[Mesa-users] Disabling eos, kap, etc. caching

[Aaron Dotter]

Hi Warrick,

See the section on cache directories in star_job.defaults.  You might set
one up for them all to use.  Have you tried that?

Aaron

On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 11:43 AM Warrick Ball via Mesa-users <
mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I have a group of undergraduate students who are running MESA on a shared
> server with just 1 GB of home directory space per student.  MESA itself
> has been installed in a shared (and root-only accessible) area, so it
> doesn't count against their quotas.  However, after running a roughly
> solar-mass track to near the helium flash, many of them are approaching or
> filling their 1 GB quotas.  It turns out this because of all the cache
> files being written to `.mesa_temp_cache` under their MESA work folder.
> Is it possible to stop or limit the use of the cache?
>
> As a temporary fix, I've advised them to delete cached files manually as
> necessary.  I had a look for a control but it seems that the option of
> whether or not to use the caches is hardcoded.  Grepping for "cache" and
> following some function calls, I found this at line 401 (MESA r10398) in
> `star/private/star_private_def.f90`:
>
>      logical, parameter :: use_cache = .true.
>
> `use_cache` is then passed to `init` routines for `eos`, `kap`, `atm` and
> `ionization`.  Besides changing this hardcoded value to `.false.`, I can't
> see an option.  Also, I can't see that it's easy to add an option to the
> inlists because of the sequence of the initialisation calls.  This line is
> ultimately called through `star/public/star_lib:starlib_init`, which is
> part of the `before_evolve_loop` subroutine in
> `star/job/run_star_support.f90`.  It's called *before* `star_setup`, which
> seems to be what reads the namelist.
>
> Alternatively, is there a way to limit the amount of space the caches use?
> Or tell MESA to clear the caches after some number of steps?  Perhaps a
> control like `clear_cache_interval`?
>
> Cheers,
> Warrick
>
>
>
>
> ------------
> Warrick Ball
> Postdoc, School of Physics and Astronomy
> University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT
> W.H.Ball at bham.ac.uk
> +44 (0)121 414 4552
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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