Batch-style processing is available on select nodes of the Unix cluster via Condor.

Condor is a software framework for distributed parallel computation. At Minnesota, we use it both to manage workload on dedicated server clusters, and to farm out work to idle desktop computers

Each Physics linux system is tagged with a “cluster” name corresponding to the research group or entity to which it belongs. It is possible to run jobs on any cluster, but if you are unsure whether you should be using a particular group of machines please check first. You can see which machines belong to each cluster, and what their capabilities are, on the Department Computers page in MyPhys.

Useful commands for submitting jobs are

• condor_run - for quick & easy job submission
• condor_submit - for full control

Useful commands for job and machine status are

• condor_status shows active machines and queues
• condor_status -submitters shows job submitter summary
• condor_q shows jobs in the local job queue
• condor_q -global shows jobs in the global job queue

You can find some more information at:

• Condor Manual
• Condor Wiki at UW Madison
• Quick Condor Tutorial for Fermilab

Our physics “cluster” names map to a CondorGroup job ClassAd, which allows you to submit jobs to different groups of machines based on where you submit them from. It is possible to override this behavior in your submit file by manipulating the CondorGroup job ClassAd. For example, you could place the following line in your job file to make the jobs run on the CMS server farm:

CondorGroup = "cmsfarm"

You should read the manual page for condor_submit for more details on what can be put in the job file - although please note that CondorGroup is a locally-invented ClassAd, and you won't find any further documentation for it).

Some example CondorGroups:

• phys - Physics machines (general-purpose linux workstations)
• ftpi - FTPI linux workstations (FTPI use only!)
• twins - BES3 compute farm (BES3 use only!)
• minos - MINOS workstations (MINOS use only!)
• cms - CMS servers (CMS use only!)
• astro - Astronomy workstations (Astronomy use only!)

Anyone may submit jobs to “phys” machines, so submitting jobs from a public physics machine (or from ssh.physics.umn.edu) are safe bets.

We currently support the vanilla, standard, and MPI universes.