This is an outdated version of the HTCondor Manual.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

2.6 Managing a Job

This section provides a brief summary of what can be done once jobs are submitted. The basic mechanisms for monitoring a job are introduced, but the commands are discussed briefly. You are encouraged to look at the man pages of the commands referred to (located in Chapter 11 beginning on page [*]) for more information.

When jobs are submitted, HTCondor will attempt to find resources to run the jobs. A list of all those with jobs submitted may be obtained through condor_status with the -submitters option. An example of this would yield output similar to:

%  condor_status -submitters

Name                 Machine      Running IdleJobs HeldJobs

ballard@cs.wisc.edu  bluebird.c         0       11        0
nice-user.condor@cs. cardinal.c         6      504        0
wright@cs.wisc.edu   finch.cs.w         1        1        0
jbasney@cs.wisc.edu  perdita.cs         0        0        5

                           RunningJobs           IdleJobs           HeldJobs

 ballard@cs.wisc.edu                 0                 11                  0
 jbasney@cs.wisc.edu                 0                  0                  5
nice-user.condor@cs.                 6                504                  0
  wright@cs.wisc.edu                 1                  1                  0

               Total                 7                516                  5

2.6.1 Checking on the progress of jobs

At any time, you can check on the status of your jobs with the condor_q command. This command displays the status of all queued jobs. An example of the output from condor_q is
%  condor_q

-- Submitter: submit.chtc.wisc.edu : <128.104.55.9:32772> : submit.chtc.wisc.edu
 ID      OWNER            SUBMITTED     RUN_TIME ST PRI SIZE CMD               
711197.0   aragorn         1/15 19:18   0+04:29:33 H  0   0.0  script.sh         
894381.0   frodo           3/16 09:06  82+17:08:51 R  0   439.5 elk elk.in        
894386.0   frodo           3/16 09:06  82+20:21:28 R  0   219.7 elk elk.in        
894388.0   frodo           3/16 09:06  81+17:22:10 R  0   439.5 elk elk.in        
1086870.0   gollum          4/27 09:07   0+00:10:14 I  0   7.3  condor_dagman     
1086874.0   gollum          4/27 09:08   0+00:00:01 H  0   0.0  RunDC.bat         
1297254.0   legolas         5/31 18:05  14+17:40:01 R  0   7.3  condor_dagman     
1297255.0   legolas         5/31 18:05  14+17:39:55 R  0   7.3  condor_dagman     
1297256.0   legolas         5/31 18:05  14+17:39:55 R  0   7.3  condor_dagman     
1297259.0   legolas         5/31 18:05  14+17:39:55 R  0   7.3  condor_dagman     
1297261.0   legolas         5/31 18:05  14+17:39:55 R  0   7.3  condor_dagman     
1302278.0   legolas         6/4  12:22   1+00:05:37 I  0   390.6 mdrun_1.sh        
1304740.0   legolas         6/5  00:14   1+00:03:43 I  0   390.6 mdrun_1.sh        
1304967.0   legolas         6/5  05:08   0+00:00:00 I  0   0.0  mdrun_1.sh        

14 jobs; 4 idle, 8 running, 2 held
This output contains many columns of information about the queued jobs. The ST column (for status) shows the status of current jobs in the queue:
R: The job is currently running.
I: The job is idle. It is not running right now, because it is waiting for a machine to become available.
H: The job is the hold state. In the hold state, the job will not be scheduled to run until it is released. See the condor_hold manual page located on page [*] and the condor_release manual page located on page [*].
The RUN_TIME time reported for a job is the time that has been committed to the job.

Another useful method of tracking the progress of jobs is through the user log. If you have specified a log command in your submit file, the progress of the job may be followed by viewing the log file. Various events such as execution commencement, checkpoint, eviction and termination are logged in the file. Also logged is the time at which the event occurred.

When a job begins to run, HTCondor starts up a condor_shadow process on the submit machine. The shadow process is the mechanism by which the remotely executing jobs can access the environment from which it was submitted, such as input and output files.

It is normal for a machine which has submitted hundreds of jobs to have hundreds of condor_shadow processes running on the machine. Since the text segments of all these processes is the same, the load on the submit machine is usually not significant. If there is degraded performance, limit the number of jobs that can run simultaneously by reducing the MAX_JOBS_RUNNING configuration variable.

You can also find all the machines that are running your job through the condor_status command. For example, to find all the machines that are running jobs submitted by breach@cs.wisc.edu, type:

%  condor_status -constraint 'RemoteUser == "breach@cs.wisc.edu"'

Name       Arch     OpSys        State      Activity   LoadAv Mem  ActvtyTime

alfred.cs. INTEL    LINUX        Claimed    Busy       0.980  64    0+07:10:02
biron.cs.w INTEL    LINUX        Claimed    Busy       1.000  128   0+01:10:00
cambridge. INTEL    LINUX        Claimed    Busy       0.988  64    0+00:15:00
falcons.cs INTEL    LINUX        Claimed    Busy       0.996  32    0+02:05:03
happy.cs.w INTEL    LINUX        Claimed    Busy       0.988  128   0+03:05:00
istat03.st INTEL    LINUX        Claimed    Busy       0.883  64    0+06:45:01
istat04.st INTEL    LINUX        Claimed    Busy       0.988  64    0+00:10:00
istat09.st INTEL    LINUX        Claimed    Busy       0.301  64    0+03:45:00
...
To find all the machines that are running any job at all, type:
%  condor_status -run

Name       Arch     OpSys        LoadAv RemoteUser           ClientMachine  

adriana.cs INTEL    LINUX        0.980  hepcon@cs.wisc.edu   chevre.cs.wisc.
alfred.cs. INTEL    LINUX        0.980  breach@cs.wisc.edu   neufchatel.cs.w
amul.cs.wi X86_64   LINUX        1.000  nice-user.condor@cs. chevre.cs.wisc.
anfrom.cs. X86_64   LINUX        1.023  ashoks@jules.ncsa.ui jules.ncsa.uiuc
anthrax.cs INTEL    LINUX        0.285  hepcon@cs.wisc.edu   chevre.cs.wisc.
astro.cs.w INTEL    LINUX        1.000  nice-user.condor@cs. chevre.cs.wisc.
aura.cs.wi X86_64   WINDOWS      0.996  nice-user.condor@cs. chevre.cs.wisc.
balder.cs. INTEL    WINDOWS      1.000  nice-user.condor@cs. chevre.cs.wisc.
bamba.cs.w INTEL    LINUX        1.574  dmarino@cs.wisc.edu  riola.cs.wisc.e
bardolph.c INTEL    LINUX        1.000  nice-user.condor@cs. chevre.cs.wisc.
...

2.6.2 Removing a job from the queue

A job can be removed from the queue at any time by using the condor_rm command. If the job that is being removed is currently running, the job is killed without a checkpoint, and its queue entry is removed. The following example shows the queue of jobs before and after a job is removed.
%  condor_q

-- Submitter: froth.cs.wisc.edu : <128.105.73.44:33847> : froth.cs.wisc.edu
 ID      OWNER            SUBMITTED    CPU_USAGE ST PRI SIZE CMD               
 125.0   jbasney         4/10 15:35   0+00:00:00 I  -10 1.2  hello.remote      
 132.0   raman           4/11 16:57   0+00:00:00 R  0   1.4  hello             

2 jobs; 1 idle, 1 running, 0 held

%  condor_rm 132.0
Job 132.0 removed.

%  condor_q

-- Submitter: froth.cs.wisc.edu : <128.105.73.44:33847> : froth.cs.wisc.edu
 ID      OWNER            SUBMITTED    CPU_USAGE ST PRI SIZE CMD               
 125.0   jbasney         4/10 15:35   0+00:00:00 I  -10 1.2  hello.remote      

1 jobs; 1 idle, 0 running, 0 held


2.6.3 Placing a job on hold

A job in the queue may be placed on hold by running the command condor_hold. A job in the hold state remains in the hold state until later released for execution by the command condor_release.

Use of the condor_hold command causes a hard kill signal to be sent to a currently running job (one in the running state). For a standard universe job, this means that no checkpoint is generated before the job stops running and enters the hold state. When released, this standard universe job continues its execution using the most recent checkpoint available.

Jobs in universes other than the standard universe that are running when placed on hold will start over from the beginning when released.

The manual page for condor_hold on page [*] and the manual page for condor_release on page [*] contain usage details.


2.6.4 Changing the priority of jobs

In addition to the priorities assigned to each user, HTCondor also provides each user with the capability of assigning priorities to each submitted job. These job priorities are local to each queue and can be any integer value, with higher values meaning better priority.

The default priority of a job is 0, but can be changed using the condor_prio command. For example, to change the priority of a job to -15,

%  condor_q raman

-- Submitter: froth.cs.wisc.edu : <128.105.73.44:33847> : froth.cs.wisc.edu
 ID      OWNER            SUBMITTED    CPU_USAGE ST PRI SIZE CMD               
 126.0   raman           4/11 15:06   0+00:00:00 I  0   0.3  hello             

1 jobs; 1 idle, 0 running, 0 held

%  condor_prio -p -15 126.0

%  condor_q raman

-- Submitter: froth.cs.wisc.edu : <128.105.73.44:33847> : froth.cs.wisc.edu
 ID      OWNER            SUBMITTED    CPU_USAGE ST PRI SIZE CMD               
 126.0   raman           4/11 15:06   0+00:00:00 I  -15 0.3  hello             

1 jobs; 1 idle, 0 running, 0 held

It is important to note that these job priorities are completely different from the user priorities assigned by HTCondor. Job priorities do not impact user priorities. They are only a mechanism for the user to identify the relative importance of jobs among all the jobs submitted by the user to that specific queue.


2.6.5 Why is the job not running?

Users occasionally find that their jobs do not run. There are many possible reasons why a specific job is not running. The following prose attempts to identify some of the potential issues behind why a job is not running.

At the most basic level, the user knows the status of a job by using condor_q to see that the job is not running. By far, the most common reason (to the novice HTCondor job submitter) why the job is not running is that HTCondor has not yet been through its periodic negotiation cycle, in which queued jobs are assigned to machines within the pool and begin their execution. This periodic event occurs by default once every 5 minutes, implying that the user ought to wait a few minutes before searching for reasons why the job is not running.

Further inquiries are dependent on whether the job has never run at all, or has run for at least a little bit.

For jobs that have never run, many problems can be diagnosed by using the -analyze option of the condor_q command. Here is an example; running condor_q's analyzer provided the following information:

$ condor_q -analyze 27497829

-- Submitter: submit-1.chtc.wisc.edu : <128.104.100.43:9618?sock=5557_e660_3> : submit-1.chtc.wisc.edu
User priority for einstein@submit.chtc.wisc.edu is not available, attempting to analyze without it.
---
27497829.000:  Run analysis summary.  Of 5257 machines,
   5257 are rejected by your job's requirements
      0 reject your job because of their own requirements
      0 match and are already running your jobs
      0 match but are serving other users
      0 are available to run your job
        No successful match recorded.
        Last failed match: Tue Jun 18 14:36:25 2013

        Reason for last match failure: no match found

WARNING:  Be advised:
   No resources matched request's constraints

The Requirements expression for your job is:

    ( OpSys == "OSX" ) && ( TARGET.Arch == "X86_64" ) &&
    ( TARGET.Disk >= RequestDisk ) && ( TARGET.Memory >= RequestMemory ) &&
    ( ( TARGET.HasFileTransfer ) || ( TARGET.FileSystemDomain == MY.FileSystemDomain ) )


Suggestions:
    Condition                         Machines Matched Suggestion
    ---------                         ---------------- ----------
1   ( target.OpSys == "OSX" )         0                MODIFY TO "LINUX"
2   ( TARGET.Arch == "X86_64" )       5190
3   ( TARGET.Disk >= 1 )              5257
4   ( TARGET.Memory >= ifthenelse(MemoryUsage isnt undefined,MemoryUsage,1) )
                                      5257
5   ( ( TARGET.HasFileTransfer ) || ( TARGET.FileSystemDomain == "submit-1.chtc.wisc.edu" ) )
                                      5257

This example also shows that the job does not run because the platform requested, Mac OS X, is not available on any of the machines in the pool. Recall that unless informed otherwise in the Requirements expression in the submit description file, the platform requested for an execute machine will be the same as the platform where condor_submit is run to submit the job. And, while Mac OS X is a Unix-type operating system, it is not the same as Linux, and thus will not match with machines running Linux.

While the analyzer can diagnose most common problems, there are some situations that it cannot reliably detect due to the instantaneous and local nature of the information it uses to detect the problem. Thus, it may be that the analyzer reports that resources are available to service the request, but the job still has not run. In most of these situations, the delay is transient, and the job will run following the next negotiation cycle.

A second class of problems represents jobs that do or did run, for at least a short while, but are no longer running. The first issue is identifying whether the job is in this category. The condor_q command is not enough; it only tells the current state of the job. The needed information will be in the log file or the error file, as defined in the submit description file for the job. If these files are not defined, then there is little hope of determining if the job ran at all. For a job that ran, even for the briefest amount of time, the log file will contain an event of type 1, which will contain the string Job executing on host.

A job may run for a short time, before failing due to a file permission problem. The log file used by the condor_shadow daemon will contain more information if this is the problem. This log file is associated with the machine on which the job was submitted. The location and name of this log file may be discovered on the submitting machine, using the command

%  condor_config_val SHADOW_LOG

Memory and swap space problems may be identified by looking at the log file used by the condor_schedd daemon. The location and name of this log file may be discovered on the submitting machine, using the command

%  condor_config_val SCHEDD_LOG
A swap space problem will show in the log with the following message:
2/3 17:46:53 Swap space estimate reached! No more jobs can be run!
12/3 17:46:53     Solution: get more swap space, or set RESERVED_SWAP = 0
12/3 17:46:53     0 jobs matched, 1 jobs idle
As an explanation, HTCondor computes the total swap space on the submit machine. It then tries to limit the total number of jobs it will spawn based on an estimate of the size of the condor_shadow daemon's memory footprint and a configurable amount of swap space that should be reserved. This is done to avoid the situation within a very large pool in which all the jobs are submitted from a single host. The huge number of condor_shadow processes would overwhelm the submit machine, and it would run out of swap space and thrash.

Things can go wrong if a machine has a lot of physical memory and little or no swap space. HTCondor does not consider the physical memory size, so the situation occurs where HTCondor thinks it has no swap space to work with, and it will not run the submitted jobs.

To see how much swap space HTCondor thinks a given machine has, use the output of a condor_status command of the following form:

% condor_status -schedd [hostname] -long | grep VirtualMemory
If the value listed is 0, then this is what is confusing HTCondor. There are two ways to fix the problem:

  1. Configure the machine with some real swap space.

  2. Disable this check within HTCondor. Define the amount of reserved swap space for the submit machine to 0. Set RESERVED_SWAP to 0 in the configuration file:

    RESERVED_SWAP = 0
    

    and then send a condor_restart to the submit machine.


2.6.6 In the Log File

In a job's log file are a listing of events in chronological order that occurred during the life of the job. The formatting of the events is always the same, so that they may be machine readable. Four fields are always present, and they will most often be followed by other fields that give further information that is specific to the type of event.

The first field in an event is the numeric value assigned as the event type in a 3-digit format. The second field identifies the job which generated the event. Within parentheses are the ClassAd job attributes of ClusterId value, ProcId value, and the node number for parallel universe jobs or a set of zeros (for jobs run under all other universes), separated by periods. The third field is the date and time of the event logging. The fourth field is a string that briefly describes the event. Fields that follow the fourth field give further information for the specific event type.

These are all of the events that can show up in a job log file:

Event Number: 000
Event Name: Job submitted
Event Description: This event occurs when a user submits a job. It is the first event you will see for a job, and it should only occur once.

Event Number: 001
Event Name: Job executing
Event Description: This shows up when a job is running. It might occur more than once.

Event Number: 002
Event Name: Error in executable
Event Description: The job could not be run because the executable was bad.

Event Number: 003
Event Name: Job was checkpointed
Event Description: The job's complete state was written to a checkpoint file. This might happen without the job being removed from a machine, because the checkpointing can happen periodically.

Event Number: 004
Event Name: Job evicted from machine
Event Description: A job was removed from a machine before it finished, usually for a policy reason. Perhaps an interactive user has claimed the computer, or perhaps another job is higher priority.

Event Number: 005
Event Name: Job terminated
Event Description: The job has completed.

Event Number: 006
Event Name: Image size of job updated
Event Description: An informational event, to update the amount of memory that the job is using while running. It does not reflect the state of the job.

Event Number: 007
Event Name: Shadow exception
Event Description: The condor_shadow, a program on the submit computer that watches over the job and performs some services for the job, failed for some catastrophic reason. The job will leave the machine and go back into the queue.

Event Number: 008
Event Name: Generic log event
Event Description: Not used.

Event Number: 009
Event Name: Job aborted
Event Description: The user canceled the job.

Event Number: 010
Event Name: Job was suspended
Event Description: The job is still on the computer, but it is no longer executing. This is usually for a policy reason, such as an interactive user using the computer.

Event Number: 011
Event Name: Job was unsuspended
Event Description: The job has resumed execution, after being suspended earlier.

Event Number: 012
Event Name: Job was held
Event Description: The job has transitioned to the hold state. This might happen if the user applies the condor_hold command to the job.

Event Number: 013
Event Name: Job was released
Event Description: The job was in the hold state and is to be re-run.

Event Number: 014
Event Name: Parallel node executed
Event Description: A parallel universe program is running on a node.

Event Number: 015
Event Name: Parallel node terminated
Event Description: A parallel universe program has completed on a node.

Event Number: 016
Event Name: POST script terminated
Event Description: A node in a DAGMan work flow has a script that should be run after a job. The script is run on the submit host. This event signals that the post script has completed.

Event Number: 017
Event Name: Job submitted to Globus
Event Description: A grid job has been delegated to Globus (version 2, 3, or 4). This event is no longer used.

Event Number: 018
Event Name: Globus submit failed
Event Description: The attempt to delegate a job to Globus failed.

Event Number: 019
Event Name: Globus resource up
Event Description: The Globus resource that a job wants to run on was unavailable, but is now available. This event is no longer used.

Event Number: 020
Event Name: Detected Down Globus Resource
Event Description: The Globus resource that a job wants to run on has become unavailable. This event is no longer used.

Event Number: 021
Event Name: Remote error
Event Description: The condor_starter (which monitors the job on the execution machine) has failed.

Event Number: 022
Event Name: Remote system call socket lost
Event Description: The condor_shadow and condor_starter (which communicate while the job runs) have lost contact.

Event Number: 023
Event Name: Remote system call socket reestablished
Event Description: The condor_shadow and condor_starter (which communicate while the job runs) have been able to resume contact before the job lease expired.

Event Number: 024
Event Name: Remote system call reconnect failure
Event Description: The condor_shadow and condor_starter (which communicate while the job runs) were unable to resume contact before the job lease expired.

Event Number: 025
Event Name: Grid Resource Back Up
Event Description: A grid resource that was previously unavailable is now available.

Event Number: 026
Event Name: Detected Down Grid Resource
Event Description: The grid resource that a job is to run on is unavailable.

Event Number: 027
Event Name: Job submitted to grid resource
Event Description: A job has been submitted, and is under the auspices of the grid resource.

Event Number: 028
Event Name: Job ad information event triggered.
Event Description: Extra job ClassAd attributes are noted. This event is written as a supplement to other events when the configuration parameter EVENT_LOG_JOB_AD_INFORMATION_ATTRS is set.

Event Number: 029
Event Name: The job's remote status is unknown
Event Description: No updates of the job's remote status have been received for 15 minutes.

Event Number: 030
Event Name: The job's remote status is known again
Event Description: An update has been received for a job whose remote status was previous logged as unknown.

Event Number: 031
Event Name: Job stage in
Event Description: A grid universe job is doing the stage in of input files.

Event Number: 032
Event Name: Job stage out
Event Description: A grid universe job is doing the stage out of output files.

Event Number: 033
Event Name: Job ClassAd attribute update
Event Description: A Job ClassAd attribute is changed due to action by the condor_schedd daemon. Examples include changes by condor_qedit and condor_prio.

Event Number: 034
Event Name: Pre Skip event
Event Description: For DAGMan, this event is logged if a PRE SCRIPT exits with the defined PRE_SKIP value in the DAG input file. This makes it possible for DAGMan to do recovery in a workflow that has such an event, as it would otherwise not have any event for the DAGMan node to which the script belongs, and in recovery, DAGMan's internal tables would become corrupted.


2.6.7 Job Completion

When an HTCondor job completes, either through normal means or by abnormal termination by signal, HTCondor will remove it from the job queue. That is, the job will no longer appear in the output of condor_q, and the job will be inserted into the job history file. Examine the job history file with the condor_history command. If there is a log file specified in the submit description file for the job, then the job exit status will be recorded there as well.

By default, HTCondor does not send an email message when the job completes. Modify this behavior with the notification command in the submit description file. The message will include the exit status of the job, which is the argument that the job passed to the exit system call when it completed, or it will be notification that the job was killed by a signal. Notification will also include the following statistics (as appropriate) about the job:

Submitted at:
when the job was submitted with condor_submit

Completed at:
when the job completed

Real Time:
the elapsed time between when the job was submitted and when it completed, given in a form of <days> <hours>:<minutes>:<seconds>

Virtual Image Size:
memory size of the job, computed when the job checkpoints

Statistics about just the last time the job ran:

Run Time:
total time the job was running, given in the form <days> <hours>:<minutes>:<seconds>

Remote User Time:
total CPU time the job spent executing in user mode on remote machines; this does not count time spent on run attempts that were evicted without a checkpoint. Given in the form <days> <hours>:<minutes>:<seconds>

Remote System Time:
total CPU time the job spent executing in system mode (the time spent at system calls); this does not count time spent on run attempts that were evicted without a checkpoint. Given in the form <days> <hours>:<minutes>:<seconds>

The Run Time accumulated by all run attempts are summarized with the time given in the form <days> <hours>:<minutes>:<seconds>.

And, statistics about the bytes sent and received by the last run of the job and summed over all attempts at running the job are given.


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