How to use the GRID-CSIC resources

Once you have your digital certificate and you belong to a Virtual Organization (VO) supported by the GRID-CSIC, you can use all the resourses which this infrastructure provides. In this twiki, you will find some examples that can be used as tutorials in order to be able to start using the GRID-CSIC successfully. In addition, taking benefit of this tutorial, the GRID terminology is introduced.

In order to be able to submit jobs to the GRID-CSIC Worker Nodes (WN) from IFIC, you have to be logged in some of the User Interfaces using ssh. The UI list is available here. You can find more information about the GRID-CSIC infrastructure in the following twiki.

Preliminary knowledge

Job Description Language (JDL)

The Grid jobs are defined through text files written in an specific language called Job Description Language (JDL). The JDL is based on the classAd language and its syntax consists basically on statements ended by a semicolon, like: attribute = value;

The simple language is sensitive to blank characters and tabs. It is important to take into account that neither blank characters nor tabs should follow the semicolon at the end of a line (i.e. ;). Literal strings are enclosed in double quotes. To include double quotes a backslash must be used (i.e.: Arguments = "\"run\" 10"). The same is applied for special characters: \& (for &) o \\\& (for \&). To conclude, single quotes (') are not allowed. Comments must be preceded by #, // or /* and */.

Attributes

The most used attributes that one can define in a JDL file are:

Attribute	Mandatory?	Meaning	Example
InputSandbox	No	ATransfer input files from UI to WN	InputSandbox = {"test.sh","std.in"};
OutputSandbox	No	Transfer output files from WN to UI	OutputSandbox = {"std.out","std.err"};
PerusalFileEnable	No	Enable job perusal	PerusalFileEnable = true;
PerusalTimeInterval	No	ESpecify in seconds frequency that specified files are copied to WMS machine (in seconds)	PerusalTimeInterval = 30;
ShallowRetryCount	No	In case of Grid error, retry the job X times	ShallowRetryCount = 3;
StdError	Yes	Specify standard error	StdError = "std.err";
StdInput	No	Specify standard input	StdInput = "std.in";
StdOutput	Yes	DSpecify standard output	StdOutput = "std.out";
VirtualOrganisation	No	Define the Virtual Organization (VO)	VirtualOrganisation = "ific";
Arguments	No	Supply arguments to the executable	Arguments = "run 10";
Environment	No	Extend the environment	Environment = {"CMS_PATH=$HOME/cms","CMS_DB=$CMS_PATH/cmdb"};
Executable	Yes	Specify executable	Executable = "test.sh";
Rank	No	Apply a weight to select CE	Rank = other.GlueCEStateFreeCPUs;
Requirements	No	Imposing Constraints on the CE	Requirements = other.GlueCEInfoLRMSType == "PBS";

For more information, take a look to the Job Description Language (JDL) Attribute document.

Comments

• StdError
  • Can be the same as StdOutput.
• InputSandbox
  • Wildcards allowed (*).
  • Files are relative to current directory.
  • The executable flag is not preserved for the files included in the InputSandbox when transferred to the WN. These execution permissions should be performed (chmod +x) by the initial script specified as the Executable in the JDL file (the chmod +x operation is done automatically for this script).
  • The InputSandbox cannot contain two files with the same name (even if in different paths) as when transferred they would overwrite each other.
• OutputSandbox
  • No absolute file names.
  • The OutputSandbox cannot contain two files with the same name (even if in different paths) as when transferred they would overwrite each other.
  • At IFIC, there is a limit of 50 MB in the size of files declared in the OutputSandbox. If a file is larger that this limit a tail is performed. For text files no problems are expected but zip files will be corrupted. If you have files larger than the actual limit, please store them in the SE.

• Requirements. The Requirements attributes can be used to express any kind of constraint on the resources where the job can run. Its value is a Boolean expression that must evaluate to true for a job to run on that specific CE. They are based on the GLUE Schema.
  • Forming expressions. For example, to force a job to only run on a particular CE:

       Requirements = other.GlueCEUniqueID == "ce02.ific.uv.es:2119/jobmanager-pbs-infinibandShort";
       

    The other. prefix is used to indicate that the GlueCEUniqueID attribute refers to the CE characteristics (its ID in particular) and not to those of the job. If other. is not specified, then the default self. is assumed, indicating that the attribute refers to the job characteristics description.
    Requirements can be ANDed together:

       Requirements =  other.GlueCEInfoHostName == "ce02.ific.uv.es" && other.GlueCEStateFreeCPUs > 10;
       

    which ANDs in the requirement that there are at least 10 free CPUs on this specific CE. By default the system always ANDs in other. requirement:

       Requirements = other.GlueCEStateStatus == "Production" ;
       

    A requirement can be negated:

       Requirements =  (!other.GlueCEInfoTotalCPUs < 10);
       

  • Functions
    • Member. One essential requirement for production work is that the machine has the appropriate operating system (OS) and/or software installed. The attribute we need to test in this case is GlueHostOperatingSystemName but there is a complication: it is a list and all we require is that our OS is on the list. This is done with:

         Requirements = Member("ScientificSL",other.GlueHostOperatingSystemName);
         

      The Member function is satisfied if the first argument is a member of its second argument (a list). Functions can be also ANDed:

          Requirements = Member("ScientificSL",other.GlueHostOperatingSystemName)
          && Member("SL",other.GlueHostOperatingSystemVersion)
          && Member("5.3",other.GlueHostOperatingSystemRelease);
         

    • RegExp. Another function RegExp can be used to see if a supplied matches as as regular expression, for example:

         Requirements = RegExp("ce02.ific.uv.es", other.GlueCEInfoHostName);
         

  • Gangmatching.
    The previous requirements affected always two entities: the job and the CE. In order to specify requirements involving three entities (i.e., the job, the CE and a SE), the RB uses a special match-making mechanism, called gangmatching. This is supported by some JDL functions: anyMatch, whichMatch, allMatch. For example to ensure that the job runs on a CE with, at least 200 MB of free disk space on a close SE, the following JDL expression can be used:

       Requirements = anyMatch(other.storage.CloseSEs,target.GlueSAStateAvailableSpace > 204800);
       

• Rank. The choice of the CE where to execute the job, among all the ones satisfying the requirements, is based on the rank of the CE; namely, a quantity expressed as a floating-point number. The CE with the highest rank is the one selected. The user can define the rank with the Rank attribute as a function of the CE attributes. The default definition takes into account the number of CPUs in the CPU that are free:

     Rank = other.GlueCEStateFreeCPUs;
     

  But other definitions are possible. The next one is a more complex expression:

     Rank = ( other.GlueCEStateWaitingJobs == 0 ? other.GlueCEStateFreeCPUs : -other.GlueCEStateWaitingJobs);
     

  In this case, the number of waiting jobs in a CE is used if this number is not null. The minus sign is used so that the rank decreases as the number of waiting jobs gets higher. If there are not waiting jobs, then the number of free CPUs is used.

Example

As a simple example, a JDL file to say "Hello World" would be:

Executable = "/bin/echo";
Arguments = "Hello World";
StdOutput = "stdout.log";
StdError = "stderr.log";
OutputSandbox = {"stdout.log","stderr.log"};

Authentication and authorization

Once, you are logged in a UI, you have to load your certificate and proceed with the VO registration (for example, the ific's VO, though you can use any supported VO) through the command:

 voms-proxy-init -voms ific

Proxy validity

By default, the proxy will have a 12 hours validity. To extend it up to 24 hours, you can use the command:

 voms-proxy-init -voms ific -valid 24:00

To increase it even more, (by default 7 days), the following command can be used:

 voms-proxy-init -voms ific
 myproxy-init -d -n -s lcg2proxy.ific.uv.es

then, you have to include the attribute MyProxyServer="lcg2proxy.ific.uv.es" to the corresponding JDL file.

Environment variables

To conclude, you may need to set some environment variables (such as the data catalog):

 export LFC_HOST=lfc02.ific.uv.es
 export LFC_HOME=/grid/ific/

Middleware gLite

gLite is the middleware use nowadays in Grid Computing. Developed by an international collaboration within the EGEE project, gLite provides a solid framework to develop applications which benefit from distributing computing and storage.

In that sense, the commands to submit, retrieve and check (and many others) jobs à la Grid start with glite-wms-job-*. Here, a summary of the most important commands will be presented though you can use advance commands. All of them are discussed in Workload Management section from the gLite User Guide.

Job Managing with gLite

More information: Job Managing

Data Managing with gLite

More information: Data Managing

Exercises

• Exercises with gLite
• Exercises with gLite using MPI

-- CarlosEscobar - 14 Jun 2010