Changing the module path for tests does not work when --export=ALL not used with sbatch

[NMannall]

From my understanding, when adding to the MODULEPATH (using --module-path or reframe.core.modules.ModulesSystem.searchpath_add()), reframe runs the equivalent of module use /path/to/modules/ in the reframe job and then launches the test job (e.g. using sbatch).

When sbatch uses --export=ALL (which is the default behaviour), MODULEPATH will remain changed in the test environment. However, I am running on a system where this behaviour has been changed and changes to the environment need to be present in the job script. Using prerun_cmds to run module use is also not ideal as these commands are injected after the modules are loaded in the job script.

Could the module use commands be added to the job script in the same way that module load commands are? This would also make the tests reproducible from the job scripts alone, and clearer where modules have been loaded from for a specific test.

[vkarak]

Indeed --module-path has a global effect on the ReFrame environment as it modifies the MODULEPATH globally. You can use the extended syntax for specifying modules both in the configuration and in a test:

{
  "name": "module_name",
  "path": "module_path"
}

ReFrame will issue a module use, module load and module unuse sequence for every such module.

[NMannall]

Thanks, that is a useful workaround for now, however, if possible, I would like to do this without modifying the actual test code/configuration.

The full use case is that we have an existing test which uses central module files, but I want to run the same test as a one-off with a different installation of the module using my custom module file. I believe this is what --module-path would normally let you do?

[vkarak]

Maybe you are right about propagating the --module-path globally in the job script.

For your case particularly I thought of another "valid" solution that does not touch the test. You can set the modules of your test directly from command line with -S modules=/path/to/new/module. You could also limit the assignment to your test specifically with -S test_name.modules=/path/to/new/module.