NAME

       lam-helpfile - LAM help message file

DESCRIPTION

       The lam-helpfile provides detailed error messages and suggestions for help on how to fix common problems.
       In many places in LAM, when an error occurs, this help file is consulted to display a detailed message of
       what the error was and, when possible, suggestions on how to fix the problem.  It consists of much of the
       information from the LAM FAQ (particularly in dealing with getting LAM up and running)

       At present, the following LAM tools use this help file (it is expected that more will use  it  in  future
       releases.   If  you  have  suggestions for locations where more detailed error messages would be helpful,
       please let us know):

       hboot
       lamboot
       lamexec
       lamhalt
       lamnodes
       lamwipe
       mpicc (hcc)
       mpiCC (hcp)
       mpif77 (hf77)
       mpirun
       recon
       tkill
       tping

STRUCTURE AND SYNTAX

       The help file is multiple blocks of help text separated by single line delimiters.  The  delimiter  lines
       are of the format:

       -*-programname:topicname-*-

       Where  programname  is  the  general  name  of  the program (or group of programs) that this help message
       applies to, and topicname is the specific topic that this message applies two.

       The special keyword ALL can be used for either the programname or the topicname in some  cases;  this  is
       usually a "wildcard" value where  little specific information is available.

       Within  the  block  of  the  message,  lines  that begin with a "#" are treated as comments; they are not
       printed out.

       Three special escape sequences can be used within the help message:

       %N     Where N is a number from 1 to the number of arguments that the help message is invoked with.   The
              "%N"  string is replaced with the value of the Nth argument from the argument list.  The arguments
              are passed from the LAM binaries themselves; they cannot be edited.  The comments in  the  default
              LAM help file explain how many arguments each message is invoked with, and what each argument is.

       %perror
              Shows the result of the Unix perror(3) function.

       %terror
              Shows  the  result  of  the  LAM terror() function, which is essentially a wrapper around the Unix
              perror(3) function.

LOCATION OF HELP FILE

       The exact location of the help file is configurable.  This allows system administrators and/or  users  to
       customize the help file for their particular environment.

       When  LAM  attempts  to  print  an  error  message  from the help file, it looks for the help file in the
       following locations (in order):

       $HOME/lam-helpfile
       $HOME/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $HOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $HOME/etc/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $LAMHELPDIR/lam-helpfile
       $LAMHELPDIR/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $TROLLIUSHOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $TROLLIUSHOME/etc/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $SYSCONFDIR/lam-helpfile
       $SYSCONFDIR/lam-7.1.4-helpfile

       Note the variable $LAMHELPDIR; this variable can be set according to platform, for  example,  to  provide
       operating system-specific information, or information specific to particular groups of machines, etc.  It
       can also be set to provide help messages in different languages.

       $SYSCONFIDIR is typically $prefix/etc, where $prefix is the location to where LAM was installed;  it  was
       the  option  supplied  to ./configure when LAM was built (or /usr/local/lam-7.1.4, by default).  However,
       note that the value of $SYSCONFDIR can be overridden when LAM is configured with the --sysconfdir switch.

EXAMPLES

       The following is an example customization of the help for the hboot and lamboot programs, when  the  user
       supplies a host file name that is not found.

       -*-boot:open-hostfile-*-
       %1 could not open the hostfile "%2" for the following reason:

                   %perror
       Things to check:

                   - ensure that the file exists
                     try "ls -l %2"
                   - ensure that you have read permissions on the file
                     try "cat %2"

       You may not need to specify a host file at all; the system
       administrators have defined the all of Beowulf cluster host names in
       the LAM default host name list.  If you wish to use all of the Beowulf
       nodes, simply execute:

                   %1 -v

       If you have any problems with LAM, please send mail to:

                   lam-admin@your.domain.com

FILES

       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
           default LAM help file

SEE ALSO

       hboot(1),  lamboot(1),  lamexec(1),  lamhalt(1),  lamnodes(1), lamwipe(1), mpicc(1), mpiCC(1), mpif77(1),
       mpirun(1), recon(1), tkill(1), tping(1), perror(3)