[slurm-users] Adding Users to Slurm's Database

[Loris Bennett]

Hi Tina,

Tina Friedrich <tina.friedrich at it.ox.ac.uk> writes:

> Script. Not doing manual anything if it can at all be avoided, way to error
> prone.
>
> We have a cron job that does all of that. Checks if there are users or groups in
> LDAP that aren't in SLURM yet, and adds them - that's adding accounts, adding
> users, .... I think it also removed users/accounts if necessary, and also

I'd be interested in the removal part.  This seems to me to be the
trickiest bit, not so much technically, but from a policy point of view.

Our HPC accounts are based on university accounts and thus subject to
the life-cycle management of the university's identity management
system.  However, if someone has HPC access but stops using it, we might
after a while which to remove or at least block the access.  However, if
the inactive person is the leader of a research group, we might want to
retain the HPC access so that the person will still receive our
newsletter.  In addition, a person might leave a research group and thus
no longer fulfil one of the criteria for HPC access, but still have a
valid university account (and also neither the person nor the group
leader may inform us about that change).
  
Has anyone come up with a good framework for this kind of thing?

Cheers,

Loris
  
> handles user<->account associations, as those can change (we allow users in
> multiple groups), and it makes a valient attempt at changing default
> associations if they need changing, I believe.
>
> I think it runs every 15 minutes.
>
> The problem/pitfall that I can see is if a script is coded to, basically, loop
> through all users running sacctmgr for each to check it exists. We very
> definitely do not do that - the script gets all users, accounts & associations
> from SLURM and the equivalent from LDAP and then, basically, does a couple of
> list compares.
>
> Tina
>
> On 18/08/2020 16:36, Jason Simms wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone! We have a script that queries our LDAP server for any users
>> that have an entitlement to use the cluster, and if they don't already have an
>> account on the cluster, one is created for them. In addition, they need to be
>> added to the Slurm database (in order to track usage, FairShare, etc.).
>>
>> I've been doing this manually with a command like this:
>>
>> sacctmgr add user <username> Account=root DefaultAccount=root
>>
>> I would like to add that command to the user creation script, but I'm warned
>> off by the Slurm docs that say never to call sacctmgr in a script/loop. I
>> understand the reasons why doing so multiple times in rapid succession can be
>> a bad idea. In our case, however, it would be rare to have more than one new
>> user at a time (our script runs in 15-min. intervals). Is there really a
>> concern in a case like ours?
>>
>> How do you all handle adding users to Slurm's DB? Manually? Or, if not by
>> script or some automated means...??
>>
>> Warmest regards,
>> Jason
>>
>> -- 
>> *Jason L. Simms, Ph.D., M.P.H.*
>> Manager of Research and High-Performance Computing
>> XSEDE Campus Champion
>> Lafayette College
>> Information Technology Services
>> 710 Sullivan Rd | Easton, PA 18042
>> Office: 112 Skillman Library
>> p: (610) 330-5632