSD HPC Ports Modernization initiative, which aims to make FreeBSD a practical and maintainable platform for modern high-performance computing (HPC) software stacks.

Previous work focused on updating the core scheduler and runtime stack by modernizing sysutils/slurm-wlm and introducing standalone ports for net/pmix and net/prrte. During this quarter the focus shifted toward expanding the surrounding HPC ecosystem, improving integration between components, and upstreaming portability fixes discovered during the porting process.

The long-term goal is to provide a coherent HPC software environment in the FreeBSD Ports Collection that resembles what users expect on Linux-based HPC systems while remaining maintainable within the FreeBSD ecosystem.

Work completed

  • Continued tracking upstream releases of sysutils/slurm-wlm, keeping the FreeBSD port current with the latest upstream versions. Recent updates confirm that Slurm can successfully schedule and execute jobs on FreeBSD with only a minimal patchset.

  • Introduced net/ucx, providing the Unified Communication X framework used by modern MPI implementations for high-performance communication.

  • Added benchmarks/py-reframe-hpc, enabling regression testing and validation workflows commonly used on production HPC clusters.

  • Continued improving interoperability between net/openmpi, net/ucx, net/pmix, and net/prrte within the FreeBSD Ports Collection.

Work in progress

  • Porting sysutils/mpifileutils and its dependency stack (devel/libcircle, devel/lwgrp, devel/dtcmp) to provide MPI-parallel file utilities commonly used on large HPC filesystems.

  • Upstreaming portability fixes discovered during the porting process to projects such as UCX and mpifileutils, reducing the need for FreeBSD-specific patches.

  • Ongoing collaboration with SchedMD developers to upstream improvements discovered while maintaining Slurm on FreeBSD.

  • Coordination with the OpenMPI ports maintainer to improve integration between OpenMPI and modern networking frameworks such as UCX.

Future plans

  • Continue expanding the HPC software ecosystem available in the FreeBSD Ports Collection.

  • Further reduce local patchsets by contributing portability fixes upstream whenever possible.

  • Develop documentation describing how the Slurm + OpenMPI + PMIx + PRRTE + UCX stack can be deployed together on FreeBSD, lowering the barrier for users who want to experiment with HPC workloads on the platform.

  • Provide example configurations and integration guidance so that FreeBSD can serve as a realistic development and testing environment for HPC software.

Last modified on: March 14, 2026 by GenericRikka