Job Submission and Execution¶
Warning
Don't use the #SBATCH --exclusive
parameter as it is already included in the SLURM configuration.
Use the #SBATCH --mem=
parameter on qfat
only. On cpu_
queues, whole nodes are allocated.
Accelerated nodes (gpu_
queues) are divided each into eight parts with corresponding memory.
Introduction¶
Slurm workload manager is used to allocate and access Karolina's, Barbora's and Complementary systems' resources.
A man
page exists for all Slurm commands, as well as the --help
command option,
which provides a brief summary of options.
Slurm documentation and man pages are also available online.
Getting Partition Information¶
Display partitions/queues on system:
$ sinfo -s
PARTITION AVAIL TIMELIMIT NODES(A/I/O/T) NODELIST
qcpu* up 2-00:00:00 1/191/0/192 cn[1-192]
qcpu_biz up 2-00:00:00 1/191/0/192 cn[1-192]
qcpu_exp up 1:00:00 1/191/0/192 cn[1-192]
qcpu_free up 18:00:00 1/191/0/192 cn[1-192]
qcpu_long up 6-00:00:00 1/191/0/192 cn[1-192]
qcpu_preempt up 12:00:00 1/191/0/192 cn[1-192]
qgpu up 2-00:00:00 0/8/0/8 cn[193-200]
qgpu_biz up 2-00:00:00 0/8/0/8 cn[193-200]
qgpu_exp up 1:00:00 0/8/0/8 cn[193-200]
qgpu_free up 18:00:00 0/8/0/8 cn[193-200]
qgpu_preempt up 12:00:00 0/8/0/8 cn[193-200]
qfat up 2-00:00:00 0/1/0/1 cn201
qdgx up 2-00:00:00 0/1/0/1 cn202
qviz up 8:00:00 0/2/0/2 vizserv[1-2]
NODES(A/I/O/T)
column summarizes node count per state, where the A/I/O/T
stands for allocated/idle/other/total
.
Example output is from Barbora cluster.
Graphical representation of clusters' usage, partitions, nodes, and jobs could be found
- for Karolina at https://extranet.it4i.cz/rsweb/karolina
- for Barbora at https://extranet.it4i.cz/rsweb/barbora
- for Complementary Systems at https://extranet.it4i.cz/rsweb/compsys
On Karolina cluster
- all cpu queues/partitions provide full node allocation, whole nodes are allocated to job
- other queues/partitions (gpu, fat, viz) provide partial node allocation
See Karolina Slurm Specifics for details.
On Barbora cluster, all queues/partitions provide full node allocation, whole nodes are allocated to job.
On Complementary systems, only some queues/partitions provide full node allocation, see Complementary systems documentation for details.
Running Interactive Jobs¶
Sometimes you may want to run your job interactively, for example for debugging, running your commands one by one from the command line.
Run interactive job - queue qcpu_exp
, one node by default, one task by default:
$ salloc -A PROJECT-ID -p qcpu_exp
Run interactive job on four nodes, 128 tasks per node (Karolina cluster, CPU partition recommended value based on node core count), two hours time limit:
$ salloc -A PROJECT-ID -p qcpu -N 4 --ntasks-per-node 128 -t 2:00:00
Run interactive job, with X11 forwarding:
$ salloc -A PROJECT-ID -p qcpu_exp --x11
To finish the interactive job, use the Ctrl+D (^D
) control sequence.
Warning
Do not use srun
for initiating interactive jobs, subsequent srun
, mpirun
invocations would block forever.
Running Batch Jobs¶
Batch jobs is the standard way of running jobs and utilizing HPC clusters.
Job Script¶
Create example job script called script.sh with the following content:
#!/usr/bin/bash
#SBATCH --job-name MyJobName
#SBATCH --account PROJECT-ID
#SBATCH --partition qcpu
#SBATCH --nodes 4
#SBATCH --ntasks-per-node 128
#SBATCH --time 12:00:00
ml purge
ml OpenMPI/4.1.4-GCC-11.3.0
srun hostname | sort | uniq -c
Script will:
- use bash shell interpreter
- use
MyJobName
as job name - use project
PROJECT-ID
for job access and accounting - use partition/queue
qcpu
- use
4
nodes - use
128
tasks per node - value used by MPI -
set job time limit to
12
hours -
load appropriate module
- run command,
srun
serves as Slurm's native way of executing MPI-enabled applications,hostname
is used in the example just for sake of simplicity
Excluding Specific Nodes
Use #SBATCH --exclude=<node_name_list>
directive to exclude specific nodes from your job, e.g.: #SBATCH --exclude=cn001,cn002,cn003
.
Submit directory will be used as working directory for submitted job,
so there is no need to change directory in the job script.
Alternatively you can specify job working directory using the sbatch --chdir
(or shortly -D
) option.
Job Submit¶
Submit batch job:
$ cd my_work_dir
$ sbatch script.sh
A path to script.sh
(relative or absolute) should be given
if the job script is in a different location than the job working directory.
By default, job output is stored in a file called slurm-JOBID.out
and contains both job standard output and error output.
This can be changed using the sbatch options --output
(shortly -o
) and --error
(shortly -e
).
Example output of the job:
128 cn017.karolina.it4i.cz
128 cn018.karolina.it4i.cz
128 cn019.karolina.it4i.cz
128 cn020.karolina.it4i.cz
Job Environment Variables¶
Slurm provides useful information to the job via environment variables.
Environment variables are available on all nodes allocated to job when accessed via Slurm supported means (srun
, compatible mpirun
).
See all Slurm variables
$ set | grep ^SLURM
Commonly used variables are:
variable name | description | example |
---|---|---|
SLURM_JOB_ID | job id of the executing job | 593 |
SLURM_JOB_NODELIST | nodes allocated to the job | cn[101-102] |
SLURM_JOB_NUM_NODES | number of nodes allocated to the job | 2 |
SLURM_STEP_NODELIST | nodes allocated to the job step | cn101 |
SLURM_STEP_NUM_NODES | number of nodes allocated to the job step | 1 |
SLURM_JOB_PARTITION | name of the partition | qcpu |
SLURM_SUBMIT_DIR | submit directory | /scratch/project/open-xx-yy/work |
See relevant Slurm documentation for details.
Get job nodelist:
$ echo $SLURM_JOB_NODELIST
cn[101-102]
Expand nodelist to list of nodes:
$ scontrol show hostnames
cn101
cn102
Job Management¶
Getting Job Information¶
Show all jobs on system:
$ squeue
Show my jobs:
$ squeue --me
JOBID PARTITION NAME USER ST TIME NODES NODELIST(REASON)
104 qcpu interact user R 1:48 2 cn[101-102]
Show job details for a specific job:
$ scontrol show job JOBID
Show job details for executing job from job session:
$ scontrol show job $SLURM_JOBID
Show my jobs using a long output format which includes time limit:
$ squeue --me -l
Show my jobs in running state:
$ squeue --me -t running
Show my jobs in pending state:
$ squeue --me -t pending
Show jobs for a given project:
$ squeue -A PROJECT-ID
Job States¶
The most common job states are (in alphabetical order):
Code | Job State | Explanation |
---|---|---|
CA | CANCELLED | Job was explicitly cancelled by the user or system administrator. The job may or may not have been initiated. |
CD | COMPLETED | Job has terminated all processes on all nodes with an exit code of zero. |
CG | COMPLETING | Job is in the process of completing. Some processes on some nodes may still be active. |
F | FAILED | Job terminated with non-zero exit code or other failure condition. |
NF | NODE_FAIL | Job terminated due to failure of one or more allocated nodes. |
OOM | OUT_OF_MEMORY | Job experienced out of memory error. |
PD | PENDING | Job is awaiting resource allocation. |
PR | PREEMPTED | Job terminated due to preemption. |
R | RUNNING | Job currently has an allocation. |
RQ | REQUEUED | Completing job is being requeued. |
SI | SIGNALING | Job is being signaled. |
TO | TIMEOUT | Job terminated upon reaching its time limit. |
Modifying Jobs¶
In general:
$ scontrol update JobId=JOBID ATTR=VALUE
Modify job's time limit:
$ scontrol update JobId=JOBID timelimit=4:00:00
Set/modify job's comment:
$ scontrol update JobId=JOBID Comment='The best job ever'
Deleting Jobs¶
Delete a job by job ID:
$ scancel JOBID
Delete all my jobs:
$ scancel --me
Delete all my jobs in interactive mode, confirming every action:
$ scancel --me -i
Delete all my running jobs:
$ scancel --me -t running
Delete all my pending jobs:
$ scancel --me -t pending
Delete all my pending jobs for a project PROJECT-ID:
$ scancel --me -t pending -A PROJECT-ID
Troubleshooting¶
Invalid Account¶
sbatch: error: Batch job submission failed: Invalid account or account/partition combination specified
Possible causes:
- Invalid account (i.e. project) was specified in job submission.
- User does not have access to given account/project.
- Given account/project does not have access to given partition.
- Access to given partition was retracted due to the project's allocation exhaustion.