This is an outdated version of the HTCondor Manual.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

2.3 Matchmaking with ClassAds

Before you learn about how to submit a job, it is important to understand how HTCondor allocates resources. Understanding the unique framework by which HTCondor matches submitted jobs with machines is the key to getting the most from HTCondor's scheduling algorithm.

HTCondor simplifies job submission by acting as a matchmaker of ClassAds. HTCondor's ClassAds are analogous to the classified advertising section of the newspaper. Sellers advertise specifics about what they have to sell, hoping to attract a buyer. Buyers may advertise specifics about what they wish to purchase. Both buyers and sellers list constraints that need to be satisfied. For instance, a buyer has a maximum spending limit, and a seller requires a minimum purchase price. Furthermore, both want to rank requests to their own advantage. Certainly a seller would rank one offer of $50 dollars higher than a different offer of $25. In HTCondor, users submitting jobs can be thought of as buyers of compute resources and machine owners are sellers.

All machines in a HTCondor pool advertise their attributes, such as available memory, CPU type and speed, virtual memory size, current load average, along with other static and dynamic properties. This machine ClassAd also advertises under what conditions it is willing to run a HTCondor job and what type of job it would prefer. These policy attributes can reflect the individual terms and preferences by which all the different owners have graciously allowed their machine to be part of the HTCondor pool. You may advertise that your machine is only willing to run jobs at night and when there is no keyboard activity on your machine. In addition, you may advertise a preference (rank) for running jobs submitted by you or one of your co-workers.

Likewise, when submitting a job, you specify a ClassAd with your requirements and preferences. The ClassAd includes the type of machine you wish to use. For instance, perhaps you are looking for the fastest floating point performance available. You want HTCondor to rank available machines based upon floating point performance. Or, perhaps you care only that the machine has a minimum of 128 Mbytes of RAM. Or, perhaps you will take any machine you can get! These job attributes and requirements are bundled up into a job ClassAd.

HTCondor plays the role of a matchmaker by continuously reading all the job ClassAds and all the machine ClassAds, matching and ranking job ads with machine ads. HTCondor makes certain that all requirements in both ClassAds are satisfied.

2.3.1 Inspecting Machine ClassAds with condor_status

Once HTCondor is installed, you will get a feel for what a machine ClassAd does by trying the condor_status command. Try the condor_status command to get a summary of information from ClassAds about the resources available in your pool. Type condor_status and hit enter to see a summary similar to the following:

Name               OpSys      Arch   State     Activity LoadAv Mem   ActvtyTime

amul.cs.wisc.edu   LINUX      INTEL  Claimed   Busy     0.990  1896  0+00:07:04
slot1@amundsen.cs. LINUX      INTEL  Owner     Idle     0.000  1456  0+00:21:58
slot2@amundsen.cs. LINUX      INTEL  Owner     Idle     0.110  1456  0+00:21:59
angus.cs.wisc.edu  LINUX      INTEL  Claimed   Busy     0.940   873  0+00:02:54
anhai.cs.wisc.edu  LINUX      INTEL  Claimed   Busy     1.400  1896  0+00:03:03
apollo.cs.wisc.edu LINUX      INTEL  Unclaimed Idle     1.000  3032  0+00:00:04
arragon.cs.wisc.ed LINUX      INTEL  Claimed   Busy     0.980   873  0+00:04:29
bamba.cs.wisc.edu  LINUX      INTEL  Owner     Idle     0.040  3032 15+20:10:19

...

The condor_status command has options that summarize machine ads in a variety of ways. For example,

condor_status -available

shows only machines which are willing to run jobs now.

condor_status -run

shows only machines which are currently running jobs.

condor_status -long

lists the machine ClassAds for all machines in the pool.

Refer to the condor_status command reference page located on page  for a complete description of the condor_status command.

The following shows a portion of a machine ClassAd for a single machine: turunmaa.cs.wisc.edu. Some of the listed attributes are used by HTCondor for scheduling. Other attributes are for information purposes. An important point is that any of the attributes in a machine ClassAd can be utilized at job submission time as part of a request or preference on what machine to use. Additional attributes can be easily added. For example, your site administrator can add a physical location attribute to your machine ClassAds.

Machine = "turunmaa.cs.wisc.edu"
FileSystemDomain = "cs.wisc.edu"
Name = "turunmaa.cs.wisc.edu"
CondorPlatform = "$CondorPlatform: x86_rhap_5 $"
Cpus = 1
IsValidCheckpointPlatform = ( ( ( TARGET.JobUniverse == 1 ) == false ) || 
 ( ( MY.CheckpointPlatform =!= undefined ) && 
 ( ( TARGET.LastCheckpointPlatform =?= MY.CheckpointPlatform ) || 
 ( TARGET.NumCkpts == 0 ) ) ) )
CondorVersion = "$CondorVersion: 7.6.3 Aug 18 2011 BuildID: 361356 $"
Requirements = ( START ) && ( IsValidCheckpointPlatform )
EnteredCurrentActivity = 1316094896
MyAddress = "<128.105.175.125:58026>"
EnteredCurrentState = 1316094896
Memory = 1897
CkptServer = "pitcher.cs.wisc.edu"
OpSys = "LINUX"
State = "Owner"
START = true
Arch = "INTEL"
Mips = 2634
Activity = "Idle"
StartdIpAddr = "<128.105.175.125:58026>"
TargetType = "Job"
LoadAvg = 0.210000
CheckpointPlatform = "LINUX INTEL 2.6.x normal 0x40000000"
Disk = 92309744
VirtualMemory = 2069476
TotalSlots = 1
UidDomain = "cs.wisc.edu"
MyType = "Machine"