[slurm-users] Novice Slurm Upgrade Questions

[Jason Simms]

Hello all,

Thank you for being such a helpful resource for All Things Slurm; I
sincerely appreciate the helpful feedback. Right now, we are running 20.02
and considering upgrading to 20.11 during our next maintenance window in
January. This will be the first time we have upgraded Slurm, so
understandably we are somewhat nervous and have some questions.

I am able to download the source and build RPMs successfully. What is
unclear to me is whether I have to adjust anything in the slurm.spec file
or use a .rpmmacros file to control certain aspects of the installation.
Since this would be an upgrade, rather than a new install, do I have to
adjust, e.g., the --prefix value, and all other settings (X11 support,
etc.)? Or, will a yum update "correctly" put the files where they are on my
system, using settings from the existing 20.02 version?

We purchased the system from a vendor, and of course they use custom
scripts to build and install Slurm, and those are tailored for an initial
installation, not an upgrade. Their advice to us was, don't upgrade if you
don't need to, which seems reasonable, except that many of you respond to
initial requests for help by recommending an upgrade. And in any case,
Slurm doesn't upgrade nicely from more than two major versions back, so I'm
hesitant to go too long without patching.

I'm terribly sorry for my ignorance of all this. But I really lament how
terrible most resources are about all this. They assume that you have built
the RPMs already, without offering any real guidance as to how to adjust
relevant options, or even whether that is a requirement for an upgrade vs.
a fresh installation.

Any guidance would be most welcome.

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
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