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Submitting jobs using --job

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Quick introduction to --job

Using the --job command line option, you can instruct EasyBuild to submit jobs for the installations that should be performed, rather than performing the installations locally on the system you are on.

If dependency resolution is enabled using --robot (see also Enabling dependency resolution, --robot / -r and --robot-paths), EasyBuild will submit separate jobs and set dependencies between them to ensure they are run in the order dictated by the software dependency graph(s).

Configuring --job

Selecting the job backend (--job-backend)

The job backend to be used can be specified using the --job-backend EasyBuild configuration option.

Since EasyBuild 3.8.0, three backends are supported:

Configuring the job backend (--job-backend-config)

To configure the job backend, the path to a configuration file must be specified via --job-backend-config.

Number of requested cores per job (--job-cores)

The number of cores that should be requested for each job that is submitted can be specified using --job-cores (default: not specified).

The mechanism for determining the number of cores to request in case --job-cores was not specified depends on which job backend is being used:

  • if the PbsPython job backend is used, the (most common) number of available cores per workernode in the target resource is determined; this usually results in jobs requesting full workernodes (at least in terms of cores) by default
  • if the GC3Pie or Slurm job backend is used, the requested number of cores is left unspecified, which results in falling back to the default mechanism used by GC3Pie/Slurm to pick a number of cores; most likely, this results in single-core jobs to be submitted by default

Job dependency type (-job-deps-type)

The type of dependency that is set by EasyBuild when submitting a job that depends on one or more other jobs can be specified via the --job-deps-type configuration setting:

  • with --job-deps-type=abort_on_error, job dependencies will be set such that a job that depends on other jobs will be aborted if one of those jobs completes with an error
    • for both PbsPython and Slurm, this is equivalent with setting job dependencies using afterok
  • with --job-deps-type=always_run, job dependencies will be set such that a job that depends on other jobs are always run, regardless of whether or not those jobs completed successfully
    • for both PbsPython and Slurm, this is equivalent with setting job dependencies using afterany

The default value for -job-deps-type depends on the job backend being used (see [Configuring the job backend][submitting_jobs_cfg_job_backend_config):

  • for the GC3Pie and Slurm backends, --job-deps-type=abort_on_error is the default;
  • for the PbsPython backend, --job-deps-type=always_run is the default (because of historical reasons, and for the sake of backward compatibility)

Maximum walltime of jobs (--job-max-walltime)

An integer value specifying the maximum walltime for jobs (in hours) can be specified via --job-max-walltime (default: 24).

For easyconfigs for which a reference required walltime is available via the build_stats parameter in a matching easyconfig file from the easyconfig repository (see Easyconfigs repository (--repository, --repositorypath)), EasyBuild will set the walltime of the corresponding job to twice that value (unless the resulting value is higher than the maximum walltime for jobs).

If no such reference walltime is available, the maximum walltime is used.

Job output directory (--job-output-dir)

The directory where job log files should be placed can be specified via --job-output-dir (default: current directory).

Job polling interval (--job-polling-interval)

The frequency with which the status of submitted jobs should be checked can be specified via --job-polling-interval, using a floating-point value representing the number of seconds between two checks (default: 30 seconds).

Note

This setting is currently only relevant to GC3Pie; see also [Submitting jobs to a GC3Pie backend]][submitting_jobs_usage_gc3pie].

Target resource for job backend (--job-target-resource)

The target resource that should be used by the job backend can be specified using --job-target-resource.

  • for PbsPython backend: hostname of TORQUE PBS server to submit jobs to (default: $PBS_DEFAULT)
  • for GC3Pie backend: name of resource to submit jobs to (default: none, which implies weighted round-robin submission across all available resources)
  • for Slurm backend: (not used)

Usage of --job

To make EasyBuild submit jobs to the job backend rather than performing the installations directly, the --job command line option can be used.

This following assumes that the required configuration settings w.r.t. the job backend to use are in place, see Configuring --job.

Submitting jobs to a PbsPython or Slurm backend

When using the PbsPython or Slurm backend, EasyBuild will submit separate jobs for each installation to be performed, and then exit reporting a list of submitted jobs.

To ensure that the installations are performed in the order dictated by the software dependency graph, dependencies between installations are specified via job dependencies (see also Job dependency type (-job-deps-type)).

See also Example: submitting installations to TORQUE via pbs_python.

Note

Submitted jobs will be put on hold until all jobs have been submitted. This is required to ensure that the dependencies between jobs can be specified correctly; if a job would run to completion before other jobs that depend on it were submitted, the submission process may fail.

Submitting jobs to a GC3Pie backend

When using the GC3Pie backend, EasyBuild will create separate tasks for each installation to be performed and supply them to GC3Pie, which will then take over and pass the installations through as jobs to the available resource(s) (see also Configuring the job backend).

To ensure that the installations are performed in the order dictated by the software dependency graph, dependencies between installations are specified to GC3Pie as inter-task dependencies. GC3Pie will then gradually feed the installations to its available resources as their dependencies have been satisfied.

Any log messages produced by GC3Pie are included in the EasyBuild log file, and are tagged with gc3pie.

See also Example: submitting installations to SLURM via GC3Pie.

Note

The eb process will not exit until the full set of tasks that GC3Pie was provided with has been processed. An overall progress report will be printed regularly (see also Job polling interval (--job-polling-interval)). As such, it is advised to run the eb process in a screen/tmux session when using the GC3Pie backend for --job.

Examples

Example configurations for GC3Pie job backend

When using GC3Pie as a job backend, a configuration file must be provided via --job-backend-config. This section includes a couple of examples of GC3Pie configuration files (see also https://gc3pie.readthedocs.org/en/latest/users/configuration.html).

Example GC3Pie configuration for local system

[resource/localhost]
enabled = yes
type = shellcmd
frontend = localhost
transport = local
max_memory_per_core = 10GiB
max_walltime = 100 hours
# max # jobs ~= max_cores / max_cores_per_job
max_cores_per_job = 1
max_cores = 4
architecture = x86_64
auth = none
override = no
resourcedir = /tmp/gc3pie

Example GC3Pie configuration for TORQUE/PBS

[resource/pbs]
enabled = yes
type = pbs

# use settings below when running GC3Pie on the cluster front-end node
frontend = localhost
transport = local
auth = none

max_walltime = 2 days
# max # jobs ~= max_cores / max_cores_per_job
max_cores_per_job = 16
max_cores = 1024
max_memory_per_core = 2 GiB
architecture = x86_64

# to add non-std options or use TORQUE/PBS tools located outside of
# the default PATH, use the following:
#qsub = /usr/local/bin/qsub -q my-special-queue

Example GC3Pie configuration for SLURM

[resource/slurm]
enabled = yes
type = slurm

# use settings below when running GC3Pie on the cluster front-end node
frontend = localhost
transport = local
auth = none

max_walltime = 2 days
# max # jobs ~= max_cores / max_cores_per_job
max_cores_per_job = 16
max_cores = 1024
max_memory_per_core = 2 GiB
architecture = x86_64

# to add non-std options or use SLURM tools located outside of
# the default PATH, use the following:
#sbatch = /usr/bin/sbatch --mail-type=ALL

Example: submitting installations to SLURM via GC3Pie

When submitting jobs to the GC3Pie job backend, the eb process will not exit until all tasks have been completed. A job overview will be printed every N seconds (see Job polling interval (--job-polling-interval)).

Jobs are only submitted to the resource manager (SLURM, in this case) when all task dependencies have been resolved.

$ export EASYBUILD_JOB_BACKEND=GC3Pie
$ export EASYBUILD_JOB_BACKEND_CONFIG=$PWD/gc3pie.cfg
$ eb GCC-4.6.0.eb OpenMPI-1.8.4-GCC-4.9.2.eb --robot --job --job-cores=16 --job-max-walltime=10
== temporary log file in case of crash /tmp/eb-ivAiwD/easybuild-PCgmCB.log
== resolving dependencies ...
== GC3Pie job overview: 2 submitted (total: 9)
== GC3Pie job overview: 2 running (total: 9)
== GC3Pie job overview: 2 running (total: 9)
...
== GC3Pie job overview: 4 terminated, 4 ok, 1 submitted (total: 9)
== GC3Pie job overview: 4 terminated, 4 ok, 1 running (total: 9)
...
== GC3Pie job overview: 8 terminated, 8 ok, 1 running (total: 9)
== GC3Pie job overview: 9 terminated, 9 ok (total: 9)
== GC3Pie job overview: 9 terminated, 9 ok (total: 9)
== Done processing jobs
== GC3Pie job overview: 9 terminated, 9 ok (total: 9)
== Submitted parallel build jobs, exiting now
== temporary log file(s) /tmp/eb-ivAiwD/easybuild-PCgmCB.log* have been removed.
== temporary directory /tmp/eb-ivAiwD has been removed.

Checking which jobs have been submitted to SLURM at regular intervals reveals that indeed only tasks for which all dependencies have been processed are actually submitted as jobs::

$ squeue -u $USER
JOBID       USER       ACCOUNT           NAME     REASON   START_TIME     END_TIME  TIME_LEFT NODES CPUS   PRIORITY
6161545     easybuild  example      GCC-4.9.2       None 2015-07-01T1 2015-07-01T2    9:58:55     1 16       1242
6161546     easybuild  example      GCC-4.6.0       None 2015-07-01T1 2015-07-01T2    9:58:55     1 16       1242

$ squeue -u $USER
JOBID       USER       ACCOUNT           NAME     REASON   START_TIME     END_TIME  TIME_LEFT NODES CPUS   PRIORITY
6174527     easybuild  example Automake-1.15-  Resources          N/A          N/A   10:00:00     1 16       1120

$ squeue -u $USER
JOBID       USER       ACCOUNT           NAME     REASON   START_TIME     END_TIME  TIME_LEFT NODES CPUS   PRIORITY
6174533     easybuild  example OpenMPI-1.8.4-       None 2015-07-03T0 2015-07-03T1    9:55:59     1 16       1119

Example: submitting installations to TORQUE via pbs_python

Using the PbsPython job backend, eb submits jobs directly to TORQUE for processing, and exits as soon as all jobs have been submitted::

$ eb GCC-4.6.0.eb OpenMPI-1.8.4-GCC-4.9.2.eb --robot --job
== temporary log file in case of crash /tmp/eb-OMNQAV/easybuild-9fTuJA.log
== resolving dependencies ...
== List of submitted jobs (9): GCC-4.6.0 (GCC/4.6.0): 508023.example.pbs; GCC-4.9.2 (GCC/4.9.2): 508024.example.pbs;
libtool-2.4.2-GCC-4.9.2 (libtool/2.4.2-GCC-4.9.2): 508025.example.pbs; M4-1.4.17-GCC-4.9.2 (M4/1.4.17-GCC-4.9.2): 50
8026.example.pbs; Autoconf-2.69-GCC-4.9.2 (Autoconf/2.69-GCC-4.9.2): 508027.example.pbs; Automake-1.15-GCC-4.9.2 (Au
tomake/1.15-GCC-4.9.2): 508028.example.pbs; numactl-2.0.10-GCC-4.9.2 (numactl/2.0.10-GCC-4.9.2): 508029.example.pbs;
hwloc-1.10.0-GCC-4.9.2 (hwloc/1.10.0-GCC-4.9.2): 508030.example.pbs; OpenMPI-1.8.4-GCC-4.9.2 (OpenMPI/1.8.4-GCC-4.9.
2): 508031.example.pbs
== Submitted parallel build jobs, exiting now
== temporary log file(s) /tmp/eb-OMNQAV/easybuild-9fTuJA.log* have been removed.
== temporary directory /tmp/eb-OMNQAV has been removed.

$ qstat -a

example.pbs:
                                                                              Req'd    Req'd       Elap
Job ID              Username    Queue    Jobname          SessID  NDS   TSK   Memory   Time    S   Time
------------------- ----------- -------- ---------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ --------- - ---------
508023.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    GCC-4.6.0           --      1     16    --   24:00:00 R  00:02:16 
508024.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    GCC-4.9.2           --      1     16    --   24:00:00 Q       -- 
508025.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    libtool-2.4.2-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508026.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    M4-1.4.17-GCC-4.    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508027.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    Autoconf-2.69-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508028.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    Automake-1.15-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508029.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    numactl-2.0.10-G    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508030.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    hwloc-1.10.0-GCC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508031.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    OpenMPI-1.8.4-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       --

Holds are put in place to ensure that the jobs run in the order dictated by the dependency graph(s). These holds are released by the TORQUE server as soon as they jobs on which they depend have completed::

$ qstat -a

example.pbs:
                                                                              Req'd    Req'd       Elap
Job ID              Username    Queue    Jobname          SessID  NDS   TSK   Memory   Time    S   Time
------------------- ----------- -------- ---------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ --------- - ---------
508025.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    libtool-2.4.2-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 Q       -- 
508026.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    M4-1.4.17-GCC-4.    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 Q       -- 
508027.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    Autoconf-2.69-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508028.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    Automake-1.15-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508029.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    numactl-2.0.10-G    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508030.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    hwloc-1.10.0-GCC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 
508031.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    OpenMPI-1.8.4-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 H       -- 

...

$ qstat -a

example.pbs:
                                                                              Req'd    Req'd       Elap
Job ID              Username    Queue    Jobname          SessID  NDS   TSK   Memory   Time    S   Time
------------------- ----------- -------- ---------------- ------ ----- ------ ------ --------- - ---------
508031.example.pbs  easybuild   batch    OpenMPI-1.8.4-GC    --      1     16    --   24:00:00 R  00:03:46
Last update: November 7, 2022