This is an outdated version of the HTCondor Manual. You can find current documentation at http://htcondor.org/manual.

condor_glidein

add a remote grid resource to a local Condor pool

Synopsis

condor_glidein [-help]

condor_glidein [-admin address] [-anybody] [-archdir dir] [-basedir basedir] [-count CPU count] [<Execute Task Options>] [<Generate File Options>] [-gsi_daemon_name cert_name] [-idletime minutes] [-install_gsi_trusted_ca_dir path] [-install_gsi_gridmap file] [-localdir dir] [-memory MBytes] [-project name] [-queue name] [-runtime minutes] [-runonly] [<Set Up Task Options>] [-suffix suffix] [-slots slot count] <contact argument>

Description

condor_glidein allows the temporary addition of a grid resource to a local Condor pool. The addition is accomplished by installing and executing some of the Condor daemons on the remote grid resource, such that it reports in as part of the local Condor pool. condor_glidein accomplishes two separate tasks: set up and execution. These separated tasks allow flexibility, in that the user may use condor_glidein to do only one of the tasks or both, in addition to customizing the tasks.

The set up task generates a script that may be used to start the Condor daemons during the execution task, places this script on the remote grid resource, composes and installs a configuration file, and it installs the condor_master, condor_startd and condor_starter daemons on the grid resource.

The execution task runs the script generated by the set up task. The goal of the script is to invoke the condor_master daemon. The Condor job glidein_startup appears in the queue of the local Condor pool for each invocation of condor_glidein. To remove the grid resource from the local Condor pool, use condor_rm to remove the glidein_startup job.

The Condor jobs to do both the set up and execute tasks utilize Condor-G and Globus gt2 protocols to communicate with the remote resource. Therefore, an X.509 certificate (proxy) is required for the user running condor_glidein.

Specify the remote grid machine with the command line argument <contact argument>. <contact argument> takes one of 4 forms:

1. hostname
2. Globus contact string
3. hostname/jobmanager-<schedulername>
4. -contactfile filename

The argument -contactfile filename specifies the full path and file name of a file that contains Globus contact strings. Each of the resources given by a Globus contact string is added to the local Condor pool.

The set up task of condor_glidein copies the binaries for the correct platform from a central server. To obtain access to the server, or to set up your own server, follow instructions on the Glidein Server Setup page, at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/glidein. Set up need only be done once per site, as the installation is never removed.

By default, all files installed on the remote grid resource are placed in the directory $(HOME)/Condor_glidein. $(HOME) is evaluated and defined on the remote machine using a grid map. This directory must be in a shared file system accessible by all machines that will run the Condor daemons. By default, the daemon's log files will also be written in this directory. Change this directory with the -localdir option to make Condor daemons write to local scratch space on the execution machine. For debugging initial problems, it may be convenient to have the log files in the more accessible default directory. If using the default directory, occasionally clean up old log and execute directories to avoid running out of space.

Examples

To have 10 grid resources running PBS at a grid site with a gatekeeper named gatekeeper.site.edu join the local Condor pool:

% condor_glidein -count 10 gatekeeper.site.edu/jobmanager-pbs

If you try something like the above and condor_glidein is not able to automatically determine everything it needs to know about the remote site, it will ask you to provide more information. A typical result of this process is something like the following command:

% condor_glidein \
    -count 10 \
    -arch 6.6.7-i686-pc-Linux-2.4 \
    -setup_jobmanager jobmanager-fork \
    gatekeeper.site.edu/jobmanager-pbs

The Condor jobs that do the set up and execute tasks will appear in the queue for the local Condor pool. As a result of a successful glidein, use condor_status to see that the remote grid resources are part of the local Condor pool.

A list of common problems and solutions is presented in this manual page.

Generate File Options

-genconfig

Create a local copy of the configuration file that may be used on the remote resource. The file is named glidein_condor_config.<suffix>. The string defined by $<$suffix$>$ defaults to the process id (PID) of the condor_glidein process or is defined with the -suffix command line option. The configuration file may be edited for later use with the -useconfig option.

-genstartup

Create a local copy of the script used on the remote resource to invoke the condor_master. The file is named glidein_startup.<suffix>. The string defined by $<$suffix$>$ defaults to the process id (PID) of the condor_glidein process or is defined with the -suffix command line option. The file may be edited for later use with the -usestartup option.

-gensubmit

Generate submit description files, but do not submit. The submit description file for the set up task is named glidein_setup.submit.<suffix>. The submit description file for the execute task is named glidein_run.submit.<suffix>. The string defined by $<$suffix$>$ defaults to the process id (PID) of the condor_glidein process or is defined with the -suffix command line option.

Set Up Task Options

-setuponly

Do only the set up task of condor_glidein. This option cannot be run simultaneously with -runonly.

-setup_here

Do the set up task on the local machine, instead of at a remote grid resource. This may be used, for example, to do the set up task of condor_glidein in an AFS area that is read-only from the remote grid resource.

-forcesetup

During the set up task, force the copying of files, even if this overwrites existing files. Use this to push out changes to the configuration.

-useconfig config_file

The set up task copies the specified configuration file, rather than generating one.

-usestartup startup_file

The set up task copies the specified startup script, rather than generating one.

-setup_jobmanager jobmanagername

Identifies the jobmanager on the remote grid resource to receive the files during the set up task. If a reasonable default can be discovered through MDS, this is optional. jobmanagername is a string representing any gt2 name for the job manager. The correct string in most cases will be jobmanager-fork. Other common strings may be jobmanager, jobmanager-condor, jobmanager-pbs, and jobmanager-lsf.

Execute Task Options

-runonly

Starts execution of the Condor daemons on the grid resource. If any of the necessary files or executables are missing, condor_glidein exits with an error code. This option cannot be run simultaneously with -setuponly.

-run_here

Runs condor_master directly rather than submitting a Condor job that causes the remote execution. To instead generate a script that does this, use -run_here in combination with -gensubmit. This may be useful for running Condor daemons on resources that are not directly accessible by Condor.

Options

-help

Display brief usage information and exit.

-basedir basedir

Specifies the base directory on the remote grid resource used for placing files. The default directory is $(HOME)/Condor_glidein on the grid resource.

-archdir dir

Specifies the directory on the remote grid resource for placement of the Condor executables. The default value for -archdir is based upon version information on the grid resource. It is of the form $<$basedir$>$/$<$condor-version$>$-$<$Globus canonicalsystemname$>$. An example of the directory (without the base directory) for Condor version 7.6.0 running on a 64-bit Intel processor with RHEL 3 is 7.6.0-x86_64-pc-Linux-2.4-glibc2.3 .

-localdir dir

Specifies the directory on the remote grid resource in which to create log and execution subdirectories needed by Condor. If limited disk quota in the home or base directory on the grid resource is a problem, set -localdir to a large temporary space, such as /tmp or /scratch. If the batch system requires invocation of Condor daemons in a temporary scratch directory, '.' may be used for the definition of the -localdir option.

-arch architecture

Identifies the platform of the required tarball containing the correct Condor daemon executables to download and install. If a reasonable default can be discovered through MDS, this is optional. A list of possible values may be found at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/glidein/binaries. The architecture name is the same as the tarball name without the suffix tar.gz. An example is 6.6.5-i686-pc-Linux-2.4 .

-queue name

The argument name is a string used at the grid resource to identify a job queue.

-project name

The argument name is a string used at the grid resource to identify a project name.

-memory MBytes

The maximum memory size in Megabytes to request from the grid resource.

-count CPU count

The number of CPUs requested to join the local pool. The default is 1.

-slots slot count

For machines with multiple CPUs, the CPUs maybe divided up into slots. slot count is the number of slots that results. By default, Condor divides multiple-CPU resources such that each CPU is a slot, each with an equal share of RAM, disk, and swap space. This option configures the number of slots, so that multi-threaded jobs can run in a slot with multiple CPUs. For example, if 4 CPUs are requested and -slots is not specified, Condor will divide the request up into 4 slots with 1 CPU each. However, if -slots 2 is specified, Condor will divide the request up into 2 slots with 2 CPUs each, and if -slots 1 is specified, Condor will put all 4 CPUs into one slot.

-idletime minutes

The amount of time that a remote grid resource will remain idle state, before the daemons shut down. A value of 0 (zero) means that the daemons never shut down due to remaining in the idle state. In this case, the -runtime option defines when the daemons shut down. The default value is 20 minutes.

-runtime minutes

The maximum amount of time the Condor daemons on the remote grid resource will run before shutting themselves down. This option is useful for resources with enforced maximum run times. Setting -runtime to be a few minutes shorter than the enforced limit gives the daemons time to perform a graceful shut down.

-anybody

Sets the Condor START expression for the added remote grid resource to True. This permits any user's job which can run on the added remote grid resource to run. Without this option, only jobs owned by the user executing condor_glidein can execute on the remote grid resource. WARNING: Using this option may violate the usage policies of many institutions.

-admin address

Where to send e-mail with problems. The default is the login of the user running condor_glidein at UID domain of the local Condor pool.

-suffix X

Suffix to use when generating files. Default is process id.

-gsi_daemon_name cert_name

Includes and enables GSI authentication in the configuration for the remote grid resource. The argument is the GSI certificate name that the daemons will use to authenticate themselves.

-install_gsi_trusted_ca_dir path

The argument identifies the directory containing the trusted CA certificates that the daemons are to use (for example, /etc/grid-security/certificates). The contents of this directory will be installed at the remote site in the directory $<$basedir$>$/grid-security.

-install_gsi_gridmap file

The argument is the file name of the GSI-specific X.509 map file that the daemons will use. The file will be installed at the remote site in $<$basedir$>$/grid-security. The file contains entries mapping certificates to user names. At the very least, it must contain an entry for the certificate given by the command-line option -gsi_daemon_name . If other Condor daemons use different certificates, then this file will also list any certificates that the daemons will encounter for the condor_schedd, condor_collector, and condor_negotiator. See section 3.6.3 for more information.

Exit Status

condor_glidein will exit with a status value of 0 (zero) upon complete success, or with non-zero values upon failure. The status value will be 1 (one) if condor_glidein encountered an error making a directory, was unable to copy a tar file, encountered an error in parsing the command line, or was not able to gather required information. The status value will be 2 (two) if there was an error in the remote set up. The status value will be 3 (three) if there was an error in remote submission. The status value will be -1 (negative one) if no resource was specified in the command line.

Common problems are listed below. Many of these are best discovered by looking in the StartLog log file on the remote grid resource.

WARNING: The file xxx is not writable by condor

This error occurs when condor_glidein is run in a directory that does not have the proper permissions for Condor to access files. An AFS directory does not give Condor the user's AFS ACLs.

Glideins fail to run due to GLIBC errors

Check the list of available glidein binaries (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/glidein/binaries), and try specifying the architecture name that includes the correct glibc version for the remote grid site.

Glideins join pool but no jobs run on them

One common cause of this problem is that the remote grid resources are in a different file system domain, and the submitted Condor jobs have an implicit requirement that they must run in the same file system domain. See section 2.5.4 for details on using Condor's file transfer capabilities to solve this problem. Another cause of this problem is a communication failure. For example, a firewall may be preventing the condor_negotiator or the condor_schedd daemons from connecting to the condor_startd on the remote grid resource. Although work is being done to remove this requirement in the future, it is currently necessary to have full bidirectional connectivity, at least over a restricted range of ports. See page  for more information on configuring a port range.

Glideins run but fail to join the pool

This may be caused by the local pool's security settings or by a communication failure. Check that the security settings in the local pool's configuration file allow write access to the remote grid resource. To not modify the security settings for the pool, run a separate pool specifically for the remote grid resources, and use flocking to balance jobs across the two pools of resources. If the log files indicate a communication failure, then see the next item.

The startd cannot connect to the collector

This may be caused by several things. One is a firewall. Another is when the compute nodes do not have even outgoing network access. Configuration to work without full network access to and from the compute nodes is still in the experimental stages, so for now, the short answer is that you must at least have a range of open (bidirectional) ports and set up the configuration file as described on page . Use the option -genconfig, edit the generated configuration file, and then do the glidein execute task with the option -useconfig.)

Another possible cause of connectivity problems may be the use of UDP by the condor_startd to register itself with the condor_collector. Force it to use TCP as described on page .

Yet another possible cause of connectivity problems is when the remote grid resources have more than one network interface, and the default one chosen by Condor is not the correct one. One way to fix this is to modify the glidein startup script using the -genstartup and -usestartup options. The script needs to determine the IP address associated with the correct network interface, and assign this to the environment variable _condor_NETWORK_INTERFACE.

NFS file locking problems

If the -localdir option uses files on NFS (not recommended, but sometimes convenient for testing), the Condor daemons may have trouble manipulating file locks. Try inserting the following into the configuration file:

IGNORE_NFS_LOCK_ERRORS = True

Author

Center for High Throughput Computing, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Copyright

Copyright © 1990-2012 Center for High Throughput Computing, Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI. All Rights Reserved. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

See the Condor Version 7.6.10 Manual or http://research.cs.wisc.edu/htcondor/ for additional notices.