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. <note> If your research group has no computational resources of its own, there is a general-purpose phys cluster which can be used by anyone. </note> You can see which servers belong to each cluster, and what their capabilities are, on the Linux Servers Listing page in MyPhys.

You can also get an idea of activity within each cluster (although not directly condor-related) at our Ganglia monitoring page

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

Almost all our condor slots are set up as “partitionable”, which means you can request what resources are needed. Try to specify appropriate values in your submit file so that condor can reserve resources for your job (without this, your job will be given default values which may cause it to be held).

• request_cpus - Defaults to 1
• request_memory - Defined in megabytes; defaults to the ImageSize or JobVMemory parameters.
• request_disk - Defined in kilobytes; defaults to the DiskUsage parameter.

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!)
• bes3farm - BES3 compute farm (BES3 use only!)
• neutrino - Neutrino workstations, e.g. MINOS/NOvA (Neutrino use only!)
• novafarm - NOvA servers (NOvA use only!)
• cmsfarm - 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.