salloc - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

salloc - Obtain a Slurm job allocation (a set of nodes), execute a command, and then
release the allocation when the command is finished.

SYNOPSIS

salloc [options] [<command> [command args]]

DESCRIPTION

salloc is used to allocate a Slurm job allocation, which is a set of resources (nodes),
possibly with some set of constraints (e.g. number of processors per node). When salloc
successfully obtains the requested allocation, it then runs the command specified by the
user. Finally, when the user specified command is complete, salloc relinquishes the job
allocation.

The command may be any program the user wishes. Some typical commands are xterm, a shell
script containing srun commands, and srun (see the EXAMPLES section). If no command is
specified, then the value of SallocDefaultCommand in slurm.conf is used. If
SallocDefaultCommand is not set, then salloc runs the user's default shell.

The following document describes the the influence of various options on the allocation of
cpus to jobs and tasks.
http://slurm.schedmd.com/cpu_management.html

NOTE: The salloc logic includes support to save and restore the terminal line settings and
is designed to be executed in the foreground. If you need to execute salloc in the
background, set its standard input to some file, for example: "salloc -n16 a.out
</dev/null &"

OPTIONS

-A, --account=<account>
Charge resources used by this job to specified account. The account is an
arbitrary string. The account name may be changed after job submission using the
scontrol command.

--acctg-freq
Define the job accounting and profiling sampling intervals. This can be used to
override the JobAcctGatherFrequency parameter in Slurm's configuration file,
slurm.conf. The supported format is as follows:

--acctg-freq=<datatype>=<interval>
where <datatype>=<interval> specifies the task sampling interval for
the jobacct_gather plugin or a sampling interval for a profiling type
by the acct_gather_profile plugin. Multiple, comma-separated
<datatype>=<interval> intervals may be specified. Supported datatypes
are as follows:

task=<interval>
where <interval> is the task sampling interval in seconds for
the jobacct_gather plugins and for task profiling by the
acct_gather_profile plugin. NOTE: This frequency is used to
monitor memory usage. If memory limits are enforced the highest
frequency a user can request is what is configured in the
slurm.conf file. They can not turn it off (=0) either.

energy=<interval>
where <interval> is the sampling interval in seconds for energy
profiling using the acct_gather_energy plugin

network=<interval>
where <interval> is the sampling interval in seconds for
infiniband profiling using the acct_gather_infiniband plugin.

filesystem=<interval>
where <interval> is the sampling interval in seconds for
filesystem profiling using the acct_gather_filesystem plugin.

The default value for the task sampling interval
is 30. The default value for all other intervals is 0. An interval of 0 disables
sampling of the specified type. If the task sampling interval is 0, accounting
information is collected only at job termination (reducing Slurm interference with
the job).
Smaller (non-zero) values have a greater impact upon job performance, but a value
of 30 seconds is not likely to be noticeable for applications having less than
10,000 tasks.

-B --extra-node-info=<sockets[:cores[:threads]]>
Request a specific allocation of resources with details as to the number and type
of computational resources within a cluster: number of sockets (or physical
processors) per node, cores per socket, and threads per core. The total amount of
resources being requested is the product of all of the terms. Each value specified
is considered a minimum. An asterisk (*) can be used as a placeholder indicating
that all available resources of that type are to be utilized. As with nodes, the
individual levels can also be specified in separate options if desired:
--sockets-per-node=<sockets>
--cores-per-socket=<cores>
--threads-per-core=<threads>
If SelectType is configured to select/cons_res, it must have a parameter of
CR_Core, CR_Core_Memory, CR_Socket, or CR_Socket_Memory for this option to be
honored. This option is not supported on BlueGene systems (select/bluegene plugin
is configured). If not specified, the scontrol show job will display
'ReqS:C:T=*:*:*'.

--bb=<spec>
Burst buffer specification. The form of the specification is system dependent.

--begin=<time>
Submit the batch script to the Slurm controller immediately, like normal, but tell
the controller to defer the allocation of the job until the specified time.

Time may be of the form HH:MM:SS to run a job at a specific time of day (seconds
are optional). (If that time is already past, the next day is assumed.) You may
also specify midnight, noon, fika (3 PM) or teatime (4 PM) and you can have a
time-of-day suffixed with AM or PM for running in the morning or the evening. You
can also say what day the job will be run, by specifying a date of the form MMDDYY
or MM/DD/YY YYYY-MM-DD. Combine date and time using the following format
YYYY-MM-DD[THH:MM[:SS]]. You can also give times like now + count time-units, where
the time-units can be seconds (default), minutes, hours, days, or weeks and you can
tell Slurm to run the job today with the keyword today and to run the job tomorrow
with the keyword tomorrow. The value may be changed after job submission using the
scontrol command. For example:
--begin=16:00
--begin=now+1hour
--begin=now+60 (seconds by default)
--begin=2010-01-20T12:34:00

Notes on date/time specifications:
- Although the 'seconds' field of the HH:MM:SS time specification is allowed by
the code, note that the poll time of the Slurm scheduler is not precise enough to
guarantee dispatch of the job on the exact second. The job will be eligible to
start on the next poll following the specified time. The exact poll interval
depends on the Slurm scheduler (e.g., 60 seconds with the default sched/builtin).
- If no time (HH:MM:SS) is specified, the default is (00:00:00).
- If a date is specified without a year (e.g., MM/DD) then the current year is
assumed, unless the combination of MM/DD and HH:MM:SS has already passed for that
year, in which case the next year is used.

--bell Force salloc to ring the terminal bell when the job allocation is granted (and only
if stdout is a tty). By default, salloc only rings the bell if the allocation is
pending for more than ten seconds (and only if stdout is a tty). Also see the
option --no-bell.

--comment=<string>
An arbitrary comment.

-C, --constraint=<list>
Nodes can have features assigned to them by the Slurm administrator. Users can
specify which of these features are required by their job using the constraint
option. Only nodes having features matching the job constraints will be used to
satisfy the request. Multiple constraints may be specified with AND, OR, matching
OR, resource counts, etc. Supported constraint options include:

Single Name
Only nodes which have the specified feature will be used. For example,
--constraint="intel"

Node Count
A request can specify the number of nodes needed with some feature by
appending an asterisk and count after the feature name. For example
"--nodes=16 --constraint=graphics*4 ..." indicates that the job requires 16
nodes and that at least four of those nodes must have the feature
"graphics."

AND If only nodes with all of specified features will be used. The ampersand is
used for an AND operator. For example, --constraint="intel&gpu"

OR If only nodes with at least one of specified features will be used. The
vertical bar is used for an OR operator. For example,
--constraint="intel|amd"

Matching OR
If only one of a set of possible options should be used for all allocated
nodes, then use the OR operator and enclose the options within square
brackets. For example: "--constraint=[rack1|rack2|rack3|rack4]" might be
used to specify that all nodes must be allocated on a single rack of the
cluster, but any of those four racks can be used.

Multiple Counts
Specific counts of multiple resources may be specified by using the AND
operator and enclosing the options within square brackets. For example:
"--constraint=[rack1*2&rack2*4]" might be used to specify that two nodes
must be allocated from nodes with the feature of "rack1" and four nodes must
be allocated from nodes with the feature "rack2".

--contiguous
If set, then the allocated nodes must form a contiguous set. Not honored with the
topology/tree or topology/3d_torus plugins, both of which can modify the node
ordering.

--cores-per-socket=<cores>
Restrict node selection to nodes with at least the specified number of cores per
socket. See additional information under -B option above when task/affinity plugin
is enabled.

--cpu-freq =<p1[-p2[:p3]]>

Request that job steps initiated by srun commands inside this allocation be run at
some requested frequency if possible, on the CPUs selected for the step on the
compute node(s).

p1 can be [#### | low | medium | high | highm1] which will set the frequency
scaling_speed to the corresponding value, and set the frequency scaling_governor to
UserSpace. See below for definition of the values.

p1 can be [Conservative | OnDemand | Performance | PowerSave] which will set the
scaling_governor to the corresponding value. The governor has to be in the list set
by the slurm.conf option CpuFreqGovernors.

When p2 is present, p1 will be the minimum scaling frequency and p2 will be the
maximum scaling frequency.

p2 can be [#### | medium | high | highm1] p2 must be greater than p1.

p3 can be [Conservative | OnDemand | Performance | PowerSave | UserSpace] which
will set the governor to the corresponding value.

If p3 is UserSpace, the frequency scaling_speed will be set by a power or energy
aware scheduling strategy to a value between p1 and p2 that lets the job run within
the site's power goal. The job may be delayed if p1 is higher than a frequency that
allows the job to run withing the goal.

If the current frequency is < min, it will be set to min. Likewise, if the current
frequency is > max, it will be set to max.

Acceptable values at present include:

#### frequency in kilohertz

Low the lowest available frequency

High the highest available frequency

HighM1 (high minus one) will select the next highest available frequency

Medium attempts to set a frequency in the middle of the available range

Conservative attempts to use the Conservative CPU governor

OnDemand attempts to use the OnDemand CPU governor (the default value)

Performance attempts to use the Performance CPU governor

PowerSave attempts to use the PowerSave CPU governor

UserSpace attempts to use the UserSpace CPU governor

The following informational environment variable is set in the job
step when --cpu-freq option is requested.
SLURM_CPU_FREQ_REQ

This environment variable can also be used to supply the value for the CPU
frequency request if it is set when the 'srun' command is issued. The --cpu-freq
on the command line will override the environment variable value. The form on the
environment variable is the same as the command line. See the ENVIRONMENT
VARIABLES section for a description of the SLURM_CPU_FREQ_REQ variable.

NOTE: This parameter is treated as a request, not a requirement. If the job step's
node does not support setting the CPU frequency, or the requested value is outside
the bounds of the legal frequencies, an error is logged, but the job step is
allowed to continue.

NOTE: Setting the frequency for just the CPUs of the job step implies that the
tasks are confined to those CPUs. If task confinement (i.e.,
TaskPlugin=task/affinity or TaskPlugin=task/cgroup with the "ConstrainCores"
option) is not configured, this parameter is ignored.

NOTE: When the step completes, the frequency and governor of each selected CPU is
reset to the configured CpuFreqDef value with a default value of the OnDemand CPU
governor.

NOTE: When submitting jobs with the --cpu-freq option with linuxproc as the
ProctrackType can cause jobs to run too quickly before Accounting is able to poll
for job information. As a result not all of accounting information will be present.

-c, --cpus-per-task=<ncpus>
Advise the Slurm controller that ensuing job steps will require ncpus number of
processors per task. Without this option, the controller will just try to allocate
one processor per task.

For instance, consider an application that has 4 tasks, each requiring 3
processors. If our cluster is comprised of quad-processors nodes and we simply ask
for 12 processors, the controller might give us only 3 nodes. However, by using
the --cpus-per-task=3 options, the controller knows that each task requires 3
processors on the same node, and the controller will grant an allocation of 4
nodes, one for each of the 4 tasks.

-d, --dependency=<dependency_list>
Defer the start of this job until the specified dependencies have been satisfied
completed. <dependency_list> is of the form
<type:job_id[:job_id][,type:job_id[:job_id]]> or
<type:job_id[:job_id][?type:job_id[:job_id]]>. All dependencies must be satisfied
if the "," separator is used. Any dependency may be satisfied if the "?" separator
is used. Many jobs can share the same dependency and these jobs may even belong to
different users. The value may be changed after job submission using the scontrol
command. Once a job dependency fails due to the termination state of a preceding
job, the dependent job will never be run, even if the preceding job is requeued and
has a different termination state in a subsequent execution.

after:job_id[:jobid...]
This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have begun execution.

afterany:job_id[:jobid...]
This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have terminated.

afternotok:job_id[:jobid...]
This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have terminated in
some failed state (non-zero exit code, node failure, timed out, etc).

afterok:job_id[:jobid...]
This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have successfully
executed (ran to completion with an exit code of zero).

expand:job_id
Resources allocated to this job should be used to expand the specified job.
The job to expand must share the same QOS (Quality of Service) and
partition. Gang scheduling of resources in the partition is also not
supported.

singleton
This job can begin execution after any previously launched jobs sharing the
same job name and user have terminated.

-D, --chdir=<path>
Change directory to path before beginning execution. The path can be specified as
full path or relative path to the directory where the command is executed.

--exclusive[=user]
The job allocation can not share nodes with other running jobs (or just other users
with the "=user" option). The default shared/exclusive behavior depends on system
configuration and the partition's Shared option takes precedence over the job's
option.

-F, --nodefile=<node file>
Much like --nodelist, but the list is contained in a file of name node file. The
node names of the list may also span multiple lines in the file. Duplicate node
names in the file will be ignored. The order of the node names in the list is not
important; the node names will be sorted by Slurm.

--get-user-env[=timeout][mode]
This option will load login environment variables for the user specified in the
--uid option. The environment variables are retrieved by running something of this
sort "su - <username> -c /usr/bin/env" and parsing the output. Be aware that any
environment variables already set in salloc's environment will take precedence over
any environment variables in the user's login environment. The optional timeout
value is in seconds. Default value is 3 seconds. The optional mode value control
the "su" options. With a mode value of "S", "su" is executed without the "-"
option. With a mode value of "L", "su" is executed with the "-" option,
replicating the login environment. If mode not specified, the mode established at
Slurm build time is used. Example of use include "--get-user-env",
"--get-user-env=10" "--get-user-env=10L", and "--get-user-env=S". NOTE: This
option only works if the caller has an effective uid of "root". This option was
originally created for use by Moab.

--gid=<group>
Submit the job with the specified group's group access permissions. group may be
the group name or the numerical group ID. In the default Slurm configuration, this
option is only valid when used by the user root.

--gres=<list>
Specifies a comma delimited list of generic consumable resources. The format of
each entry on the list is "name[[:type]:count]". The name is that of the
consumable resource. The count is the number of those resources with a default
value of 1. The specified resources will be allocated to the job on each node.
The available generic consumable resources is configurable by the system
administrator. A list of available generic consumable resources will be printed
and the command will exit if the option argument is "help". Examples of use
include "--gres=gpu:2,mic=1", "--gres=gpu:kepler:2", and "--gres=help".

-H, --hold
Specify the job is to be submitted in a held state (priority of zero). A held job
can now be released using scontrol to reset its priority (e.g. "scontrol release
<job_id>").

-h, --help
Display help information and exit.

--hint=<type>
Bind tasks according to application hints.

compute_bound
Select settings for compute bound applications: use all cores in each
socket, one thread per core.

memory_bound
Select settings for memory bound applications: use only one core in each
socket, one thread per core.

[no]multithread
[don't] use extra threads with in-core multi-threading which can benefit
communication intensive applications. Only supported with the task/affinity
plugin.

help show this help message

-I, --immediate[=<seconds>]
exit if resources are not available within the time period specified. If no
argument is given, resources must be available immediately for the request to
succeed. By default, --immediate is off, and the command will block until
resources become available. Since this option's argument is optional, for proper
parsing the single letter option must be followed immediately with the value and
not include a space between them. For example "-I60" and not "-I 60".

-J, --job-name=<jobname>
Specify a name for the job allocation. The specified name will appear along with
the job id number when querying running jobs on the system. The default job name
is the name of the "command" specified on the command line.

--jobid=<jobid>
Allocate resources as the specified job id. NOTE: Only valid for user root.

-K, --kill-command[=signal]
salloc always runs a user-specified command once the allocation is granted. salloc
will wait indefinitely for that command to exit. If you specify the --kill-command
option salloc will send a signal to your command any time that the Slurm controller
tells salloc that its job allocation has been revoked. The job allocation can be
revoked for a couple of reasons: someone used scancel to revoke the allocation, or
the allocation reached its time limit. If you do not specify a signal name or
number and Slurm is configured to signal the spawned command at job termination,
the default signal is SIGHUP for interactive and SIGTERM for non-interactive
sessions. Since this option's argument is optional, for proper parsing the single
letter option must be followed immediately with the value and not include a space
between them. For example "-K1" and not "-K 1".

-k, --no-kill
Do not automatically terminate a job if one of the nodes it has been allocated
fails. The user will assume the responsibilities for fault-tolerance should a node
fail. When there is a node failure, any active job steps (usually MPI jobs) on
that node will almost certainly suffer a fatal error, but with --no-kill, the job
allocation will not be revoked so the user may launch new job steps on the
remaining nodes in their allocation.

By default Slurm terminates the entire job allocation if any node fails in its
range of allocated nodes.

-L, --licenses=<license>
Specification of licenses (or other resources available on all nodes of the
cluster) which must be allocated to this job. License names can be followed by a
colon and count (the default count is one). Multiple license names should be comma
separated (e.g. "--licenses=foo:4,bar").

-m, --distribution=
arbitrary|<block|cyclic|plane=<options>[:block|cyclic|fcyclic]>

Specify alternate distribution methods for remote processes. In salloc, this only
sets environment variables that will be used by subsequent srun requests. This
option controls the assignment of tasks to the nodes on which resources have been
allocated, and the distribution of those resources to tasks for binding (task
affinity). The first distribution method (before the ":") controls the distribution
of resources across nodes. The optional second distribution method (after the ":")
controls the distribution of resources across sockets within a node. Note that
with select/cons_res, the number of cpus allocated on each socket and node may be
different. Refer to http://slurm.schedmd.com/mc_support.html for more information
on resource allocation, assignment of tasks to nodes, and binding of tasks to CPUs.

First distribution method:

block The block distribution method will distribute tasks to a node such that
consecutive tasks share a node. For example, consider an allocation of three
nodes each with two cpus. A four-task block distribution request will
distribute those tasks to the nodes with tasks one and two on the first
node, task three on the second node, and task four on the third node. Block
distribution is the default behavior if the number of tasks exceeds the
number of allocated nodes.

cyclic The cyclic distribution method will distribute tasks to a node such that
consecutive tasks are distributed over consecutive nodes (in a round-robin
fashion). For example, consider an allocation of three nodes each with two
cpus. A four-task cyclic distribution request will distribute those tasks to
the nodes with tasks one and four on the first node, task two on the second
node, and task three on the third node. Note that when SelectType is
select/cons_res, the same number of CPUs may not be allocated on each node.
Task distribution will be round-robin among all the nodes with CPUs yet to
be assigned to tasks. Cyclic distribution is the default behavior if the
number of tasks is no larger than the number of allocated nodes.

plane The tasks are distributed in blocks of a specified size. The options
include a number representing the size of the task block. This is followed
by an optional specification of the task distribution scheme within a block
of tasks and between the blocks of tasks. The number of tasks distributed
to each node is the same as for cyclic distribution, but the taskids
assigned to each node depend on the plane size. For more details (including
examples and diagrams), please see
http://slurm.schedmd.com/mc_support.html
and
http://slurm.schedmd.com/dist_plane.html

arbitrary
The arbitrary method of distribution will allocate processes in-order as
listed in file designated by the environment variable SLURM_HOSTFILE. If
this variable is listed it will over ride any other method specified. If
not set the method will default to block. Inside the hostfile must contain
at minimum the number of hosts requested and be one per line or comma
separated. If specifying a task count (-n, --ntasks=<number>), your tasks
will be laid out on the nodes in the order of the file.
NOTE: The arbitrary distribution option on a job allocation only controls
the nodes to be allocated to the job and not the allocation of CPUs on those
nodes. This option is meant primarily to control a job step's task layout in
an existing job allocation for the srun command.

Second distribution method:

block The block distribution method will distribute tasks to sockets such that
consecutive tasks share a socket.

cyclic The cyclic distribution method will distribute tasks to sockets such that
consecutive tasks are distributed over consecutive sockets (in a round-robin
fashion). Tasks requiring more than one CPU will have all of those CPUs
allocated on a single socket if possible.

fcyclic
The fcyclic distribution method will distribute tasks to sockets such that
consecutive tasks are distributed over consecutive sockets (in a round-robin
fashion). Tasks requiring more than one CPU will have each CPUs allocated
in a cyclic fashion across sockets.

--mail-type=<type>
Notify user by email when certain event types occur. Valid type values are NONE,
BEGIN, END, FAIL, REQUEUE, ALL (equivalent to BEGIN, END, FAIL, REQUEUE, and
STAGE_OUT), STAGE_OUT (burst buffer stage out completed), TIME_LIMIT, TIME_LIMIT_90
(reached 90 percent of time limit), TIME_LIMIT_80 (reached 80 percent of time
limit), and TIME_LIMIT_50 (reached 50 percent of time limit). Multiple type values
may be specified in a comma separated list. The user to be notified is indicated
with --mail-user.

--mail-user=<user>
User to receive email notification of state changes as defined by --mail-type. The
default value is the submitting user.

--mem=<MB>
Specify the real memory required per node in MegaBytes. Default value is
DefMemPerNode and the maximum value is MaxMemPerNode. If configured, both of
parameters can be seen using the scontrol show config command. This parameter
would generally be used if whole nodes are allocated to jobs
(SelectType=select/linear). Also see --mem-per-cpu. --mem and --mem-per-cpu are
mutually exclusive. NOTE: A memory size specification is treated as a special case
and grants the job access to all of the memory on each node. NOTE: Enforcement of
memory limits currently relies upon the task/cgroup plugin or enabling of
accounting, which samples memory use on a periodic basis (data need not be stored,
just collected). In both cases memory use is based upon the job's Resident Set Size
(RSS). A task may exceed the memory limit until the next periodic accounting
sample.

--mem-per-cpu=<MB>
Mimimum memory required per allocated CPU in MegaBytes. Default value is
DefMemPerCPU and the maximum value is MaxMemPerCPU (see exception below). If
configured, both of parameters can be seen using the scontrol show config command.
Note that if the job's --mem-per-cpu value exceeds the configured MaxMemPerCPU,
then the user's limit will be treated as a memory limit per task; --mem-per-cpu
will be reduced to a value no larger than MaxMemPerCPU; --cpus-per-task will be set
and the value of --cpus-per-task multiplied by the new --mem-per-cpu value will
equal the original --mem-per-cpu value specified by the user. This parameter would
generally be used if individual processors are allocated to jobs
(SelectType=select/cons_res). If resources are allocated by the core, socket or
whole nodes; the number of CPUs allocated to a job may be higher than the task
count and the value of --mem-per-cpu should be adjusted accordingly. Also see
--mem. --mem and --mem-per-cpu are mutually exclusive.

--mem_bind=[{quiet,verbose},]type
Bind tasks to memory. Used only when the task/affinity plugin is enabled and the
NUMA memory functions are available. Note that the resolution of CPU and memory
binding may differ on some architectures. For example, CPU binding may be performed
at the level of the cores within a processor while memory binding will be performed
at the level of nodes, where the definition of "nodes" may differ from system to
system. The use of any type other than "none" or "local" is not recommended. If
you want greater control, try running a simple test code with the options
"--mem_bind=verbose,none" to determine the specific configuration.

NOTE: To have Slurm always report on the selected memory binding for all commands
executed in a shell, you can enable verbose mode by setting the SLURM_MEM_BIND
environment variable value to "verbose".

The following informational environment variables are set when --mem_bind is in
use:

SLURM_MEM_BIND_VERBOSE
SLURM_MEM_BIND_TYPE
SLURM_MEM_BIND_LIST

See the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section for a more detailed description of the
individual SLURM_MEM_BIND* variables.

Supported options include:

q[uiet]
quietly bind before task runs (default)

v[erbose]
verbosely report binding before task runs

no[ne] don't bind tasks to memory (default)

rank bind by task rank (not recommended)

local Use memory local to the processor in use

map_mem:<list>
bind by mapping a node's memory to tasks as specified where <list> is
<cpuid1>,<cpuid2>,...<cpuidN>. CPU IDs are interpreted as decimal values
unless they are preceded with '0x' in which case they interpreted as
hexadecimal values (not recommended)

mask_mem:<list>
bind by setting memory masks on tasks as specified where <list> is
<mask1>,<mask2>,...<maskN>. memory masks are always interpreted as
hexadecimal values. Note that masks must be preceded with a '0x' if they
don't begin with [0-9] so they are seen as numerical values by srun.

help show this help message

--mincpus=<n>
Specify a minimum number of logical cpus/processors per node.

-N, --nodes=<minnodes[-maxnodes]>
Request that a minimum of minnodes nodes be allocated to this job. A maximum node
count may also be specified with maxnodes. If only one number is specified, this
is used as both the minimum and maximum node count. The partition's node limits
supersede those of the job. If a job's node limits are outside of the range
permitted for its associated partition, the job will be left in a PENDING state.
This permits possible execution at a later time, when the partition limit is
changed. If a job node limit exceeds the number of nodes configured in the
partition, the job will be rejected. Note that the environment variable
SLURM_NNODES will be set to the count of nodes actually allocated to the job. See
the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section for more information. If -N is not specified,
the default behavior is to allocate enough nodes to satisfy the requirements of the
-n and -c options. The job will be allocated as many nodes as possible within the
range specified and without delaying the initiation of the job. The node count
specification may include a numeric value followed by a suffix of "k" (multiplies
numeric value by 1,024) or "m" (multiplies numeric value by 1,048,576).

-n, --ntasks=<number>
salloc does not launch tasks, it requests an allocation of resources and executed
some command. This option advises the Slurm controller that job steps run within
this allocation will launch a maximum of number tasks and sufficient resources are
allocated to accomplish this. The default is one task per node, but note that the
--cpus-per-task option will change this default.

--network=<type>
Specify information pertaining to the switch or network. The interpretation of
type is system dependent. This option is supported when running Slurm on a Cray
natively. It is used to request using Network Performace Counters. Only one value
per request is valid. All options are case in-sensitive. In this configuration
supported values include:

system
Use the system-wide network performance counters. Only nodes requested will
be marked in use for the job allocation. If the job does not fill up the
entire system the rest of the nodes are not able to be used by other jobs
using NPC, if idle their state will appear as PerfCnts. These nodes are
still available for other jobs not using NPC.

blade Use the blade network performance counters. Only nodes requested will be
marked in use for the job allocation. If the job does not fill up the entire
blade(s) allocated to the job those blade(s) are not able to be used by other
jobs using NPC, if idle their state will appear as PerfCnts. These nodes are
still available for other jobs not using NPC.

In all cases the job allocation request must specify the
--exclusive option. Otherwise the request will be denied.

Also with any of these options steps are not allowed to share blades, so resources
would remain idle inside an allocation if the step running on a blade does not take
up all the nodes on the blade.

The network option is also supported on systems with IBM's Parallel Environment
(PE). See IBM's LoadLeveler job command keyword documentation about the keyword
"network" for more information. Multiple values may be specified in a comma
separated list. All options are case in-sensitive. Supported values include:

BULK_XFER[=<resources>]
Enable bulk transfer of data using Remote Direct-Memory Access (RDMA).
The optional resources specification is a numeric value which can have
a suffix of "k", "K", "m", "M", "g" or "G" for kilobytes, megabytes or
gigabytes. NOTE: The resources specification is not supported by the
underlying IBM infrastructure as of Parallel Environment version 2.2
and no value should be specified at this time.

CAU=<count> Number of Collectve Acceleration Units (CAU) required. Applies only to
IBM Power7-IH processors. Default value is zero. Independent CAU will
be allocated for each programming interface (MPI, LAPI, etc.)

DEVNAME=<name>
Specify the device name to use for communications (e.g. "eth0" or
"mlx4_0").

DEVTYPE=<type>
Specify the device type to use for communications. The supported
values of type are: "IB" (InfiniBand), "HFI" (P7 Host Fabric
Interface), "IPONLY" (IP-Only interfaces), "HPCE" (HPC Ethernet), and
"KMUX" (Kernel Emulation of HPCE). The devices allocated to a job must
all be of the same type. The default value depends upon depends upon
what hardware is available and in order of preferences is IPONLY (which
is not considered in User Space mode), HFI, IB, HPCE, and KMUX.

IMMED =<count>
Number of immediate send slots per window required. Applies only to
IBM Power7-IH processors. Default value is zero.

INSTANCES =<count>
Specify number of network connections for each task on each network
connection. The default instance count is 1.

IPV4 Use Internet Protocol (IP) version 4 communications (default).

IPV6 Use Internet Protocol (IP) version 6 communications.

LAPI Use the LAPI programming interface.

MPI Use the MPI programming interface. MPI is the default interface.

PAMI Use the PAMI programming interface.

SHMEM Use the OpenSHMEM programming interface.

SN_ALL Use all available switch networks (default).

SN_SINGLE Use one available switch network.

UPC Use the UPC programming interface.

US Use User Space communications.

Some examples of network specifications:

Instances=2,US,MPI,SN_ALL
Create two user space connections for MPI communications on every
switch network for each task.

US,MPI,Instances=3,Devtype=IB
Create three user space connections for MPI communications on every
InfiniBand network for each task.

IPV4,LAPI,SN_Single
Create a IP version 4 connection for LAPI communications on one switch
network for each task.

Instances=2,US,LAPI,MPI
Create two user space connections each for LAPI and MPI communications
on every switch network for each task. Note that SN_ALL is the default
option so every switch network is used. Also note that Instances=2
specifies that two connections are established for each protocol (LAPI
and MPI) and each task. If there are two networks and four tasks on
the node then a total of 32 connections are established (2 instances x
2 protocols x 2 networks x 4 tasks).

--nice[=adjustment]
Run the job with an adjusted scheduling priority within Slurm. With no adjustment
value the scheduling priority is decreased by 100. The adjustment range is from
-10000 (highest priority) to 10000 (lowest priority). Only privileged users can
specify a negative adjustment. NOTE: This option is presently ignored if
SchedulerType=sched/wiki or SchedulerType=sched/wiki2.

--ntasks-per-core=<ntasks>
Request the maximum ntasks be invoked on each core. Meant to be used with the
--ntasks option. Related to --ntasks-per-node except at the core level instead of
the node level. NOTE: This option is not supported unless
SelectTypeParameters=CR_Core or SelectTypeParameters=CR_Core_Memory is configured.

--ntasks-per-socket=<ntasks>
Request the maximum ntasks be invoked on each socket. Meant to be used with the
--ntasks option. Related to --ntasks-per-node except at the socket level instead
of the node level. NOTE: This option is not supported unless
SelectTypeParameters=CR_Socket or SelectTypeParameters=CR_Socket_Memory is
configured.

--ntasks-per-node=<ntasks>
Request that ntasks be invoked on each node. If used with the --ntasks option, the
--ntasks option will take precedence and the --ntasks-per-node will be treated as a
maximum count of tasks per node. Meant to be used with the --nodes option. This
is related to --cpus-per-task=ncpus, but does not require knowledge of the actual
number of cpus on each node. In some cases, it is more convenient to be able to
request that no more than a specific number of tasks be invoked on each node.
Examples of this include submitting a hybrid MPI/OpenMP app where only one MPI
"task/rank" should be assigned to each node while allowing the OpenMP portion to
utilize all of the parallelism present in the node, or submitting a single
setup/cleanup/monitoring job to each node of a pre-existing allocation as one step
in a larger job script.

--no-bell
Silence salloc's use of the terminal bell. Also see the option --bell.

--no-shell
immediately exit after allocating resources, without running a command. However,
the Slurm job will still be created and will remain active and will own the
allocated resources as long as it is active. You will have a Slurm job id with no
associated processes or tasks. You can submit srun commands against this resource
allocation, if you specify the --jobid= option with the job id of this Slurm job.
Or, this can be used to temporarily reserve a set of resources so that other jobs
cannot use them for some period of time. (Note that the Slurm job is subject to
the normal constraints on jobs, including time limits, so that eventually the job
will terminate and the resources will be freed, or you can terminate the job
manually using the scancel command.)

-O, --overcommit
Overcommit resources. When applied to job allocation, only one CPU is allocated to
the job per node and options used to specify the number of tasks per node, socket,
core, etc. are ignored. When applied to job step allocations (the srun command
when executed within an existing job allocation), this option can be used to launch
more than one task per CPU. Normally, srun will not allocate more than one process
per CPU. By specifying --overcommit you are explicitly allowing more than one
process per CPU. However no more than MAX_TASKS_PER_NODE tasks are permitted to
execute per node. NOTE: MAX_TASKS_PER_NODE is defined in the file slurm.h and is
not a variable, it is set at Slurm build time.

--power=<flags>
Comma separated list of power management plugin options. Currently available flags
include: level (all nodes allocated to the job should have identical power caps,
may be disabled by the Slurm configuration option PowerParameters=job_no_level).

--priority=<value>
Request a specific job priority. May be subject to configuration specific
constraints. Only Slurm operators and administrators can set the priority of a
job.

--profile=<all|none|[energy[,|task[,|lustre[,|network]]]]>
enables detailed data collection by the acct_gather_profile plugin. Detailed data
are typically time-series that are stored in an HDF5 file for the job.

All All data types are collected. (Cannot be combined with other values.)

None No data types are collected. This is the default.
(Cannot be combined with other values.)

Energy Energy data is collected.

Task Task (I/O, Memory, ...) data is collected.

Lustre Lustre data is collected.

Network Network (InfiniBand) data is collected.

-p, --partition=<partition_names>
Request a specific partition for the resource allocation. If not specified, the
default behavior is to allow the slurm controller to select the default partition
as designated by the system administrator. If the job can use more than one
partition, specify their names in a comma separate list and the one offering
earliest initiation will be used with no regard given to the partition name
ordering (although higher priority partitions will be considered first). When the
job is initiated, the name of the partition used will be placed first in the job
record partition string.

-Q, --quiet
Suppress informational messages from salloc. Errors will still be displayed.

--qos=<qos>
Request a quality of service for the job. QOS values can be defined for each
user/cluster/account association in the Slurm database. Users will be limited to
their association's defined set of qos's when the Slurm configuration parameter,
AccountingStorageEnforce, includes "qos" in it's definition.

--reboot
Force the allocated nodes to reboot before starting the job. This is only
supported with some system configurations and will otherwise be silently ignored.

--reservation=<name>
Allocate resources for the job from the named reservation.

-s, --share
The job allocation can share resources with other running jobs. The resources to
be shared can be nodes, sockets, cores, or hyperthreads depending upon
configuration. The default shared behavior depends on system configuration and the
partition's Shared option takes precedence over the job's option. This option may
result in the allocation being granted sooner than if the --share option was not
set and allow higher system utilization, but application performance will likely
suffer due to competition for resources. Also see the --exclusive option.

-S, --core-spec=<num>
Count of specialized cores per node reserved by the job for system operations and
not used by the application. The application will not use these cores, but will be
charged for their allocation. Default value is dependent upon the node's
configured CoreSpecCount value. If a value of zero is designated and the Slurm
configuration option AllowSpecResourcesUsage is enabled, the job will be allowed to
override CoreSpecCount and use the specialized resources on nodes it is allocated.
This option can not be used with the --thread-spec option.

--sicp Identify a job as one which jobs submitted to other clusters can be dependent upon.

--signal=<sig_num>[@<sig_time>]
When a job is within sig_time seconds of its end time, send it the signal sig_num.
Due to the resolution of event handling by Slurm, the signal may be sent up to 60
seconds earlier than specified. sig_num may either be a signal number or name
(e.g. "10" or "USR1"). sig_time must have an integer value between 0 and 65535.
By default, no signal is sent before the job's end time. If a sig_num is specified
without any sig_time, the default time will be 60 seconds.

--sockets-per-node=<sockets>
Restrict node selection to nodes with at least the specified number of sockets.
See additional information under -B option above when task/affinity plugin is
enabled.

--switches=<count>[@<max-time>]
When a tree topology is used, this defines the maximum count of switches desired
for the job allocation and optionally the maximum time to wait for that number of
switches. If Slurm finds an allocation containing more switches than the count
specified, the job remains pending until it either finds an allocation with desired
switch count or the time limit expires. It there is no switch count limit, there
is no delay in starting the job. Acceptable time formats include "minutes",
"minutes:seconds", "hours:minutes:seconds", "days-hours", "days-hours:minutes" and
"days-hours:minutes:seconds". The job's maximum time delay may be limited by the
system administrator using the SchedulerParameters configuration parameter with the
max_switch_wait parameter option. The default max-time is the max_switch_wait
SchedulerParameters.

-t, --time=<time>
Set a limit on the total run time of the job allocation. If the requested time
limit exceeds the partition's time limit, the job will be left in a PENDING state
(possibly indefinitely). The default time limit is the partition's default time
limit. When the time limit is reached, each task in each job step is sent SIGTERM
followed by SIGKILL. The interval between signals is specified by the Slurm
configuration parameter KillWait. The OverTimeLimit configuration parameter may
permit the job to run longer than scheduled. Time resolution is one minute and
second values are rounded up to the next minute.

A time limit of zero requests that no time limit be imposed. Acceptable time
formats include "minutes", "minutes:seconds", "hours:minutes:seconds",
"days-hours", "days-hours:minutes" and "days-hours:minutes:seconds".

--thread-spec=<num>
Count of specialized threads per node reserved by the job for system operations and
not used by the application. The application will not use these threads, but will
be charged for their allocation. This option can not be used with the --core-spec
option.

--threads-per-core=<threads>
Restrict node selection to nodes with at least the specified number of threads per
core. NOTE: "Threads" refers to the number of processing units on each core rather
than the number of application tasks to be launched per core. See additional
information under -B option above when task/affinity plugin is enabled.

--time-min=<time>
Set a minimum time limit on the job allocation. If specified, the job may have
it's --time limit lowered to a value no lower than --time-min if doing so permits
the job to begin execution earlier than otherwise possible. The job's time limit
will not be changed after the job is allocated resources. This is performed by a
backfill scheduling algorithm to allocate resources otherwise reserved for higher
priority jobs. Acceptable time formats include "minutes", "minutes:seconds",
"hours:minutes:seconds", "days-hours", "days-hours:minutes" and
"days-hours:minutes:seconds".

--tmp=<MB>
Specify a minimum amount of temporary disk space.

-u, --usage
Display brief help message and exit.

--uid=<user>
Attempt to submit and/or run a job as user instead of the invoking user id. The
invoking user's credentials will be used to check access permissions for the target
partition. This option is only valid for user root. This option may be used by user
root may use this option to run jobs as a normal user in a RootOnly partition for
example. If run as root, salloc will drop its permissions to the uid specified
after node allocation is successful. user may be the user name or numerical user
ID.

-V, --version
Display version information and exit.

-v, --verbose
Increase the verbosity of salloc's informational messages. Multiple -v's will
further increase salloc's verbosity. By default only errors will be displayed.

-w, --nodelist=<node name list>
Request a specific list of hosts. The job will contain all of these hosts and
possibly additional hosts as needed to satisfy resource requirements. The list may
be specified as a comma-separated list of hosts, a range of hosts (host[1-5,7,...]
for example), or a filename. The host list will be assumed to be a filename if it
contains a "/" character. If you specify a minimum node or processor count larger
than can be satisfied by the supplied host list, additional resources will be
allocated on other nodes as needed. Duplicate node names in the list will be
ignored. The order of the node names in the list is not important; the node names
will be sorted by Slurm.

--wait-all-nodes=<value>
Controls when the execution of the command begins. By default the job will begin
execution as soon as the allocation is made.

0 Begin execution as soon as allocation can be made. Do not wait for all nodes
to be ready for use (i.e. booted).

1 Do not begin execution until all nodes are ready for use.

--wckey=<wckey>
Specify wckey to be used with job. If TrackWCKey=no (default) in the slurm.conf
this value is ignored.

-x, --exclude=<node name list>
Explicitly exclude certain nodes from the resources granted to the job.

The following options support Blue Gene systems, but may be applicable to other systems as
well.

--blrts-image=<path>
Path to blrts image for bluegene block. BGL only. Default from blugene.conf if
not set.

--cnload-image=<path>
Path to compute node image for bluegene block. BGP only. Default from
blugene.conf if not set.

--conn-type=<type>
Require the block connection type to be of a certain type. On Blue Gene the
acceptable of type are MESH, TORUS and NAV. If NAV, or if not set, then Slurm will
try to fit a what the DefaultConnType is set to in the bluegene.conf if that isn't
set the default is TORUS. You should not normally set this option. If running on
a BGP system and wanting to run in HTC mode (only for 1 midplane and below). You
can use HTC_S for SMP, HTC_D for Dual, HTC_V for virtual node mode, and HTC_L for
Linux mode. For systems that allow a different connection type per dimension you
can supply a comma separated list of connection types may be specified, one for
each dimension (i.e. M,T,T,T will give you a torus connection is all dimensions
expect the first).

-g, --geometry=<XxYxZ> | <AxXxYxZ>
Specify the geometry requirements for the job. On BlueGene/L and BlueGene/P systems
there are three numbers giving dimensions in the X, Y and Z directions, while on
BlueGene/Q systems there are four numbers giving dimensions in the A, X, Y and Z
directions and can not be used to allocate sub-blocks. For example
"--geometry=1x2x3x4", specifies a block of nodes having 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 = 24 nodes
(actually midplanes on BlueGene).

--ioload-image=<path>
Path to io image for bluegene block. BGP only. Default from blugene.conf if not
set.

--linux-image=<path>
Path to linux image for bluegene block. BGL only. Default from blugene.conf if
not set.

--mloader-image=<path>
Path to mloader image for bluegene block. Default from blugene.conf if not set.

-R, --no-rotate
Disables rotation of the job's requested geometry in order to fit an appropriate
block. By default the specified geometry can rotate in three dimensions.

--ramdisk-image=<path>
Path to ramdisk image for bluegene block. BGL only. Default from blugene.conf if
not set.

INPUT ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

Upon startup, salloc will read and handle the options set in the following environment
variables. Note: Command line options always override environment variables settings.

SALLOC_ACCOUNT Same as -A, --account

SALLOC_ACCTG_FREQ Same as --acctg-freq

SALLOC_BELL Same as --bell

SALLOC_BURST_BUFFER Same as --bb

SALLOC_CONN_TYPE Same as --conn-type

SALLOC_CORE_SPEC Same as --core-spec

SALLOC_DEBUG Same as -v, --verbose

SALLOC_EXCLUSIVE Same as --exclusive

SALLOC_GEOMETRY Same as -g, --geometry

SALLOC_HINT or SLURM_HINT
Same as --hint

SALLOC_IMMEDIATE Same as -I, --immediate

SALLOC_JOBID Same as --jobid

SALLOC_KILL_CMD Same as -K, --kill-command

SALLOC_MEM_BIND Same as --mem_bind

SALLOC_NETWORK Same as --network

SALLOC_NO_BELL Same as --no-bell

SALLOC_NO_ROTATE Same as -R, --no-rotate

SALLOC_OVERCOMMIT Same as -O, --overcommit

SALLOC_PARTITION Same as -p, --partition

SALLOC_POWER Same as --power

SALLOC_PROFILE Same as --profile

SALLOC_QOS Same as --qos

SALLOC_REQ_SWITCH When a tree topology is used, this defines the maximum count of
switches desired for the job allocation and optionally the maximum
time to wait for that number of switches. See --switches.

SALLOC_RESERVATION Same as --reservation

SALLOC_SICP Same as --sicp

SALLOC_SIGNAL Same as --signal

SALLOC_THREAD_SPEC Same as --thread-spec

SALLOC_TIMELIMIT Same as -t, --time

SALLOC_WAIT_ALL_NODES Same as --wait-all-nodes

SALLOC_WCKEY Same as --wckey

SALLOC_WAIT4SWITCH Max time waiting for requested switches. See --switches

SLURM_CONF The location of the Slurm configuration file.

SLURM_EXIT_ERROR Specifies the exit code generated when a Slurm error occurs (e.g.
invalid options). This can be used by a script to distinguish
application exit codes from various Slurm error conditions. Also
see SLURM_EXIT_IMMEDIATE.

SLURM_EXIT_IMMEDIATE Specifies the exit code generated when the --immediate option is
used and resources are not currently available. This can be used by
a script to distinguish application exit codes from various Slurm
error conditions. Also see SLURM_EXIT_ERROR.

OUTPUT ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

salloc will set the following environment variables in the environment of the executed
program:

BASIL_RESERVATION_ID
The reservation ID on Cray systems running ALPS/BASIL only.

SLURM_CLUSTER_NAME
Name of the cluster on which the job is executing.

MPIRUN_NOALLOCATE
Do not allocate a block on Blue Gene L/P systems only.

MPIRUN_NOFREE
Do not free a block on Blue Gene L/P systems only.

MPIRUN_PARTITION
The block name on Blue Gene systems only.

SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK
Number of cpus requested per task. Only set if the --cpus-per-task option is
specified.

SLURM_DISTRIBUTION
Same as -m, --distribution

SLURM_JOB_ID (and SLURM_JOBID for backwards compatibility)
The ID of the job allocation.

SLURM_JOB_CPUS_PER_NODE
Count of processors available to the job on this node. Note the select/linear
plugin allocates entire nodes to jobs, so the value indicates the total count of
CPUs on each node. The select/cons_res plugin allocates individual processors to
jobs, so this number indicates the number of processors on each node allocated to
the job allocation.

SLURM_JOB_NODELIST (and SLURM_NODELIST for backwards compatibility)
List of nodes allocated to the job.

SLURM_JOB_NUM_NODES (and SLURM_NNODES for backwards compatibility)
Total number of nodes in the job allocation.

SLURM_JOB_PARTITION
Name of the partition in which the job is running.

SLURM_MEM_BIND
Set to value of the --mem_bind option.

SLURM_SUBMIT_DIR
The directory from which salloc was invoked.

SLURM_SUBMIT_HOST
The hostname of the computer from which salloc was invoked.

SLURM_NODE_ALIASES
Sets of node name, communication address and hostname for nodes allocated to the
job from the cloud. Each element in the set if colon separated and each set is
comma separated. For example: SLURM_NODE_ALIASES=ec0:1.2.3.4:foo,ec1:1.2.3.5:bar

SLURM_NTASKS
Same as -n, --ntasks

SLURM_NTASKS_PER_NODE
Set to value of the --ntasks-per-node option, if specified.

SLURM_PROFILE
Same as --profile

SLURM_TASKS_PER_NODE
Number of tasks to be initiated on each node. Values are comma separated and in the
same order as SLURM_NODELIST. If two or more consecutive nodes are to have the
same task count, that count is followed by "(x#)" where "#" is the repetition
count. For example, "SLURM_TASKS_PER_NODE=2(x3),1" indicates that the first three
nodes will each execute three tasks and the fourth node will execute one task.

SIGNALS

While salloc is waiting for a PENDING job allocation, most signals will cause salloc to
revoke the allocation request and exit.

However if the allocation has been granted and salloc has already started the specified
command, then salloc will ignore most signals. salloc will not exit or release the
allocation until the command exits. One notable exception is SIGHUP. A SIGHUP signal will
cause salloc to release the allocation and exit without waiting for the command to finish.
Another exception is SIGTERM, which will be forwarded to the spawned process.

EXAMPLES

To get an allocation, and open a new xterm in which srun commands may be typed
interactively:

$ salloc -N16 xterm
salloc: Granted job allocation 65537
(at this point the xterm appears, and salloc waits for xterm to exit)
salloc: Relinquishing job allocation 65537

To grab an allocation of nodes and launch a parallel application on one command line (See
the salloc man page for more examples):

salloc -N5 srun -n10 myprogram

COPYING

Copyright (C) 2006-2007 The Regents of the University of California. Produced at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory (cf, DISCLAIMER).
Copyright (C) 2008-2010 Lawrence Livermore National Security.
Copyright (C) 2010-2015 SchedMD LLC.

This file is part of Slurm, a resource management program. For details, see
<http://slurm.schedmd.com/>.

Slurm is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Slurm is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without
even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

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