[slurm-users] Novice Slurm Upgrade Questions

[Paul Edmon]

Usually the slurm.spec file provided doesn't change that much between 
versions.  What we do here is that we maintain a git repository of our 
slurm.spec that we use with our modifications. Then each time Slurm is 
released we compare ours against what is provided, and simply modify the 
provided one with our changes.

Unless you make specific tweaks to the slurm.spec, you should be able to 
just use it out of the box no problem.  As always read the changelog to 
see if there are any major changes between the versions in case a 
feature you were using was deprecated.  This can happen during major 
version upgrades.

At least from my experience if you follow the directions on the Slurm 
documentation regarding upgrades, you should be fine.  The only real 
hitch is that by default the RPM's do restart the slurmdbd and slurmctld 
services, which you don't want when upgrading.  You should either neuter 
this or have those both stopped during the upgrade.  After the upgrade 
you should run slurmdbd and slurmctld in commandline mode for the 
initial run. Once it is done and running normally you can kill these and 
restart the relevant services.

-Paul Edmon-

On 12/4/2020 2:36 PM, Jason Simms wrote:
> 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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