Ubuntu Manpage: arcsub - ARC Submission

Provided by: nordugrid-arc-client_4.0.0-1_amd64

NAME

       arcsub - ARC Submission

DESCRIPTION

       The arcsub command is used for submitting jobs to Grid enabled computing resources.

SYNOPSIS

       arcsub [options] [filename ...]

OPTIONS

       -c, --cluster=name
              select  one  or  more  computing  elements: name can be an alias for a single CE, a
              group of CEs or a URL

       -g, --index=name
              select one or more registries: name can be an alias for a single registry, a  group
              of registries or a URL

       -R, --rejectdiscovery=URL
              skip the service with the given URL during service discovery

       -S, --submissioninterface=InterfaceName
              only   use   this   interface   for   submitting   (e.g.  org.nordugrid.gridftpjob,
              org.ogf.glue.emies.activitycreation, org.ogf.bes)

       -I, --infointerface=InterfaceName
              the computing element specified by URL at the command line should be queried  using
              this     information    interface    (possible    options:    org.nordugrid.ldapng,
              org.nordugrid.ldapglue2, org.nordugrid.wsrfglue2, org.ogf.glue.emies.resourceinfo)

       -e, --jobdescrstring=String
              jobdescription string describing the job to be submitted

       -f, --jobdescrfile=filename
              jobdescription file describing the job to be submitted

       -j, --joblist=filename
              the file storing information about active jobs (default ~/.arc/jobs.xml)

       -o, --jobids-to-file=filename
              the IDs of the submitted jobs will be appended to this file

       -D, --dryrun
              submit jobs as dry run (no submission to batch system)

           --direct
              submit directly - no resource discovery or matchmaking

       -x, --dumpdescription
              do not submit - dump job description in the language accepted by the target

       -P, --listplugins
              list the available plugins

       -t, --timeout=seconds
              timeout in seconds (default 20)

       -z, --conffile=filename
              configuration file (default ~/.arc/client.conf)

       -d, --debug=debuglevel
              FATAL, ERROR, WARNING, INFO, VERBOSE or DEBUG

       -b, --broker=broker
              selected broker: Random (default), FastestQueue or custom. Use -P to find  possible
              options.

       -v, --version
              print version information

       -?, --help
              print help

ARGUMENTS

       filename ...
              job description files describing the jobs to be submitted

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

arcsub is the key command when submitting jobs to Grid enabled computing resources with
the ARC client. As default arcsub is able to submit jobs to A-REX, CREAM and EMI ES
enabled computing elements (CEs), and as always for successful submission you need to be
authenticated at the targeted computing services. Since arcsub is build on a modular
library, modules can be installed which enables submission to other targets, e.g. the
classic ARC CE Grid-Manager.

Job submission can be accomplished by specifying a job description file to submit as an
argument. arcsub will then by default perform resource discovery on the Grid and then the
discovered resources will be matched to the job description and ranked according to the
chosen broker (--broker option). If no Grid environment has been configured, please
contact your system administrator, or setup one yourself in the client configuration file
(see files section). Another option is to explicitly specify a registry service (or
multiple) to arcsub using the --index option, which accepts an URL, alias or group.
Alternatively a specific CE (or multiple) can be targeted by using the --cluster option.
If such a scenario is the most common, it is worthwhile to specify those CEs in the client
configuration as default services, which makes it superfluous to specify them as argument.
In the same manner aliases and groups, defined in the configuration file, can be utilized,
and can be used as argument to the --cluster or --index options. In all of the above
scenarios arcsub obtains resource information from the services which is then used for
matchmaking against the job description, however that step can be avoided by specifying
the --direct option, in which case the job description is submitted directly to first
specified endpoint.

The format of a classic GRIDFTP-based cluster URLs:
[ldap://]<hostname>[:2135/nordugrid-cluster-name=<hostname>,Mds-Vo-name=local,o=grid]
Only the hostname part has to be specified, the rest of the URL is automatically
generated.

The format of an A-REX URL is:
[https://]<hostname>[:<port>][/<path>]
Here the port is 443 by default, but the path cannot be guessed, so if it is not
specified, then the service is assumed to live on the root path.

Job descriptions can also be specified using the --jobdescrfile option which expect the
file name of the description as argument, or the --jobdescrstring option which expect as
argument the job description as a string, and both options can be specified multiple times
and one does not exclude the other. The default supported job description languages are
xRSL, JSDL and JDL.

If the job description is successfully submitted a job-ID is returned and printed. This
job-ID uniquely identifies the job while it is being executed. On the other hand it is
also possible that no CEs matches the constraints defined in the description in which case
no submission will be done. Upon successful submission, the job-ID along with more
technical job information is stored in the job-list file (described below). The stored
information enables the job management commands of the ARC client to manage jobs easily,
and thus the job-ID need not to be saved manually. By default the job-list file is stored
in the .arc directory in the home directory of the user, however another location can be
specified using the --joblist option taking the location of this file as argument. If the
--joblist option was used during submission, it should also be specified in the
consecutive commands when managing the job. If a Computing Element has multiple job
submission interfaces (e.g. gridftp, EMI-ES, BES), then the brokering algorithm will
choose one of them. With the --submissioninterface option the requested interface can be
specified, and in that case only those Computing Elements will be considered which has
that specific interface, and only that interface will be used to submit the jobs.

As mentioned above registry or index services can be specified with the --index option.
Specifying one or multiple index servers instructs the arcsub command to query the servers
for registered CEs, the returned CEs will then be matched against the job description and
those matching will be ranked by the chosen broker (see below) and submission will be
tried in order until successful or reaching the end. From the returned list of CEs it
might happen that a troublesome or undesirable CE is selected for submission, in that case
it possible to reject that cluster using the --rejectdiscovery option and providing the
URL (or just the hostname) of the CE, which will disregard that CE as a target for
submission.

When multiple CEs are targeted for submission, the resource broker will be used to filter
out CEs which do not match the job description requirements and then rank the remaining
CEs. The broker used by default will rank the CEs randomly, however a different broker can
be chosen by using the --broker option, which takes the name of the broker as argument.
The broker type can also be specified in client.conf. The brokers available can be seen
using arcsub -P. By default the following brokers are available:

Random (default)
Chooses a random CE matching the job requirements.

FastestQueue
Ranks matching CEs according to the length of the job queue at the CEs, ranking
those with shortest queue first/highest.

Benchmark
Ranks matching CEs according to a specified benchmark, which should be specified by
appending the broker name with ':' and then the name of the benchmark. If no option
is given to the Benchmark broker then CEs will be ranked according to the
'specint2000' benchmark.

Data Ranks matching CEs according to the amount of input data cached by each CE, by
querying the CE. Only CEs with the A-REX BES interface support this operation.

Null Choose a random CE with no filtering at all of CEs.

PythonBroker
User-defined custom brokers can be created in Python. See the example broker
SampleBroker.py or ACIXBroker.py (like Data broker but uses the ARC Cache Index)
that come installed with ARC for more details of how to write your own broker. A
PythonBroker is specified by --broker PythonBroker:Filename.Class:args, where
Filename is the file containing the class Class which implements the broker
interface. The directory containing this file must be in the PYTHONPATH. args is
optional and allows specifying arguments to the broker.

Before submission, arcsub performs an intelligent modification of the job description
(adding or modifying attributes, even converting the description language to fit the needs
of the CE) ensuring that it is valid. The modified job description can be printed by
specifying the --dumpdescription option. The format, i.e. job description language, of the
printed job description cannot be specified, and will be that which will be sent to and
accepted by the chosen target. Further information from arcsub can be obtained by
increasing the verbosity, which is done with the --debug option where the default
verbosity level is WARNING. Setting the level to DEBUG will show all messages, while
setting it to FATAL will only show fatal log messages.

To validate your job description without actually submitting a job, use the --dryrun
option: it will capture possible syntax or other errors, but will instruct the site not to
submit the job for execution. Only the grid-manager (ARC0) and A-REX (ARC1) CEs support
this feature.

EXAMPLES

       Submission of a job description file "helloworld.jsdl" to the Grid
       arcsub helloworld.jsdl

       A information index server (registry) can also be queried for CEs to submit to:
       arcsub -g registry.example.com helloworld.jsdl

       Submission of a job description file "helloworld.jsdl" to ce.example.com:
       arcsub -c ce.example.com helloworld.jsdl

       Direct submission to a CE is done as:
       arcsub --direct -c cd.example.com helloworld.jsdl

       The job description can also be specified directly on the command line  as  shown  in  the
       example, using the XRSL job description language:
       arcsub -c example.com/arex -e \
       ´&(executable="/bin/echo")(arguments="Hello World!")´

       When submitting against CEs retrieved from information index servers it might be useful to
       do resource brokering:
       arcsub -g registry.example.com -b FastestQueue helloworld.jsdl

       If the job has a large input data set, it can be useful to send it to  a  CE  where  those
       files are already cached. The ACIX broker can be used for this:
       arcsub                    -g                    registry.example.com                    -b
       PythonBroker:ACIXBroker.ACIXBroker:https://cacheindex.ndgf.org:6443/data/index
       helloworld.jsdl

       Disregarding a specific CE for submission submitting against an information index server:
       arcsub -g registry.example.com -R badcomputingelement.com/arex helloworld.jsdl

       Dumping the job description is done as follows:
       arcsub -c example.com/arex -x helloworld.jsdl

FILES

~/.arc/client.conf
Some options can be given default values by specifying them in the ARC client
configuration file. Registry and computing element services can be specified in
seperate sections of the config. The default services can be specified by adding
'default=yes' attribute to the section of the service, thus when no --cluster or
--index options are given these will be used for submission. Each service has an
alias, and can be member of any number of groups. Then specifying the alias or the
name of the group with the --cluster or --index options will select the given
services. By using the --conffile option a different configuration file can be
used than the default. Note that some installations also have a system client
configuration file, however attributes in the client one takes precedence, and then
command line options takes precedence over configuration file attributes.

~/.arc/jobs.xml
This a local list of the user's active jobs. When a job is successfully submitted
it is added to this list and when it is removed from the remote cluster it is
removed from this list. This list is used as the list of all active jobs when the
user specifies the --all option to the various NorduGrid ARC user interface
commands. By using the --joblist option a different file can be used than the
default.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       X509_USER_PROXY
              The location of the user's Grid proxy file. Shouldn't be set unless the proxy is in
              a non-standard location.

       ARC_LOCATION
              The  location  where  ARC  is  installed  can be specified by this variable. If not
              specified the install location will be determined from  the  path  to  the  command
              being  executed,  and  if  this  fails a WARNING will be given stating the location
              which will be used.

       ARC_PLUGIN_PATH
              The location of ARC plugins can be specified by this variable.  Multiple  locations
              can  be  specified  by separating them by : (; in Windows). The default location is
              $ARC_LOCATION/lib/arc (\ in Windows).

COPYRIGHT

       APACHE LICENSE Version 2.0

AUTHOR

       ARC software is  developed  by  the  NorduGrid  Collaboration  (http://www.nordugrid.org),
       please  consult  the  AUTHORS  file  distributed  with ARC. Please report bugs and feature
       requests to http://bugzilla.nordugrid.org