bluegene.conf(5)

NAME
bluegene.conf - SLURM configuration file for BlueGene systems

DESCRIPTION
bluegene.conf is an ASCII file which describes IBM BlueGene specific SLURM configuration information. This includes specifications for bgblock layout, configuration, logging, etc. The file location can be modified at system build time using the DEFAULT_SLURM_CONF parameter or at execution time by setting the SLURM_CONF environment variable. The file will always be located in the same directory as the slurm.conf file.

Parameter names are case insensitive. Any text following a "#" in the configuration file is treated as a comment through the end of that line. Changes to the configuration file take only effect upon restart of the slurmctld daemon. "scontrol reconfigure" does nothing with this file. Changes will only take place after a restart of the controller.

There are some differences between BlueGene/L, BlueGene/P and BlueGene/Q systems with respects to the contents of the bluegene.conf file.

The BlueGene/L specific options are:

AltBlrtsImage
    Alternative BlrtsImage. This is an optional field only used for multiple images on a system and should be followed by a Groups option indicating the user groups allowed to use this image (i.e. Groups=da,jette). If Groups is not specified then this image will be usable by all groups. You can put as many alternative images as you want in the bluegene.conf file.

AltLinuxImage
    Alternative LinuxImage. This is an optional field only used for multiple images on a system and should be followed by a Groups option indicating the user groups allowed to use this image (i.e. Groups=da,jette). If Groups is not specified then this image will be usable by all groups. You can put as many alternative images as you want in the bluegene.conf file.

AltRamDiskImage
    Alternative RamDiskImage. This is an optional field only used for multiple images on a system and should be followed by a Groups option indicating the user groups allowed to use this image (i.e. Groups=da,jette). If Groups is not specified then this image will be usable by all groups. You can put as many alternative images as you want in the bluegene.conf file.

BlrtsImage
    BlrtsImage used for creation of all bgblocks. There is no default value and this must be specified.

LinuxImage
    LinuxImage used for creation of all bgblocks. There is no default value and this must be specified.

RamDiskImage
    RamDiskImage used for creation of all bgblocks. There is no default value and this must be specified.

The BlueGene/P specific options are:

AltCnloadImage
    Alternative CnloadImage. This is an optional field only used for multiple images on a system and should be followed by a Groups option indicating the user groups allowed to use this image (i.e. Groups=da,jette). If Groups is not specified then this image will be usable by all groups. You can put as many alternative images as you want in the conf file.

AltIoloadImage
    Alternative IoloadImage. This is an optional field only used for multiple images on a system and should be followed by a Groups option indicating the user groups allowed to use this image (i.e. Groups=da,jette). If Groups is not specified then this image will be usable by all groups. You can put as many alternative images as you want in the conf file.

CnloadImage
    CnloadImage used for creation of all bgblocks. There is no default value and this must be specified.

IoloadImage
    IoloadImage used for creation of all bgblocks. There is no default value and this must be specified.

The BlueGene/Q specific options are:

AllowSubBlockAllocations
    Can be set to Yes or No, defaults to No. This option allows multiple users to run jobs as small as 1 cnode in size on a block one midplane in size and smaller. While this option gives great flexibility to run a host of job sizes previously not available on any BlueGene system it also may cause security concerns since IO traffic can share the same path with other jobs. NOTE - There is a current limitation for sub-block jobs and how the system (used for I/O) and user (used for MPI) torus class routes are configured. The network device hardware has cutoff registers to prevent packets from flowing outside of the sub-block. Unfortunately, when the sub-block has a size 3, the job can attempt to send user packets outside of its sub-block. This causes it to be terminated by signal 36. To prevent this from happening SLURM does not allow a sub-block to be used with any dimension of 3. NOTE - In the current IBM API it does not allow wrapping inside a midplane. Meaning you can not create a sub-block of 2 with nodes in the 0 and 3 position. SLURM will support this in the future when the underlying system allows it.

All options below are common on all BlueGene systems:

AltMloaderImage
    Alternative MloaderImage. This is an optional field only used for multiple images on a system and should be followed by a Groups option indicating the user groups allowed to use this image (i.e. Groups=da,jette). If Groups is not specified then this image will be usable by all groups. You can put as many alternative images as you want in the conf file.

BridgeAPILogFile
    Fully qualified pathname of a into which the Bridge API logs are to be written. There is no default value.

BridgeAPIVerbose
    Specify how verbose the Bridge API logs should be. The default value is 0.

    0: Log only error and warning messages

    1: Log level 0 plus information messages

    2: Log level 1 plus basic debug messages

    3: Log level 2 plus more debug message

    4: Log all messages

DefaultConnType
    Specify the default Connection Type(s) to be used when generating new blocks in Dynamic LayoutMode. The default value is TORUS. On a BGQ system you can specify a different connection type for each dimension. (i.e. T,T,T,M would make the default be torus in all dimensions except Z where it would be mesh) NOTE - If a block is requested that can use all the midplanes in a dimension torus will always be used.

DenyPassthrough
    Specify which dimensions you do not want to allow pass-throughs. Valid options are A, X, Y, Z or all ("A" applies only to BlueGene/Q systems). For example, to prevent pass-throughs in the X and Y dimensions you would specify "DenyPassthrough=X,Y". By default, pass-throughs are enabled in every dimension.

IONodesPerMP
    The number of IO nodes on a midplane. This number must be the smallest number if you have a heterogeneous system. There is no default value and this must be specified. The typical settings for BlueGene/L systems are as follows: For IO rich systems, 64 is the value that should be used to create small blocks. For systems that are not IO rich, or for which small blocks are not desirable, 8 is usually the number to use. For BlueGene/P IO rich systems, 32 is the value that should be used to create small blocks since there are only 2 IO nodes per nodecard instead of 4 as on BlueGene/L.

LayoutMode
    Describes how SLURM should create bgblocks.

    STATIC:
        Create and use the defined non-overlapping bgblocks.

    OVERLAP:
        Create and use the defined bgblocks, which may overlap. It is highly recommended that none of the bgblocks have any passthroughs in the X-dimension on BGL and BGP systems. Use this mode with extreme caution.

    DYNAMIC:
        Create and use bgblocks as needed for each job. Bgblocks will not be defined in the bluegene.conf file. Dynamic partitioning may introduce fragmentation of resources. Use this mode with mild caution.

MaxBlockInError
    MaxBlockInError is used on BGQ systems to specify the percentage of a block allowed in an error state before no future jobs are allowed. Since cnodes can go into Software Failure and allow the block to not fail this option is used when allowing multiple jobs to run on a block and once the percentage of cnodes in that block breach this limit no future jobs will be allowed to be run on the block. After all jobs are finished on the block the block is freed which will resolve any cnodes in an error state. Default is 0, which means once any cnodes are in an error state disallow future jobs.

MidplaneNodeCnt
    The number of c-nodes (compute nodes) per midplane. There is no default value and this must be specified (usually 512).

MloaderImage
    MloaderImage used for creation of all bgblocks. There is no default value and this must be specified.

NodeCardNodeCnt or NodeBoardNodeCnt
    Number of c-nodes per nodecard / nodeboard. There is no default value and this must be specified. For most BlueGene systems this is usually 32.

SubMidplaneSystem
    Set to Yes if this system is not a full midplane in size, Default is No (regular system).

Each bgblock is defined by the midplanes used to construct it. Ordering is very important for laying out switch wires. Please use the smap tool to define blocks and do not change the order of blocks created. A bgblock is implicitly created containing all resources on the system. Bgblocks must not overlap in static mode (except for implicitly created bgblock). This will be the case when smap is used to create a configuration file All Nodes defined here must also be defined in the slurm.conf file. Define only the numeric coordinates of the bgblocks here. The prefix will be based upon the NodeName defined in slurm.conf

MPs Define the coordinates of the bgblock end points. For BlueGene/L and BlueGene/P systems there will be three coordinates (X, Y, and Z). For BlueGene/Q systems there will be for coordinates (A, X, Y, and Z).

Type
    Define the network connection type for the bgblock. The default value is TORUS. On a BGQ system you can specify a different connection type for each dimension. (i.e. T,T,T,M would make the default be torus in all dimensions except Z where it would be mesh) NOTE - If a block is requested that can use all the midplanes in a dimension torus will always be used.

    MESH:
        Communication occur over a mesh.

    SMALL:
        The midplane is divided into more than one bgblock. The administrator should define the number of single nodecards and quarter midplane blocks using the options 32CNBlocks and 128CNBlocks respectively for a BlueGene/L system. 64CNBlocks, and 256CNBlocks are also available for later BlueGene systems. 16CNBlocks is also valid on BlueGene/P systems. Keep in mind you must have at keast one IO node per block. So if you only have 4 ionodes per midplane the smallest block you will be able to make is 128 c-nodes. The total number of c-nodes of the blocks in a small request must not exceed MidplaneNodeCnt. If none are specified, the midplane will be divided into four 128 c-node blocks. See example below.

    TORUS:
        Communications occur over a torus (end-points of network directly connect.

EXAMPLE

##################################################################
# bluegene.conf for a Bluegene/L system
# build by smap on 03/06/2006
##################################################################
BridgeAPILogFile=/var/log/slurm/bridgeapi.log
BridgeAPIVerbose=2
BlrtsImage=/bgl/BlueLight/ppcfloor/bglsys/bin/rts_hw.rts
LinuxImage=/bgl/BlueLight/ppcfloor/bglsys/bin/zImage.elf
MloaderImage=/bgl/BlueLight/ppcfloor/bglsys/bin/mmcs-mloader.rts
RamDiskImage=/bgl/BlueLight/ppcfloor/bglsys/bin/ramdisk.elf
MidplaneNodeCnt=512
NodeCardNodeCnt=32
IONodesPerMP=64    # An I/O rich environment
LayoutMode=STATIC
##################################################################
# LEAVE AS COMMENT, Full-system bgblock, implicitly created
# BPs=[000x333] Type=TORUS # 4x4x4 = 64 midplanes
##################################################################
BPs=[000x133] Type=TORUS # 2x4x4 = 32
BPs=[200x233] Type=TORUS # 1x4x4 = 16
BPs=[300x313] Type=TORUS # 1x2x4 = 8
BPs=[320x323] Type=TORUS # 1x1x4 = 4
BPs=[330x331] Type=TORUS # 1x1x2 = 2
BPs=[332] Type=TORUS # 1x1x1 = 1
BPs=[333] Type=SMALL 32CNBlocks=4 128CNBlocks=3 # 32 * 4 + 128 * 3 = 512

COPYING
Copyright (C) 2006-2010 The Regents of the University of California. Produced at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (cf, DISCLAIMER).
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.

FILES
/etc/bluegene.conf

SEE ALSO

smap(1), slurm.conf(5)