Singularity

[Gabesarch]

Hello,

Do you know if it is possible to run ai2thor in a similar framework through singularity without root access on host?

[jzhanson]

You can use Xvfb, which makes a virtual frame buffer. You can install it into this docker image on a machine that has docker (or otherwise), save the docker image as a tar with docker save and put it on your singularity machine. Then, you can build a singularity image from the docker image and run it. More info from this nice NASA link.

For Xvfb, you want to start a process in the background and bind it to a display number, e.g.

Xvfb :99 -screen 0 1024x768x24 +extension GLX +render -noreset &
DISPLAY=:99

I'm pretty sure you would still need the arguments — +extension GLX +render because ai2thor needs GLX, and you need -screen 0 1024x768x24 from this Unix stackexchange answer because GLX doesn't support 8 depth screens anymore and Xvfb automatically creates 8 depth screens unless dimensions are specified. Also, -noreset is needed because it prevents memory leaks.