[slurm-users] X11 forwarding and VNC?

[Loris Bennett]

Hi Marcus,

This is a good point, thanks!  Maybe the salloc variant isn't so good as
a general solution.

Cheers,

Loris

Marcus Wagner <wagner at itc.rwth-aachen.de> writes:

> Hi Loris,
>
> I know, it has been some time, but I have one additional remark.
> If you just use ssh -X to login to the nodes, you will have a plain ssh session,
> which means, none of SLURMs environment variables will be set.
> So if your X11-Jobs are in need of that, you will have to use X11 forwarding
> through SLURM.
>
> Best
> Marcus
>
>
> On 3/29/19 7:45 PM, Marcus Wagner wrote:
>> Hi Loris,
>>
>> Am 29.03.2019 um 14:01 schrieb Loris Bennett:
>>> Hi Marcus,
>>>
>>> Marcus Wagner <wagner at itc.rwth-aachen.de> writes:
>>>
>>>> Hi Loris,
>>>>
>>>> On 3/25/19 1:42 PM, Loris Bennett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> 3. salloc works fine too without --x11, subsequent srun with a x11 app
>>>>>> works great
>>>>> Doing 'salloc' followed by 'ssh -X'  works for us too, which is surprising
>>>>> to me.
>>>>>
>>>>> This last option currently seems to me to be the best option for users,
>>>>> being slightly less confusing than logging into the login node again
>>>>> from the login node, which is our current workaround.
>>>>>
>>>>> Still, it's all a bit odd.
>>>>
>>>> I assume, you use pam_slurm_adopt?
>>>
>>> Yes.
>>>
>>>> Then it is clear, that this is working and has nothing to do with the x11
>>>> forwarding feature of slurm. This is plain ssh X11-forwarding in this case.
>>>
>>> OK, I  see that, but if I don't need --x11 with salloc, what is it
>>> for?  Just to control to control on which nodes forwarding is done
>>> viz. --x11[=<all|first|last>]?  What might be a use-case for not having
>>> X11 forwarding for all the nodes, which is the default?
>>>
>>
>> The default is (according to the manpage) 'batch', which means the node, where
>> the batchscript will be executed (the first of the allocation, I think).
>> I do not know what first or last should be intended.
>> In fact I do not have a use case for x11-forwarding to all nodes, might have
>> to think a little bit more about that one.
>>
>>>> Please keep in mind, that processes started with an adopted ssh session are
>>>> in
>>>> the jobs cgroup (good), but are accounted in the 'extern' step of the job.
>>>>
>>>> e.g.
>>>> * sbatch --wrap "sleep 10m"
>>>> * ssh to compute-node
>>>> * do some work in the compute node
>>>> after job is done
>>>> * sacct -j <jobid> -o JobID,JobName,MaxRSS,CPUTime,TotalCPU
>>>>         JobID    JobName     MaxRSS    CPUTime   TotalCPU
>>>> ------------ ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
>>>> 1053837            wrap              00:01:42  02:00.159
>>>> 1053837.bat+      batch       412K   00:01:43  00:00.158
>>>> 1053837.ext+     extern    543880K   00:01:42  02:00.001
>>>
>>> That's interesting, although is there any advantage/difference compared
>>> with just doing
>>>
>>>    srun --x11 --pty bash
>>>
>>> ?
>> With
>> srun --x11 --pty bash
>> the accounting will be in the batch step of the job, that is the only
>> difference I'm aware of at the moment.
>> With LSF we used that kind of mechanism to start e.g. vtune directly out of
>> the job. Without the X11-Forwarding feature of Slurm you would have to salloc
>> some hosts and then ssh to the nodes with x11 forwarding enabled to then start
>> vtune.
>> So it is a little bit more to do for the user if you do not do X11-Forwarding
>> the SLURM style.
>>
>>
>> Best
>> Marcus
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Loris
>>>
>>
-- 
Dr. Loris Bennett (Mr.)
ZEDAT, Freie Universität Berlin         Email loris.bennett at fu-berlin.de