Re: [Condor-users] Scilab in standart universe

[Jean-Christophe BACCON <Jean-Christophe.Baccon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Le mercredi 06 avril 2005 à 16:33 -0500, Greg Thain a écrit :
> 
> Jean-Christophe BACCON wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I have some users who want to use scilab to make some long simulations
> > (about 40 days). As our compute nodes are students computers, they want
> > to use the standart universe to checkpoint thoses simulations. But there
> > are some forbiden instruction in scilab code (sleep, fork,
> > threads, ...). So I want to know if somebody succeed in porting scilab
> > for the standart universe and if it is possible to get this version, or
> > you know another solution.
> 
> I am not familiar with scilab, but there are several possible options.
> 
> First, you can run your scilab jobs in the vanilla universe, and have 
> your users write checkpointing code themselves.  The user's code should 
> write out the state of their simulation to a file periodically (maybe 
> every 30 minutes ?). If you are transferring the working files, this 
> checkpoint file can be sent back with the job when it is restarted by 
> setting when_to_transfer_output to ON_EXIT_OR_EVICT in the submit file. 
> The job should check for the existence of this file, and restart from 
> the saved state. This is the best option, if you can do it.
> 
> A second option will work only if your user's scilab code doesn't 
> actually execute any of the forbidden system calls.  That is, if scilab 
> only forks when the user's scilab code does some specific thing, if your 
> user's code never triggers the fork, you can still run the 
> condor_compile'd scilab. For example, you can condor_compile code that 
> calls fork, but it will return the error ENOSYS if it is actually called.
> 
> Finally, I believe that scilab is a matlab clone?  There is another open 
> source matlab clone called octave.  I have successful condor-compile'd 
> octave, and run it in the Condor standard universe.  It may be possible 
> to translate your scilab code to octave, and run it that way.  Octave 
> allows the user's code to call fork and other system calls the standard 
> universe prohibits, but as long as the Octave code never calls these, it 
> is ok to run in the standard universe.  It is often the case that 
> long-running batch jobs don't need these calls.
> 
> -greg

thanks for your answer, I will try octave (which copile well with
condor) and see later for scilab


-- 
Jean-Christophe Baccon
Service Informatique Recherche
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