Slurm system overview.
The Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management (SLURM) is an open source, fault-tolerant, and highly scalable cluster management and job scheduling system for large and small Linux clusters. SLURM requires no kernel modifications for its operation and is relatively self-contained. As a cluster resource manager, SLURM has three key functions. First, it allocates exclusive and/or non-exclusive access to resources (compute nodes) to users for some duration of time so they can perform work. Second, it provides a framework for starting, executing, and monitoring work (normally a parallel job) on the set of allocated nodes. Finally, it arbitrates contention for resources by managing a queue of pending work. Optional plugins can be used for accounting, advanced reservation, gang scheduling (time sharing for parallel jobs), backfill scheduling, resource limits by user or bank account, and sophisticated multifactor job prioritization algorithms.
SLURM has a centralized manager, slurmctld, to monitor resources and work. There may also be a backup manager to assume those responsibilities in the event of failure. Each compute server (node) has a slurmd daemon, which can be compared to a remote shell: it waits for work, executes that work, returns status, and waits for more work. An optional slurmDBD (SLURM DataBase Daemon) can be used for accounting purposes and to maintain resource limit information.
Basic user tools include srun to initiate jobs, scancel to terminate queued or running jobs, sinfo to report system status, and squeue to report the status of jobs. There is also an administrative tool scontrol available to monitor and/or modify configuration and state information. APIs are available for all functions.
SLURM configuration is maintained in the slurm.conf file.
Man pages are available for all SLURM commands, daemons, APIs, plus the slurm.conf file. Extensive documentation is also available on the internet at <http://slurm.schedmd.com/>.
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 The Regents of the University of California. Produced at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (cf, DISCLAIMER).
Copyright (C) 2008-2009 Lawrence Livermore National Security.
Copyright (C) 2010-2013 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.
sacct(1), sacctmgr(1), salloc(1), sattach(1), sbatch(1), sbcast(1), scancel(1), scontrol(1), sinfo(1), smap(1), squeue(1), sreport(1), srun(1), sshare(1), sstate(1), strigger(1), sview(1), bluegene.conf(5), slurm.conf(5), slurmdbd.conf(5), wiki.conf(5), slurmctld(8), slurmd(8), slurmdbd(8), slurmstepd(8), spank(8)