Provided by: slurm-client_23.02.3-2ubuntu1_amd64 bug

NAME

       SPANK - Slurm Plug-in Architecture for Node and job (K)control

DESCRIPTION

       This  manual briefly describes the capabilities of the Slurm Plug-in Architecture for Node
       and  job  Kontrol  (SPANK)  as  well  as  the  SPANK  configuration  file:  (By   default:
       plugstack.conf.)

       SPANK  provides  a  very  generic  interface  for  stackable plug-ins which may be used to
       dynamically modify the job launch code in Slurm. SPANK plugins may be built without access
       to  Slurm  source  code.  They  need only be compiled against Slurm's spank.h header file,
       added to the SPANK config file plugstack.conf, and they will be loaded at  runtime  during
       the  next  job  launch.  Thus,  the SPANK infrastructure provides administrators and other
       developers a low cost, low effort ability to dynamically modify the  runtime  behavior  of
       Slurm job launch.

       NOTE:  All SPANK plugins should be recompiled when upgrading Slurm to a new major release.
       The SPANK API is not guaranteed to be ABI compatible between  major  releases.  Any  SPANK
       plugin linking to any of the Slurm libraries should be carefully checked as the Slurm APIs
       and headers can change between major releases.

SPANK PLUGINS

       SPANK plugins are loaded in up to five separate contexts during a Slurm job. Briefly,  the
       five contexts are:

       local   In  local  context,  the  plugin  is  loaded  by srun. (i.e. the "local" part of a
               parallel job).

       remote  In remote context, the plugin is loaded by slurmstepd. (i.e. the "remote" part  of
               a parallel job).

       allocator
               In  allocator context, the plugin is loaded in one of the job allocation utilities
               salloc, sbatch or scrontab.

       slurmd  In slurmd context, the plugin is loaded in the slurmd daemon itself. Note: Plugins
               loaded  in  slurmd  context  persist  for the entire time slurmd is running, so if
               configuration is changed or plugins are updated, slurmd must be restarted for  the
               changes to take effect.

       job_script
               In  the job_script context, plugins are loaded in the context of the job prolog or
               epilog. Note: Plugins are loaded in job_script context on  each  run  on  the  job
               prolog or epilog, in a separate address space from plugins in slurmd context. This
               means there is no state shared between this context and other  contexts,  or  even
               between   one   call   to  slurm_spank_job_prolog  or  slurm_spank_job_epilog  and
               subsequent calls.

       In local context, only the init, exit, init_post_opt, and  local_user_init  functions  are
       called. In allocator context, only the init, exit, and init_post_opt functions are called.
       Similarly, in slurmd context, only the init and slurmd_exit callbacks are active,  and  in
       the  job_script  context,  only the job_prolog and job_epilog callbacks are used.  Plugins
       may query the context in which they are running with the  spank_context  and  spank_remote
       functions defined in <slurm/spank.h>.

       SPANK plugins may be called from multiple points during the Slurm job launch. A plugin may
       define the following functions:

       slurm_spank_init
         Called just after plugins are loaded. In remote context, this is just after job step  is
         initialized. This function is called before any plugin option processing.

       slurm_spank_job_prolog
         Called at the same time as the job prolog. If this function returns a non-zero value and
         the SPANK plugin that contains it is required in the plugstack.conf, the node that  this
         is run on will be drained.

       slurm_spank_init_post_opt
         Called  at  the same point as slurm_spank_init, but after all user options to the plugin
         have been processed. The reason that the init and init_post_opt callbacks are  separated
         is  so  that  plugins can process system-wide options specified in plugstack.conf in the
         init  callback,  then  process  user  options,  and  finally   take   some   action   in
         slurm_spank_init_post_opt   if   necessary.    In  the  case  of  a  heterogeneous  job,
         slurm_spank_init is invoked once per job component.

       slurm_spank_local_user_init
         Called in local (srun) context only after all options  have  been  processed.   This  is
         called  after  the  job  ID  and step IDs are available.  This happens in srun after the
         allocation is made, but before tasks are launched.

       slurm_spank_user_init
         Called after privileges are temporarily dropped. (remote context only)

       slurm_spank_task_init_privileged
         Called for each task just after fork, but before all elevated  privileges  are  dropped.
         (remote context only)

       slurm_spank_task_init
         Called for each task just before execve (2). If you are restricting memory with cgroups,
         memory allocated here will be in the job's cgroup. (remote context only)

       slurm_spank_task_post_fork
         Called for each task from parent process after fork (2) is complete.  Due  to  the  fact
         that  slurmd  does not exec any tasks until all tasks have completed fork (2), this call
         is guaranteed to run before the user task is executed. (remote context only)

       slurm_spank_task_exit
         Called for each task as its exit status is collected by Slurm.  (remote context only)

       slurm_spank_exit
         Called once just before slurmstepd exits in remote context.  In  local  context,  called
         before srun exits.

       slurm_spank_job_epilog
         Called at the same time as the job epilog. If this function returns a non-zero value and
         the SPANK plugin that contains it is required in the plugstack.conf, the node that  this
         is run on will be drained.

       slurm_spank_slurmd_exit
         Called in slurmd when the daemon is shut down.

       All of these functions have the same prototype, for example:
          int slurm_spank_init (spank_t spank, int ac, char *argv[])

       Where  spank  is the SPANK handle which must be passed back to Slurm when the plugin calls
       functions like spank_get_item and spank_getenv. Configured  arguments  (See  CONFIGURATION
       below) are passed in the argument vector argv with argument count ac.

       SPANK  plugins can query the current list of supported slurm_spank symbols to determine if
       the current version supports a given plugin hook.  This may be useful because the list  of
       plugin  symbols may grow in the future. The query is done using the spank_symbol_supported
       function, which has the following prototype:
           int spank_symbol_supported (const char *sym);

       The return value is 1 if the symbol is supported, 0 if not.

       SPANK plugins do not have direct access  to  internally  defined  Slurm  data  structures.
       Instead,  information about the currently executing job is obtained via the spank_get_item
       function call.
         spank_err_t spank_get_item (spank_t spank, spank_item_t item, ...);

       The spank_get_item call must be passed the current  SPANK  handle  as  well  as  the  item
       requested,  which  is  defined  by  the  passed spank_item_t. A variable number of pointer
       arguments are also passed, depending on which item was requested by the plugin. A list  of
       the valid values for item is kept in the spank.h header file. Some examples are:

       S_JOB_UID
         User id for running job. (uid_t *) is third arg of spank_get_item

       S_JOB_STEPID
         Job step id for running job. (uint32_t *) is third arg of spank_get_item.

       S_TASK_EXIT_STATUS
         Exit  status  for  exited task. Only valid from slurm_spank_task_exit.  (int *) is third
         arg of spank_get_item.

       S_JOB_ARGV
         Complete job command line. Third and fourth args to  spank_get_item  are  (int  *,  char
         ***).

       See spank.h for more details.

       SPANK  functions in the local and allocator environment should use the getenv, setenv, and
       unsetenv functions to view and modify the  job's  environment.   SPANK  functions  in  the
       remote environment should use the spank_getenv, spank_setenv, and spank_unsetenv functions
       to view and modify the job's environment. spank_getenv searches the job's environment  for
       the environment variable var and copies the current value into a buffer buf of length len.
       spank_setenv allows  a  SPANK  plugin  to  set  or  overwrite  a  variable  in  the  job's
       environment,  and  spank_unsetenv unsets an environment variable in the job's environment.
       The prototypes are:
        spank_err_t spank_getenv (spank_t spank, const char *var,
                            char *buf, int len);
        spank_err_t spank_setenv (spank_t spank, const char *var,
                            const char *val, int overwrite);
        spank_err_t spank_unsetenv (spank_t spank, const char *var);

       These are only necessary in remote context since modifications  of  the  standard  process
       environment using setenv (3), getenv (3), and unsetenv (3) may be used in local context.

       Functions  are  also  available  from  within  the  SPANK plugins to establish environment
       variables to be exported to the Slurm PrologSlurmctld, Prolog, Epilog and  EpilogSlurmctld
       programs  (the  so-called  job  control  environment).   The name of environment variables
       established by these calls will be prepended with the string SPANK_ in order to avoid  any
       security  implications  of  arbitrary  environment  variable  control. (After all, the job
       control scripts do run as root or the Slurm user.).

       These functions are available from local context only.
         spank_err_t spank_job_control_getenv(spank_t spank, const char *var,
                              char *buf, int len);
         spank_err_t spank_job_control_setenv(spank_t spank, const char *var,
                              const char *val, int overwrite);
         spank_err_t spank_job_control_unsetenv(spank_t spank, const char *var);

       See spank.h for more information.

       Many of the  described  SPANK  functions  available  to  plugins  return  errors  via  the
       spank_err_t  error type. On success, the return value will be set to ESPANK_SUCCESS, while
       on failure, the return value  will  be  set  to  one  of  many  error  values  defined  in
       slurm/spank.h. The SPANK interface provides a simple function
         const char * spank_strerror(spank_err_t err);
       which may be used to translate a spank_err_t value into its string representation.

       The  slurm_spank_log  function  can be used to print messages back to the user at an error
       level.  This is to keep users from having to rely on the slurm_error function,  which  can
       be confusing because it prepends "error:" to every message.

SPANK OPTIONS

       SPANK plugins also have an interface through which they may define and implement extra job
       options. These options are made available to the  user  through  Slurm  commands  such  as
       srun(1),  salloc(1),  and  sbatch(1). If the option is specified by the user, its value is
       forwarded and registered with the plugin in slurmd when the job  is  run.   In  this  way,
       SPANK plugins may dynamically provide new options and functionality to Slurm.

       Each  option registered by a plugin to Slurm takes the form of a struct spank_option which
       is declared in <slurm/spank.h> as
          struct spank_option {
             char *         name;
             char *         arginfo;
             char *         usage;
             int            has_arg;
             int            val;
             spank_opt_cb_f cb;
          };

       Where

       name   is the name of the option. Its length is limited to SPANK_OPTION_MAXLEN defined  in
              <slurm/spank.h>.

       arginfo
              is  a  description  of  the  argument  to  the  option,  if the option does take an
              argument.

       usage  is a short description of the option suitable for --help output.

       has_arg
              0 if option takes no argument, 1 if option takes an argument, and 2 if  the  option
              takes an optional argument. (See getopt_long (3)).

       val    A plugin-local value to return to the option callback function.

       cb     A  callback  function  that  is  invoked  when the plugin option is registered with
              Slurm. spank_opt_cb_f is typedef'd in <slurm/spank.h> as

                typedef int (*spank_opt_cb_f) (int val, const char *optarg,
                                         int remote);
              Where val is the value of the val field in the spank_option struct, optarg  is  the
              supplied  argument  if  applicable, and remote is 0 if the function is being called
              from the "local" host (e.g. host where srun or sbatch/salloc are invoked) or 1 from
              the  "remote"  host  (host  where  slurmd/slurmstepd  run)  but  only  executed  by
              slurmstepd (remote context) if the option was registered for such context.

       Plugin options may be registered with Slurm using the spank_option_register function. This
       function  is  only  valid  when  called  from  the  plugin's slurm_spank_init handler, and
       registers one option at a time. The prototype is
          spank_err_t spank_option_register (spank_t sp,
                    struct spank_option *opt);
       This function will return ESPANK_SUCCESS on  successful  registration  of  an  option,  or
       ESPANK_BAD_ARG  for  errors  including invalid spank_t handle, or when the function is not
       called from the slurm_spank_init function. All options need  to  be  registered  from  all
       contexts  in  which  they  will  be used. For instance, if an option is only used in local
       (srun) and remote (slurmd) contexts, then spank_option_register should only be called from
       within those contexts. For example:
          if (spank_context() != S_CTX_ALLOCATOR)
             spank_option_register (sp, opt);
       If,  however,  the  option  is used in all contexts, the spank_option_register needs to be
       called everywhere.

       In addition to spank_option_register, plugins may also export options to Slurm by defining
       a  table  of struct spank_option with the symbol name spank_options. This method, however,
       is not supported for use with sbatch and salloc  (allocator  context),  thus  the  use  of
       spank_option_register  is preferred. When using the spank_options table, the final element
       in the array must be filled with zeros. A SPANK_OPTIONS_TABLE_END  macro  is  provided  in
       <slurm/spank.h> for this purpose.

       When  an  option is provided by the user on the local side, either by command line options
       or by environment variables, Slurm will immediately  invoke  the  option's  callback  with
       remote=0.  This  is  meant for the plugin to do local sanity checking of the option before
       the value is sent to the remote side during job launch. If the argument the user specified
       is  invalid,  the  plugin  should issue an error and issue a non-zero return code from the
       callback. The plugin should be able to handle cases where the spank option is set multiple
       times  through  environment  variables and command line options. Environment variables are
       processed before command line options.

       On the remote side, options and their arguments are registered just  after  SPANK  plugins
       are  loaded  and  before  the  spank_init handler is called. This allows plugins to modify
       behavior of all plugin functionality based on the value of user-provided options.

       As an alternative to use of an option callback and global variable, plugins  can  use  the
       spank_option_getopt  option  to  check  for supplied options after option processing. This
       function has the prototype:
          spank_err_t spank_option_getopt(spank_t sp,
              struct spank_option *opt, char **optargp);
       This function returns ESPANK_SUCCESS if the option defined in the struct spank_option  opt
       has  been  used  by the user. If optargp is non-NULL then it is set to any option argument
       passed (if the option takes an argument). The use of this method is  required  to  process
       options  in  job_script  context (slurm_spank_job_prolog and slurm_spank_job_epilog). This
       function    is    valid    in    the    following    contexts:     slurm_spank_job_prolog,
       slurm_spank_local_user_init,    slurm_spank_user_init,   slurm_spank_task_init_privileged,
       slurm_spank_task_init, slurm_spank_task_exit, and slurm_spank_job_epilog.

CONFIGURATION

       The default SPANK plug-in stack configuration file is plugstack.conf in the same directory
       as   slurm.conf(5),   though   this   may  be  changed  via  the  Slurm  config  parameter
       PlugStackConfig.  Normally the plugstack.conf file should be identical on all nodes of the
       cluster.  The config file lists SPANK plugins, one per line, along with whether the plugin
       is required or optional, and any global arguments that are to be passed to the plugin  for
       runtime  configuration.  Comments are preceded with '#' and extend to the end of the line.
       If the configuration file is missing or empty, it will simply be ignored.

       NOTE: The SPANK plugins need to be installed on the machines that execute slurmd  (compute
       nodes)  as  well  as on the machines that execute job allocation utilities such as salloc,
       sbatch, etc (login nodes).

       The format of each non-comment line in the configuration file is:
         required/optional   plugin   arguments
        For example:
         optional /usr/lib/slurm/test.so
       Tells slurmd to load the plugin test.so passing  no  arguments.   If  a  SPANK  plugin  is
       required,  then  failure  of  any  of the plugin's functions will cause slurmd, or the job
       allocator command to terminate the job, while optional plugins only cause a warning.

       If a fully-qualified path is not specified for a plugin,  then  the  currently  configured
       PluginDir in slurm.conf(5) is searched.

       SPANK  plugins  are  stackable,  meaning  that more than one plugin may be placed into the
       config file. The plugins will simply  be  called  in  order,  one  after  the  other,  and
       appropriate action taken on failure given that state of the plugin's optional flag.

       Additional  config  files or directories of config files may be included in plugstack.conf
       with the include keyword. The include keyword must appear on its own  line,  and  takes  a
       glob  as  its  parameter,  so  multiple  files  may be included from one include line. For
       example,   the   following   syntax    will    load    all    config    files    in    the
       /etc/slurm/plugstack.conf.d directory, in local collation order:
         include /etc/slurm/plugstack.conf.d/*
       which might be considered a more flexible method for building up a spank plugin stack.

       The  SPANK  config file is re-read on each job launch, so editing the config file will not
       affect running jobs. However care should be taken so that a partially edited  config  file
       is not read by a launching job.

Errors

       When SPANK plugin results in a non-zero result, the following changes will result:

       ┌───────┬──────────────────────────────────┬───────────┬──────────┬────────────┬──────────┐
       │Command│Function                          │Context    │Exitcode  │Drains Node │Fails job │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_init                  │local      │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_init_post_opt         │local      │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_local_user_init       │local      │1         │no          │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_user_init             │remote     │0         │no          │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_task_init_privileged  │remote     │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_task_post_fork        │remote     │0         │no          │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_task_init             │remote     │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_task_exit             │remote     │0         │no          │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │srun   │slurm_spank_exit                  │local      │0         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │salloc │slurm_spank_init                  │allocator  │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │salloc │slurm_spank_init_post_opt         │allocator  │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │salloc │slurm_spank_user_init             │remote     │0         │no          │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │salloc │slurm_spank_task_init_privileged  │remote     │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │salloc │slurm_spank_task_post_fork        │remote     │0         │no          │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │salloc │slurm_spank_task_init             │remote     │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │salloc │slurm_spank_task_exit             │remote     │0         │no          │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │salloc │slurm_spank_exit                  │allocator  │0         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │sbatch │slurm_spank_init                  │allocator  │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │sbatch │slurm_spank_init_post_opt         │allocator  │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │sbatch │slurm_spank_user_init             │remote     │0         │yes         │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │sbatch │slurm_spank_task_init_privileged  │remote     │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │sbatch │slurm_spank_task_post_fork        │remote     │0         │yes         │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │sbatch │slurm_spank_task_init             │remote     │1         │no          │   yes    │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │sbatch │slurm_spank_task_exit             │remote     │0         │no          │   no     │
       ├───────┼──────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────────┤
       │sbatch │slurm_spank_exit                  │allocator  │0         │no          │   no     │
       └───────┴──────────────────────────────────┴───────────┴──────────┴────────────┴──────────┘
       NOTE:   The   behavior   for  ProctrackType=proctrack/pgid  may  result  in  timeouts  for
       slurm_spank_task_post_fork with remote context on failure.

COPYING

       Portions copyright (C) 2010-2022 SchedMD LLC.  Copyright  (C)  2006  The  Regents  of  the
       University  of  California.   Produced  at  Lawrence  Livermore  National  Laboratory (cf,
       DISCLAIMER).  CODE-OCEC-09-009. All rights reserved.

       This  file  is  part  of  Slurm,  a  resource  management  program.   For   details,   see
       <https://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.

FILES

       /etc/slurm/slurm.conf - Slurm configuration file.
       /etc/slurm/plugstack.conf - SPANK configuration file.
       /usr/include/slurm/spank.h - SPANK header file.

SEE ALSO

       srun(1), slurm.conf(5)