The Grid Universe¶

HTCondor-C, The condor Grid Type¶

HTCondor-C allows jobs in one machine’s job queue to be moved to another machine’s job queue. These machines may be far removed from each other, providing powerful grid computation mechanisms, while requiring only HTCondor software and its configuration.

HTCondor-C is highly resistant to network disconnections and machine failures on both the submission and remote sides. An expected usage sets up Personal HTCondor on a laptop, submits some jobs that are sent to an HTCondor pool, waits until the jobs are staged on the pool, then turns off the laptop. When the laptop reconnects at a later time, any results can be pulled back.

HTCondor-C scales gracefully when compared with HTCondor’s flocking mechanism. The machine upon which jobs are submitted maintains a single process and network connection to a remote machine, without regard to the number of jobs queued or running.

HTCondor-C Configuration¶

There are two aspects to configuration to enable the submission and execution of HTCondor-C jobs. These two aspects correspond to the endpoints of the communication: there is the machine from which jobs are submitted, and there is the remote machine upon which the jobs are placed in the queue (executed).

Configuration of a machine from which jobs are submitted requires a few extra configuration variables:

CONDOR_GAHP = $(SBIN)/condor_c-gahp
C_GAHP_LOG = /tmp/CGAHPLog.$(USERNAME)
C_GAHP_WORKER_THREAD_LOG = /tmp/CGAHPWorkerLog.$(USERNAME)
C_GAHP_WORKER_THREAD_LOCK = /tmp/CGAHPWorkerLock.$(USERNAME)

The acronym GAHP stands for Grid ASCII Helper Protocol. A GAHP server provides grid-related services for a variety of underlying middle-ware systems. The configuration variable CONDOR_GAHP gives a full path to the GAHP server utilized by HTCondor-C. The configuration variable C_GAHP_LOG defines the location of the log that the HTCondor GAHP server writes. The log for the HTCondor GAHP is written as the user on whose behalf it is running; thus the C_GAHP_LOG configuration variable must point to a location the end user can write to.

A submit machine must also have a condor_collector daemon to which the condor_schedd daemon can submit a query. The query is for the location (IP address and port) of the intended remote machine’s condor_schedd daemon. This facilitates communication between the two machines. This condor_collector does not need to be the same collector that the local condor_schedd daemon reports to.

The machine upon which jobs are executed must also be configured correctly. This machine must be running a condor_schedd daemon. Unless specified explicitly in a submit file, CONDOR_HOST must point to a condor_collector daemon that it can write to, and the machine upon which jobs are submitted can read from. This facilitates communication between the two machines.

An important aspect of configuration is the security configuration relating to authentication. HTCondor-C on the remote machine relies on an authentication protocol to know the identity of the user under which to run a job. The following is a working example of the security configuration for authentication. This authentication method, CLAIMTOBE, trusts the identity claimed by a host or IP address.

SEC_DEFAULT_NEGOTIATION = OPTIONAL
SEC_DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_METHODS = CLAIMTOBE

Other working authentication methods are GSI, SSL, KERBEROS, and FS.

HTCondor-C Job Submission¶

Job submission of HTCondor-C jobs is the same as for any HTCondor job. The universe is grid. The submit command grid_resource specifies the remote condor_schedd daemon to which the job should be submitted, and its value consists of three fields. The first field is the grid type, which is condor. The second field is the name of the remote condor_schedd daemon. Its value is the same as the condor_schedd ClassAd attribute Name on the remote machine. The third field is the name of the remote pool’s condor_collector.

The following represents a minimal submit description file for a job.

# minimal submit description file for an HTCondor-C job
universe = grid
executable = myjob
output = myoutput
error = myerror
log = mylog

grid_resource = condor joe@remotemachine.example.com remotecentralmanager.example.com
+remote_jobuniverse = 5
+remote_requirements = True
+remote_ShouldTransferFiles = "YES"
+remote_WhenToTransferOutput = "ON_EXIT"
queue

The remote machine needs to understand the attributes of the job. These are specified in the submit description file using the ‘+’ syntax, followed by the string remote_. At a minimum, this will be the job’s universe and the job’s requirements. It is likely that other attributes specific to the job’s universe (on the remote pool) will also be necessary. Note that attributes set with ‘+’ are inserted directly into the job’s ClassAd. Specify attributes as they must appear in the job’s ClassAd, not the submit description file. For example, the universe is specified using an integer assigned for a job ClassAd JobUniverse. Similarly, place quotation marks around string expressions. As an example, a submit description file would ordinarily contain

when_to_transfer_output = ON_EXIT

This must appear in the HTCondor-C job submit description file as

+remote_WhenToTransferOutput = "ON_EXIT"

For convenience, the specific entries of universe, remote_grid_resource, globus_rsl , and globus_xml may be specified as remote_ commands without the leading ‘+’. Instead of

+remote_universe = 5

the submit description file command may appear as

remote_universe = vanilla

Similarly, the command

+remote_gridresource = "condor schedd.example.com cm.example.com"

may be given as

remote_grid_resource = condor schedd.example.com cm.example.com

For the given example, the job is to be run as a vanilla universe job at the remote pool. The (remote pool’s) condor_schedd daemon is likely to place its job queue data on a local disk and execute the job on another machine within the pool of machines. This implies that the file systems for the resulting submit machine (the machine specified by remote_schedd) and the execute machine (the machine that runs the job) will not be shared. Thus, the two inserted ClassAd attributes

+remote_ShouldTransferFiles = "YES"
+remote_WhenToTransferOutput = "ON_EXIT"

are used to invoke HTCondor’s file transfer mechanism.

For communication between condor_schedd daemons on the submit and remote machines, the location of the remote condor_schedd daemon is needed. This information resides in the condor_collector of the remote machine’s pool. The third field of the grid_resource command in the submit description file says which condor_collector should be queried for the remote condor_schedd daemon’s location. An example of this submit command is

grid_resource = condor schedd.example.com machine1.example.com

If the remote condor_collector is not listening on the standard port (9618), then the port it is listening on needs to be specified:

grid_resource = condor schedd.example.comd machine1.example.com:12345

File transfer of a job’s executable, stdin, stdout, and stderr are automatic. When other files need to be transferred using HTCondor’s file transfer mechanism (see the Submitting Jobs Without a Shared File System: HTCondor’s File Transfer Mechanism section), the mechanism is applied based on the resulting job universe on the remote machine.

HTCondor-C Jobs Between Differing Platforms¶

HTCondor-C jobs given to a remote machine running Windows must specify the Windows domain of the remote machine. This is accomplished by defining a ClassAd attribute for the job. Where the Windows domain is different at the submit machine from the remote machine, the submit description file defines the Windows domain of the remote machine with

+remote_NTDomain = "DomainAtRemoteMachine"

A Windows machine not part of a domain defines the Windows domain as the machine name.

The nordugrid Grid Type¶

NorduGrid is a project to develop free grid middleware named the Advanced Resource Connector (ARC). See the NorduGrid web page (http://www.nordugrid.org) for more information about NorduGrid software.

HTCondor jobs may be submitted to NorduGrid resources using the grid universe. The grid_resource command specifies the name of the NorduGrid resource as follows:

grid_resource = nordugrid ng.example.com

NorduGrid uses X.509 credentials for authentication, usually in the form a proxy certificate. condor_submit looks in default locations for the proxy. The submit description file command x509userproxy may be used to give the full path name to the directory containing the proxy, when the proxy is not in a default location. If this optional command is not present in the submit description file, then the value of the environment variable X509_USER_PROXY is checked for the location of the proxy. If this environment variable is not present, then the proxy in the file /tmp/x509up_uXXXX is used, where the characters XXXX in this file name are replaced with the Unix user id.

NorduGrid uses RSL syntax to describe jobs. The submit description file command nordugrid_rsl adds additional attributes to the job RSL that HTCondor constructs. The format this submit description file command is

nordugrid_rsl = (name=value)(name=value)

The batch Grid Type (for PBS, LSF, SGE, and SLURM)¶

The batch grid type is used to submit to a local PBS, LSF, SGE, or SLURM system using the grid universe and the grid_resource command by placing a variant of the following into the submit description file.

grid_resource = batch pbs

The second argument on the right hand side will be one of pbs, lsf, sge, or slurm.

Any of these batch grid types requires two variables to be set in the HTCondor configuration file. BATCH_GAHP is the path to the GAHP server binary that is to be used to submit one of these batch jobs. GLITE_LOCATION is the path to the directory containing the GAHP’s configuration file and auxiliary binaries. In the HTCondor distribution, these files are located in $(LIBEXEC)/glite. The batch GAHP’s configuration file is in $(GLITE_LOCATION)/etc/blah.config. The batch GAHP’s auxiliary binaries are to be in the directory $(GLITE_LOCATION)/bin. The HTCondor configuration file appears

GLITE_LOCATION = $(LIBEXEC)/glite
BATCH_GAHP     = $(BIN)/blahpd

The batch GAHP’s configuration file has variables that must be modified to tell it where to find

PBS
on the local system. pbs_binpath is the directory that contains the PBS binaries. pbs_spoolpath is the PBS spool directory.

LSF
on the local system. lsf_binpath is the directory that contains the LSF binaries. lsf_confpath is the location of the LSF configuration file.

The batch GAHP supports translating certain job classad attributes into the corresponding batch system submission parameters. However, note that not all parameters are supported.

The following table summarizes how job classad attributes will be translated into the corresponding Slurm job parameters.

Classad	Slurm
`RequestMemory`	`--mem`
`BatchRuntime`	`--time`
`BatchProject`	`--account`
`Queue`	`--partition`
`Queue`	`--clusters`
Unsupported	`--cpus-per-task`

Note that for Slurm, Queue is used for both --partition and --clusters. If you use the partition@cluster syntax, the partition will be set to whatever is before the @, and the cluster to whatever is after the @. If you only wish to set the cluster, leave out the partition (e.g. use @cluster).

The popular PBS (Portable Batch System) can be found at http://www.pbsworks.com/, and Torque is at (http://www.adaptivecomputing.com/products/open-source/torque/).

As an alternative to the submission details given above, HTCondor jobs may be submitted to a local PBS system using the grid universe and the grid_resource command by placing the following into the submit description file.

grid_resource = pbs

HTCondor jobs may be submitted to the Platform LSF batch system. Find the Platform product from the page http://www.platform.com/Products/ for more information about Platform LSF.

As an alternative to the submission details given above, HTCondor jobs may be submitted to a local Platform LSF system using the grid universe and the grid_resource command by placing the following into the submit description file.

grid_resource = lsf

The popular Grid Engine batch system (formerly known as Sun Grid Engine and abbreviated SGE) is available in two varieties: Oracle Grid Engine (http://www.oracle.com/us/products/tools/oracle-grid-engine-075549.html) and Univa Grid Engine (http://www.univa.com/?gclid=CLXg6-OEy6wCFWICQAodl0lm9Q).

As an alternative to the submission details given above, HTCondor jobs may be submitted to a local SGE system using the grid universe and adding the grid_resource command by placing into the submit description file:

grid_resource = sge

The condor_qsub command line tool will take PBS/SGE style batch files or command line arguments and submit the job to HTCondor instead. See the condor_qsub manual page for details.

The EC2 Grid Type¶

HTCondor jobs may be submitted to clouds supporting Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) interface. The EC2 interface permits on-line commercial services that provide the rental of computers by the hour to run computational applications. They run virtual machine images that have been uploaded to Amazon’s online storage service (S3 or EBS). More information about Amazon’s EC2 service is available at http://aws.amazon.com/ec2.

The ec2 grid type uses the EC2 Query API, also called the EC2 REST API.

EC2 Job Submission¶

HTCondor jobs are submitted to an EC2 service with the grid universe, setting the grid_resource command to ec2, followed by the service’s URL. For example, partial contents of the submit description file may be

grid_resource = ec2 https://ec2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/

(Replace ‘us-east-1’ with the AWS region you’d like to use.)

Since the job is a virtual machine image, most of the submit description file commands specifying input or output files are not applicable. The executable command is still required, but its value is ignored. It can be used to identify different jobs in the output of condor_q.

The VM image for the job must already reside in one of Amazon’s storage service (S3 or EBS) and be registered with EC2. In the submit description file, provide the identifier for the image using ec2_ami_id .

This grid type requires access to user authentication information, in the form of path names to files containing the appropriate keys, with one exception, described below.

The ec2 grid type has two different authentication methods. The first authentication method uses the EC2 API’s built-in authentication. Specify the service with expected http:// or https:// URL, and set the EC2 access key and secret access key as follows:

ec2_access_key_id = /path/to/access.key
ec2_secret_access_key = /path/to/secret.key

The euca3:// and euca3s:// protocols must use this authentication method. These protocols exist to work correctly when the resources do not support the InstanceInitiatedShutdownBehavior parameter.

The second authentication method for the EC2 grid type is X.509. Specify the service with an x509:// URL, even if the URL was given in another form. Use ec2_access_key_id to specify the path to the X.509 public key (certificate), which is not the same as the built-in authentication’s access key. ec2_secret_access_key specifies the path to the X.509 private key, which is not the same as the built-in authentication’s secret key. The following example illustrates the specification for X.509 authentication:

grid_resource = ec2 x509://service.example
ec2_access_key_id = /path/to/x.509/public.key
ec2_secret_access_key = /path/to/x.509/private.key

If using an X.509 proxy, specify the proxy in both places.

The exception to both of these cases applies when submitting EC2 jobs to an HTCondor running in an EC2 instance. If that instance has been configured with sufficient privileges, you may specify FROM INSTANCE for either ec2_access_key_id or ec2_secret_access_key, and HTCondor will use the instance’s credentials. (AWS grants an EC2 instance access to temporary credentials, renewed over the instance’s lifetime, based on the instance’s assigned IAM (instance) profile and the corresponding IAM role. You may specify the this information when launching an instance or later, during its lifetime.)

HTCondor can use the EC2 API to create an SSH key pair that allows secure log in to the virtual machine once it is running. If the command ec2_keypair_file is set in the submit description file, HTCondor will write an SSH private key into the indicated file. The key can be used to log into the virtual machine. Note that modification will also be needed of the firewall rules for the job to incoming SSH connections.

An EC2 service uses a firewall to restrict network access to the virtual machine instances it runs. Typically, no incoming connections are allowed. One can define sets of firewall rules and give them names. The EC2 API calls these security groups. If utilized, tell HTCondor what set of security groups should be applied to each VM using the ec2_security_groups submit description file command. If not provided, HTCondor uses the security group default. This command specifies security group names; to specify IDs, use ec2_security_ids . This may be necessary when specifying a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) instance.

To run an instance in a VPC, set ec2_vpc_subnet to the the desired VPC’s specification string. The instance’s IP address may also be specified by setting ec2_vpc_id .

The EC2 API allows the choice of different hardware configurations for instances to run on. Select which configuration to use for the ec2 grid type with the ec2_instance_type submit description file command. HTCondor provides no default.

Certain instance types provide additional block devices whose names must be mapped to kernel device names in order to be used. The ec2_block_device_mapping submit description file command allows specification of these maps. A map is a device name followed by a colon, followed by kernel name; maps are separated by a commas, and/or spaces. For example, to specify that the first ephemeral device should be /dev/sdb and the second /dev/sdc:

ec2_block_device_mapping = ephemeral0:/dev/sdb, ephemeral1:/dev/sdc

Each virtual machine instance can be given up to 16 KiB of unique data, accessible by the instance by connecting to a well-known address. This makes it easy for many instances to share the same VM image, but perform different work. This data can be specified to HTCondor in one of two ways. First, the data can be provided directly in the submit description file using the ec2_user_data command. Second, the data can be stored in a file, and the file name is specified with the ec2_user_data_file submit description file command. This second option allows the use of binary data. If both options are used, the two blocks of data are concatenated, with the data from ec2_user_data occurring first. HTCondor performs the base64 encoding that EC2 expects on the data.

Amazon also offers an Identity and Access Management (IAM) service. To specify an IAM (instance) profile for an EC2 job, use submit commands ec2_iam_profile_name or ec2_iam_profile_arn .

Termination of EC2 Jobs¶

A protocol defines the shutdown procedure for jobs running as EC2 instances. The service is told to shut down the instance, and the service acknowledges. The service then advances the instance to a state in which the termination is imminent, but the job is given time to shut down gracefully.

Once this state is reached, some services other than Amazon cannot be relied upon to actually terminate the job. Thus, HTCondor must check that the instance has terminated before removing the job from the queue. This avoids the possibility of HTCondor losing track of a job while it is still accumulating charges on the service.

HTCondor checks after a fixed time interval that the job actually has terminated. If the job has not terminated after a total of four checks, the job is placed on hold.

Using Spot Instances¶

EC2 jobs may also be submitted to clouds that support spot instances. A spot instance differs from a conventional, or dedicated, instance in two primary ways. First, the instance price varies according to demand. Second, the cloud provider may terminate the instance prematurely. To start a spot instance, the submitter specifies a bid, which represents the most the submitter is willing to pay per hour to run the VM. Within HTCondor, the submit command ec2_spot_price specifies this floating point value. For example, to bid 1.1 cents per hour on Amazon:

ec2_spot_price = 0.011

Note that the EC2 API does not specify how the cloud provider should interpret the bid. Empirically, Amazon uses fractional US dollars.

Other submission details for a spot instance are identical to those for a dedicated instance.

A spot instance will not necessarily begin immediately. Instead, it will begin as soon as the price drops below the bid. Thus, spot instance jobs may remain in the idle state for much longer than dedicated instance jobs, as they wait for the price to drop. Furthermore, if the price rises above the bid, the cloud service will terminate the instance.

More information about Amazon’s spot instances is available at http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/spot-instances/.

EC2 Advanced Usage¶

Additional control of EC2 instances is available in the form of permitting the direct specification of instance creation parameters. To set an instance creation parameter, first list its name in the submit command ec2_parameter_names , a space or comma separated list. The parameter may need to be properly capitalized. Also tell HTCondor the parameter’s value, by specifying it as a submit command whose name begins with ec2_parameter_; dots within the parameter name must be written as underscores in the submit command name.

For example, the submit description file commands to set parameter IamInstanceProfile.Name to value ExampleProfile are

ec2_parameter_names = IamInstanceProfile.Name
ec2_parameter_IamInstanceProfile_Name = ExampleProfile

EC2 Configuration Variables¶

The configuration variables EC2_GAHP and EC2_GAHP_LOG must be set, and by default are equal to $(SBIN)/ec2_gahp and /tmp/EC2GahpLog.$(USERNAME), respectively.

The configuration variable EC2_GAHP_DEBUG is optional and defaults to D_PID; we recommend you keep D_PID if you change the default, to disambiguate between the logs of different resources specified by the same user.

Communicating with an EC2 Service¶

The ec2 grid type does not presently permit the explicit use of an HTTP proxy.

By default, HTCondor assumes that EC2 services are reliably available. If an attempt to contact a service during the normal course of operation fails, HTCondor makes a special attempt to contact the service. If this attempt fails, the service is marked as down, and normal operation for that service is suspended until a subsequent special attempt succeeds. The jobs using that service do not go on hold. To place jobs on hold when their service becomes unavailable, set configuration variable EC2_RESOURCE_TIMEOUT to the number of seconds to delay before placing the job on hold. The default value of -1 for this variable implements an infinite delay, such that the job is never placed on hold. When setting this value, consider the value of configuration variable GRIDMANAGER_RESOURCE_PROBE_INTERVAL , which sets the number of seconds that HTCondor will wait after each special contact attempt before trying again.

By default, the EC2 GAHP enforces a 100 millisecond interval between requests to the same service. This helps ensure reliable service. You may configure this interval with the configuration variable EC2_GAHP_RATE_LIMIT, which must be an integer number of milliseconds. Adjusting the interval may result in higher or lower throughput, depending on the service. Too short of an interval may trigger rate-limiting by the service; while HTCondor will react appropriately (by retrying with an exponential back-off), it may be more efficient to configure a longer interval.

Secure Communication with an EC2 Service¶

The specification of a service with an https://, an x509://, or an euca3s:// URL validates that service’s certificate, checking that a trusted certificate authority (CA) signed it. Commercial EC2 service providers generally use certificates signed by widely-recognized CAs. These CAs will usually work without any additional configuration. For other providers, a specification of trusted CAs may be needed. Without, errors such as the following will be in the EC2 GAHP log:

06/13/13 15:16:16 curl_easy_perform() failed (60):
'Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with given CA certificates'.

Specify trusted CAs by including their certificates in a group of trusted CAs either in an on disk directory or in a single file. Either of these alternatives may contain multiple certificates. Which is used will vary from system to system, depending on the system’s SSL implementation. HTCondor uses libcurl; information about the libcurl specification of trusted CAs is available at

http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/curl_easy_setopt.html

The behavior when specifying both a directory and a file is undefined, although the EC2 GAHP allows it.

The EC2 GAHP will set the CA file to whichever variable it finds first, checking these in the following order:

The environment variable X509_CERT_FILE, set when the condor_master starts up.
The HTCondor configuration variable GAHP_SSL_CAFILE .

The EC2 GAHP supplies no default value, if it does not find a CA file.

The EC2 GAHP will set the CA directory given whichever of these variables it finds first, checking in the following order:

The HTCondor configuration variable GSI_DAEMON_TRUSTED_CA_DIR .
The environment variable X509_CERT_DIR, set when the condor_master starts up.
The HTCondor configuration variable GAHP_SSL_CADIR .

The EC2 GAHP supplies no default value, if it does not find a CA directory.

EC2 GAHP Statistics¶

The EC2 GAHP tracks, and reports in the corresponding grid resource ad, statistics related to resource’s rate limit.

NumRequests:: The total number of requests made by HTCondor to this resource.
NumDistinctRequests:: The number of distinct requests made by HTCondor to this resource. The difference between this and NumRequests is the total number of retries. Retries are not unusual.
NumRequestsExceedingLimit:: The number of requests which exceeded the service’s rate limit. Each such request will cause a retry, unless the maximum number of retries is exceeded, or if the retries have already taken so long that the signature on the original request has expired.
NumExpiredSignatures:: The number of requests which the EC2 GAHP did not even attempt to send to the service because signature expired. Signatures should not, generally, expire; a request’s retries will usually - eventually - succeed.

The GCE Grid Type¶

HTCondor jobs may be submitted to the Google Compute Engine (GCE) cloud service. GCE is an on-line commercial service that provides the rental of computers by the hour to run computational applications. Its runs virtual machine images that have been uploaded to Google’s servers. More information about Google Compute Engine is available at http://cloud.google.com/Compute.

GCE Job Submission¶

HTCondor jobs are submitted to the GCE service with the grid universe, setting the grid_resource command to gce, followed by the service’s URL, your GCE project, and the desired GCE zone to be used. The submit description file command will be similar to:

grid_resource = gce https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1 my_proj us-central1-a

Since the HTCondor job is a virtual machine image, most of the submit description file commands specifying input or output files are not applicable. The executable command is still required, but its value is ignored. It identifies different jobs in the output of condor_q.

The VM image for the job must already reside in Google’s Cloud Storage service and be registered with GCE. In the submit description file, provide the identifier for the image using the gce_image command.

This grid type requires granting HTCondor permission to use your Google account. The easiest way to do this is to use the gcloud command-line tool distributed by Google. Find gcloud and documentation for it at https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/gcloud-compute/. After installation of gcloud, run gcloud auth login and follow its directions. Once done with that step, the tool will write authorization credentials to the file .config/gcloud/credentials under your HOME directory.

Given an authorization file, specify its location in the submit description file using the gce_auth_file command, as in the example:

gce_auth_file = /path/to/auth-file

GCE allows the choice of different hardware configurations for instances to run on. Select which configuration to use for the gce grid type with the gce_machine_type submit description file command. HTCondor provides no default.

Each virtual machine instance can be given a unique set of metadata, which consists of name/value pairs, similar to the environment variables of regular jobs. The instance can query its metadata via a well-known address. This makes it easy for many instances to share the same VM image, but perform different work. This data can be specified to HTCondor in one of two ways. First, the data can be provided directly in the submit description file using the gce_metadata command. The value should be a comma-separated list of name=value settings, as the example:

gce_metadata = setting1=foo,setting2=bar

Second, the data can be stored in a file, and the file name is specified with the gce_metadata_file submit description file command. This second option allows a wider range of characters to be used in the metadata values. Each name=value pair should be on its own line. No white space is removed from the lines, except for the newline that separates entries.

Both options can be used at the same time, but do not use the same metadata name in both places.

HTCondor sets the following elements when describing the instance to the GCE server: machineType, name, scheduling, disks, metadata, and networkInterfaces. You can provide additional elements to be included in the instance description as a block of JSON. Write the additional elements to a file, and specify the filename in your submit file with the gce_json_file command. The contents of the file are inserted into HTCondor’s JSON description of the instance, between a comma and the closing brace.

Here’s a sample JSON file that sets two additional elements:

"canIpForward": True,
"description": "My first instance"

GCE Configuration Variables¶

The following configuration parameters are specific to the gce grid type. The values listed here are the defaults. Different values may be specified in the HTCondor configuration files. To work around an issue where long-running gce_gahp processes have trouble authenticating, the gce_gahp self-restarts periodically, with the default value of 24 hours. You can set the number of seconds between restarts using GCE_GAHP_LIFETIME, where zero means to never restart. Restarting the gce_gahp does not affect the jobs themselves.

GCE_GAHP     = $(SBIN)/gce_gahp
GCE_GAHP_LOG = /tmp/GceGahpLog.$(USERNAME)
GCE_GAHP_LIFETIME = 86400

The Azure Grid Type¶

HTCondor jobs may be submitted to the Microsoft Azure cloud service. Azure is an on-line commercial service that provides the rental of computers by the hour to run computational applications. It runs virtual machine images that have been uploaded to Azure’s servers. More information about Azure is available at https://azure.microsoft.com.

Azure Job Submission¶

HTCondor jobs are submitted to the Azyre service with the grid universe, setting the grid_resource command to azure, followed by your Azure subscription id. The submit description file command will be similar to:

grid_resource = azure 4843bfe3-1ebe-423e-a6ea-c777e57700a9

Since the HTCondor job is a virtual machine image, most of the submit description file commands specifying input or output files are not applicable. The executable command is still required, but its value is ignored. It identifies different jobs in the output of condor_q.

The VM image for the job must already be registered a virtual machine image in Azure. In the submit description file, provide the identifier for the image using the azure_image command.

This grid type requires granting HTCondor permission to use your Azure account. The easiest way to do this is to use the az command-line tool distributed by Microsoft. Find az and documentation for it at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/?view=azure-cli-latest. After installation of az, run az login and follow its directions. Once done with that step, the tool will write authorization credentials in a file under your HOME directory. HTCondor will use these credentials to communicate with Azure.

You can also set up a service account in Azure for HTCondor to use. This lets you limit the level of acccess HTCondor has to your Azure account. Instructions for creating a service account can be found here: http://research.cs.wisc.edu/htcondor/gahp/AzureGAHPSetup.docx.

Once you have created a file containing the service account credentials, you can specify its location in the submit description file using the azure_auth_file command, as in the example:

azure_auth_file = /path/to/auth-file

Azure allows the choice of different hardware configurations for instances to run on. Select which configuration to use for the azure grid type with the azure_size submit description file command. HTCondor provides no default.

Azure has many locations where instances can be run (i.e. multiple data centers distributed throughout the world). You can select which location to use with the azure_location submit description file command.

Azure creates an administrator account within each instance, which you can log into remote via SSH. You can select the name of the account with the azure_admin_username command. You can supply the name of a file containing an SSH public key that will allow access to the administrator account with the azure_admin_key command.

The BOINC Grid Type¶

HTCondor jobs may be submitted to BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) servers. BOINC is a software system for volunteer computing. More information about BOINC is available at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/.

BOINC Job Submission¶

HTCondor jobs are submitted to a BOINC service with the grid universe, setting the grid_resource command to boinc, followed by the service’s URL.

To use this grid type, you must have an account on the BOINC server that is authorized to submit jobs. Provide the authenticator string for that account for HTCondor to use. Write the authenticator string in a file and specify its location in the submit description file using the boinc_authenticator_file command, as in the example:

boinc_authenticator_file = /path/to/auth-file

Before submitting BOINC jobs, register the application with the BOINC server. This includes describing the application’s resource requirements and input and output files, and placing application files on the server. This is a manual process that is done on the BOINC server. See the BOINC documentation for details.

In the submit description file, the executable command gives the registered name of the application on the BOINC server. Input and output files can be described as in the vanilla universe, but the file names must match the application description on the BOINC server. If transfer_output_files is omitted, then all output files are transferred.

BOINC Configuration Variables¶

The following configuration variable is specific to the boinc grid type. The value listed here is the default. A different value may be specified in the HTCondor configuration files.

BOINC_GAHP = $(SBIN)/boinc_gahp

Matchmaking in the Grid Universe¶

In a simple usage, the grid universe allows users to specify a single grid site as a destination for jobs. This is sufficient when a user knows exactly which grid site they wish to use, or a higher-level resource broker (such as the European Data Grid’s resource broker) has decided which grid site should be used.

When a user has a variety of grid sites to choose from, HTCondor allows matchmaking of grid universe jobs to decide which grid resource a job should run on. Please note that this form of matchmaking is relatively new. There are some rough edges as continual improvement occurs.

To facilitate HTCondor’s matching of jobs with grid resources, both the jobs and the grid resources are involved. The job’s submit description file provides all commands needed to make the job work on a matched grid resource. The grid resource identifies itself to HTCondor by advertising a ClassAd. This ClassAd specifies all necessary attributes, such that HTCondor can properly make matches. The grid resource identification is accomplished by using condor_advertise to send a ClassAd representing the grid resource, which is then used by HTCondor to make matches.

Job Submission¶

To submit a grid universe job intended for a single, specific gt2 resource, the submit description file for the job explicitly specifies the resource:

grid_resource = gt2 grid.example.com/jobmanager-pbs

If there were multiple gt2 resources that might be matched to the job, the submit description file changes:

grid_resource   = $$(resource_name)
requirements    = TARGET.resource_name =!= UNDEFINED

The grid_resource command uses a substitution macro. The substitution macro defines the value of resource_name using attributes as specified by the matched grid resource. The requirements command further restricts that the job may only run on a machine (grid resource) that defines grid_resource. Note that this attribute name is invented for this example. To make matchmaking work in this way, both the job (as used here within the submit description file) and the grid resource (in its created and advertised ClassAd) must agree upon the name of the attribute.

As a more complex example, consider a job that wants to run not only on a gt2 resource, but on one that has the Bamboozle software installed. The complete submit description file might appear:

universe        = grid
executable      = analyze_bamboozle_data
output          = aaa.$(Cluster).out
error           = aaa.$(Cluster).err
log             = aaa.log
grid_resource   = $$(resource_name)
requirements    = (TARGET.HaveBamboozle == True) && (TARGET.resource_name =!= UNDEFINED)
queue

Any grid resource which has the HaveBamboozle attribute defined as well as set to True is further checked to have the resource_name attribute defined. Where this occurs, a match may be made (from the job’s point of view). A grid resource that has one of these attributes defined, but not the other results in no match being made.

Note that the entire value of grid_resource comes from the grid resource’s ad. This means that the job can be matched with a resource of any type, not just gt2.

Advertising Grid Resources to HTCondor¶

Any grid resource that wishes to be matched by HTCondor with a job must advertise itself to HTCondor using a ClassAd. To properly advertise, a ClassAd is sent periodically to the condor_collector daemon. A ClassAd is a list of pairs, where each pair consists of an attribute name and value that describes an entity. There are two entities relevant to HTCondor: a job, and a machine. A grid resource is a machine. The ClassAd describes the grid resource, as well as identifying the capabilities of the grid resource. It may also state both requirements and preferences (called rank ) for the jobs it will run. See the Matchmaking with ClassAds section for an overview of the interaction between matchmaking and ClassAds. A list of common machine ClassAd attributes is given in the Machine ClassAd Attributes appendix page.

To advertise a grid site, place the attributes in a file. Here is a sample ClassAd that describes a grid resource that is capable of running a gt2 job.

# example grid resource ClassAd for a gt2 job
MyType         = "Machine"
TargetType     = "Job"
Name           = "Example1_Gatekeeper"
Machine        = "Example1_Gatekeeper"
resource_name  = "gt2 grid.example.com/jobmanager-pbs"
UpdateSequenceNumber  = 4
Requirements   = (TARGET.JobUniverse == 9)
Rank           = 0.000000
CurrentRank    = 0.000000

Some attributes are defined as expressions, while others are integers, floating point values, or strings. The type is important, and must be correct for the ClassAd to be effective. The attributes

MyType         = "Machine"
TargetType     = "Job"

identify the grid resource as a machine, and that the machine is to be matched with a job. In HTCondor, machines are matched with jobs, and jobs are matched with machines. These attributes are strings. Strings are surrounded by double quote marks.

The attributes Name and Machine are likely to be defined to be the same string value as in the example:

Name           = "Example1_Gatekeeper"
Machine        = "Example1_Gatekeeper"

Both give the fully qualified host name for the resource. The Name may be different on an SMP machine, where the individual CPUs are given names that can be distinguished from each other. Each separate grid resource must have a unique name.

Where the job depends on the resource to specify the value of the grid_resource command by the use of the substitution macro, the ClassAd for the grid resource (machine) defines this value. The example given as

grid_resource = "gt2 grid.example.com/jobmanager-pbs"

defines this value. Note that the invented name of this variable must match the one utilized within the submit description file. To make the matchmaking work, both the job (as used within the submit description file) and the grid resource (in this created and advertised ClassAd) must agree upon the name of the attribute.

A machine’s ClassAd information can be time sensitive, and may change over time. Therefore, ClassAds expire and are thrown away. In addition, the communication method by which ClassAds are sent implies that entire ads may be lost without notice or may arrive out of order. Out of order arrival leads to the definition of an attribute which provides an ordering. This positive integer value is given in the example ClassAd as

UpdateSequenceNumber  = 4

This value must increase for each subsequent ClassAd. If state information for the ClassAd is kept in a file, a script executed each time the ClassAd is to be sent may use a counter for this value. An alternative for a stateless implementation sends the current time in seconds (since the epoch, as given by the C time() function call).

The requirements that the grid resource sets for any job that it will accept are given as

Requirements     = (TARGET.JobUniverse == 9)

This set of requirements state that any job is required to be for the grid universe.

The attributes

Rank             = 0.000000
CurrentRank      = 0.000000

are both necessary for HTCondor’s negotiation to proceed, but are not relevant to grid matchmaking. Set both to the floating point value 0.0.

The example machine ClassAd becomes more complex for the case where the grid resource allows matches with more than one job:

# example grid resource ClassAd for a gt2 job
MyType         = "Machine"
TargetType     = "Job"
Name           = "Example1_Gatekeeper"
Machine        = "Example1_Gatekeeper"
resource_name  = "gt2 grid.example.com/jobmanager-pbs"
UpdateSequenceNumber  = 4
Requirements   = (CurMatches < 10) && (TARGET.JobUniverse == 9)
Rank           = 0.000000
CurrentRank    = 0.000000
WantAdRevaluate = True
CurMatches     = 1

In this example, the two attributes WantAdRevaluate and CurMatches appear, and the Requirements expression has changed.

WantAdRevaluate is a boolean value, and may be set to either True or False. When True in the ClassAd and a match is made (of a job to the grid resource), the machine (grid resource) is not removed from the set of machines to be considered for further matches. This implements the ability for a single grid resource to be matched to more than one job at a time. Note that the spelling of this attribute is incorrect, and remains incorrect to maintain backward compatibility.

To limit the number of matches made to the single grid resource, the resource must have the ability to keep track of the number of HTCondor jobs it has. This integer value is given as the CurMatches attribute in the advertised ClassAd. It is then compared in order to limit the number of jobs matched with the grid resource.

Requirements   = (CurMatches < 10) && (TARGET.JobUniverse == 9)
CurMatches     = 1

This example assumes that the grid resource already has one job, and is willing to accept a maximum of 9 jobs. If CurMatches does not appear in the ClassAd, HTCondor uses a default value of 0.

For multiple matching of a site ClassAd to work correctly, it is also necessary to add the following to the configuration file read by the condor_negotiator:

NEGOTIATOR_MATCHLIST_CACHING = False
NEGOTIATOR_IGNORE_USER_PRIORITIES = True

This ClassAd (likely in a file) is to be periodically sent to the condor_collector daemon using condor_advertise. A recommended implementation uses a script to create or modify the ClassAd together with cron to send the ClassAd every five minutes. The condor_advertise program must be installed on the machine sending the ClassAd, but the remainder of HTCondor does not need to be installed. The required argument for the condor_advertise command is UPDATE_STARTD_AD.

Advanced Grid Usage¶

What if a job fails to run at a grid site due to an error? It will be returned to the queue, and HTCondor will attempt to match it and re-run it at another site. HTCondor isn’t very clever about avoiding sites that may be bad, but you can give it some assistance. Let’s say that you want to avoid running at the last grid site you ran at. You could add this to your job description:

match_list_length = 1
Rank              = TARGET.Name != LastMatchName0

This will prefer to run at a grid site that was not just tried, but it will allow the job to be run there if there is no other option.

When you specify match_list_length, you provide an integer N, and HTCondor will keep track of the last N matches. The oldest match will be LastMatchName0, and next oldest will be LastMatchName1, and so on. (See the condor_submit manual page for more details.) The Rank expression allows you to specify a numerical ranking for different matches. When combined with match_list_length, you can prefer to avoid sites that you have already run at.

In addition, condor_submit has two options to help control grid universe job resubmissions and rematching. See the definitions of the submit description file commands globus_resubmit and globus_rematch on the condor_submit manual page. These options are independent of match_list_length.

There are some new attributes that will be added to the Job ClassAd, and may be useful to you when you write your rank, requirements, globus_resubmit or globus_rematch option. Please refer to the Job ClassAd Attributes section to see a list containing the following attributes:

NumJobMatches
NumGlobusSubmits
NumSystemHolds
HoldReason
ReleaseReason
EnteredCurrentStatus
LastMatchTime
LastRejMatchTime
LastRejMatchReason

The following example of a command within the submit description file releases jobs 5 minutes after being held, increasing the time between releases by 5 minutes each time. It will continue to retry up to 4 times per Globus submission, plus 4. The plus 4 is necessary in case the job goes on hold before being submitted to Globus, although this is unlikely.

periodic_release = ( NumSystemHolds <= ((NumGlobusSubmits * 4) + 4) ) \
   && (NumGlobusSubmits < 4) && \
   ( HoldReason != "via condor_hold (by user $ENV(USER))" ) && \
   ((time() - EnteredCurrentStatus) > ( NumSystemHolds *60*5 ))

The following example forces Globus resubmission after a job has been held 4 times per Globus submission.

globus_resubmit = NumSystemHolds == (NumGlobusSubmits + 1) * 4

If you are concerned about unknown or malicious grid sites reporting to your condor_collector, you should use HTCondor’s security options, documented in the Security section.