“While torch.distributed.launch has recently been depreciated and replaced with.elastic_launch, moving to elastic_launch as a potential solution does not seem viable, due to the dependence on etcd which I’m unable to install due to access privilege restrictions.” → 
Hi! The “torch.distributed.launch” is going to be deprecated, but we still will support ability to use master based launches. We are going to have 2 modes for this:

BC mode: nothing changes for users, they will still can provide ranks and all parameters as right now
Dynamic: New launcher will be to automatically  derive  ranks and world size, based on master addr and master port

The etcd will not be required to use pytorch launchers as all. Etcd is relevant for long running jobs, that require high reliability and be able to withstand nodes failures.