Minnesota Supercomputer Institute

Blade (IBM BladeCenter Linux Cluster) Quickstart Guide

This guide will provide you with the basic information needed to get up and running on this machine. For detailed operations information, see the detailed user manual.

How to login

To login:

ssh -X -l username blade.msi.umn.edu

One only needs to use -l if his/her login name is different than the login name one uses on his/her own workstation.

How to compile code

Three compilers are available on the BladeCenter. Besides pathscale, one can also use Intel and portlane group compilers. To use the Intel compiler, you do the following:

module delete pathmpi
module add intelmpi

To use PGI compiler, you do the following:

module delete pathmpi
module add pgmpi

How to submit jobs to the queue using Portable Batch System (PBS)

Create a script file for PBS (see examples in the detailed user manual) and submit the script file to PBS by:

qsub myscript

There are currently three queues on the Blade Center cluster.

devel

It is intended for very short development jobs. The devel queue must be explicitly requested using:

qsub -q devel

bc

This is the default queue for production jobs. Jobs that do not request the devel queue will go in this queue.

bladejr

These blades have no Infiniband connections. It is intended for non-parallel jobs. MPICH1 using ethernet is available to allow mpi jobs. Code can be compiled to use MPICH1 in the standard way:

module load mpich1
mpicc -o mycode mycode.c

To submit a job to this bladejr queue, one needs to explicitly request it by:

qsub -q bladejr

How to monitor the job status

To check the status of your own jobs in the queue, use the command:

showq -u userid

How to cancel/kill/remove my job