Run STATA with Singularity

The glibc version on CentOS 6.5 nodes is 2.12. The glibc version on CentOS 7.4 nodes is 2.17. The latest STATA requires a more up-to-date glibc version. If you have a newer version of STATA and encounter a glibc version problem, follow the steps below.

Run on commandline interactively

Start an interactive session on the CentOS7 partition,

[uid@cypress2 ~]$ idev --partition=centos7
Requesting 1 node(s)  task(s) to normal queue of centos7partition
1 task(s)/node, 20 cpu(s)/task, 2 MIC device(s)/node
Time: 0 (hr) 60 (min).
Submitted batch job 47343
JOBID=47343 begin on cypress01-066
--> Creating interactive terminal session (login) on node cypress01-063.
--> You have 0 (hr) 60 (min).
Last login: Mon Jun  8 20:18:50 2015 from cypress1.cm.cluster

The default idev session reserves a node for one hour. If you want to work on it for a longer time, use -t option. See cypress/using#SubmittingInteractiveJobs.

Load the module

[uid@cypress01-066 ~]$ module load singularity

Set up the environment and run Rocky Linux with Singularity.

[uid@cypress01-066 ~]$ source $SingularityImageDir/setup_cypress.sh
[uid@cypress01-066 ~]$ singularity shell -s /bin/bash $SingularityImageDir/rockylinux-9.2.sif

You will get a command line prompt, Apptainer>. Assuming stata is in your $PATH directory, run STATA on the command line,

Apptainer> stata

  ___  ____  ____  ____  ____ ®
 /__    /   ____/   /   ____/      StataNow 19.5
___/   /   /___/   /   /___/       BE—Basic Edition

 Statistics and Data Science       Copyright 1985-2025 StataCorp LLC
                                   StataCorp
                                   4905 Lakeway Drive
                                   College Station, Texas 77845 USA
                                   800-782-8272        https://www.stata.com
                                   979-696-4600        [email protected]

Stata license: Unlimited-user network, expiring 14 Dec 2026
Serial number: 501909301438
  Licensed to: Tulane University
               New Orleans, LA

Notes:
      1. Unicode is supported; see help unicode_advice.
. 

Use exit command to finalize STATA. Use exit command to finalize Rocky Linux.

Note that when idev session expires, your STATA session will be killed and all unsaved data will be lost.

Run STATA in batch mode

Make sure your do-files work correctly. It is recommended to test your do-files on the local machine or on an interactive session with a small dataset for a short time.

Suppose we have hello.do file that contains:

[uid@cypress2 ~]$ cat hello.do 
clear
display "Hello, STATA!!!"
exit

SLURM script will be:

#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --partition=centos7     # Partition
#SBATCH --qos=normal            # Quality of Service
#SBATCH --job-name=STATA        # Job Name
#SBATCH --time=24:00:00         # WallTime
#SBATCH --nodes=1               # Number of Nodes
#SBATCH --ntasks-per-node=1     # Number of tasks (MPI processes)
#SBATCH --cpus-per-task=2       # Number of processors per task OpenMP threads()
#SBATCH --gres=mic:0            # Number of Co-Processors

# SETUP SINGULARITY
module load singularity
source $SingularityImageDir/setup_cypress.sh

# SET YOUR STATA DIRECTORY
STATA_DIR=/lustre/project/eisaac/opt/stata19

# RUN STATA
singularity exec $SingularityImageDir/rockylinux-9.2.sif $STATA_DIR/stata -b do hello

Submit a job

[uid@cypress2 ~]$ sbatch slurmscript 

'slurmscript' is the file name of the above SLURM script. The results will be stored in 'hello.log'.

STATA-MP

Stata can run with multiple threads. You can check the license info by 'creturn list' command on stata-window.

      c(processors) = 8                          (Stata/MP, set processors)
      c(processors_lic) = 8

The example above shows that the default is 8 cores. So

#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --partition=defq        # Partition
#SBATCH --qos=normal            # Quality of Service
#SBATCH --job-name=STATA        # Job Name
#SBATCH --time=24:00:00         # WallTime
#SBATCH --nodes=1               # Number of Nodes
#SBATCH --ntasks-per-node=1     # Number of tasks (MPI processes)
#SBATCH --cpus-per-task=8       # Number of processors per task OpenMP threads()
#SBATCH --gres=mic:0            # Number of Co-Processors

module load stata

stata-mp -b do parappelcode