Patching Fat Containers for Production Workflows

Introduction

ATLAS production workflows use containerized software releases to run in standalone mode — without access to CVMFS or external network connectivity — on GRID sites and HPCs. These software images are "fat," meaning they include collection of data files and the conditions database package (DBRelease). Images can be patched as needed, such as by adding additional data files.

Procedure

The Podman configuration for adding data files to existing images is available in the GitLab infrastructure repository. It contains a Dockerfile, documentation in a README.md file, and the Bash script image_addGroupData.sh, which automates the patching process (instructions are included in the script's header).

Tip

Always review and update the script before use.

Patched Releases

Following the latest patching request ATLINFR-5710 the following releases were patched in March 2025 and pushed into the CERN's Harbor Registry atlas project:

Original Image	Project	Update Description	Patched Image	Image Architecture(s)
24.0.42.sw23-0	AthSimulation	LArG4ShowerLibData/MC23_v2 data	24.0.42.sw23-1	x86_64, aarch64
23.0.31.sw22-0	AthSimulation	LArG4ShowerLibData/MC23_v2 data	23.0.31.sw22-1	x86_64, aarch64
23.0.19.sw20-0	AthSimulation	LArG4ShowerLibData/MC23_v2 data	23.0.19.sw20-1	x86_64
21.0.129.sw17-0	Athena	LArG4ShowerLibData/MC16_v1 data	21.0.129.sw17-1	x86_64

Further Information

For an overview of ATLAS software containerization, including its motivation, integration, and testing within distributed computing systems, refer to the CHEP-2021 paper "Containerization in ATLAS Software Development and Data Production".