How does pbs/torque/maui choose node?

1
votes

We know that all the nodes features are stored in server_priv/nodes file. Everytime when we're using:

qsub -l nodes=1:linux

or

#PBS -l nodes=1:linux

to submit jobs, since we may have hundreds of machines which have linux feature. I wonder how the torque selects the right node?

From the top to the bottom searching the server_priv/nodes file? Alphabetical? Depends on the machine workload?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

1
pbsqsubtorque

1 Answers

0
votes

In this case, Maui is choosing the nodes to allocate to the job. Maui is the scheduler and therefore the decision-maker. I believe the default policy is firstavailable, which I think will be the first available node in the order that the nodes are specified in the nodes file (located in PBS_HOME/server_priv/nodes).

However, I don't know which node allocation policy your site is using. If you have access, you'd check the config file for Maui for NODEALLOCATIONPOLICY to see which one you are using. If you don't have access you'd need to contact an administrator. To better understand the different options for node allocation you can check out some of the Maui docs.