Re: [Condor-users] Question concerning BOINC backfill and condor

[Derek Wright <wright@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 15, 2006, at 7:36 PM, Baggett, Douglas wrote:

> I'm a little bit confused on the state rules for starting and  
> stopping backfill jobs (that chart diagram in the docs made my head  
> spin!) :)

sorry about that chart. ;)  it's complicated stuff, and i was going  
for completeness...  it does make the head spin, even for core condor  
developers at UW.


> So here is my question. If I want to run boinc in the background at  
> all times EXCEPT when a condor job comes into the system, if I set  
> START = TRUE and don't use the EVICT_BACKFILL variable will that  
> achieve my goal? It's unclear to me if EVICT_BACKFILL is changed by  
> CONDOR in the event of a CONDOR job entering the system. Or is that  
> variable only used when you want to evict a BOINC backfill due to  
> high CPU.

START controls when condor jobs start.  "START = TRUE" basically  
means to ignore any activity on the machine, and always start a  
condor job if there's 1 that matches, even if someone else is "using"  
the machine.

if you always want BOINC jobs to start running when there's no other  
work on the machine, then you want to set:

START_BACKFILL = TRUE

if you never want the backfill jobs to be evicted because of an  
interactive user, you want:

EVICT_BACKFILL = FALSE

(if you leave it undefined, you'll keep getting warnings in your  
config file about it, though it will effectively be FALSE.  better to  
just define the behavior you want explicitly).

the backfill stuff will automatically evict BOINC when a real Condor  
job arrives on the machine, so you don't have to worry about  
configuring that.

> The system I'm configuring is dedicated and I don't mind running  
> BOINC all the time (since it's niced anyhow) but I DO want it to  
> vacate if a condor job needs to run.

right.  currently, it's impossible to configure Condor's BOINC  
support to keep BOINC running if there's a Condor job.  that's by  
design.

thanks,
-derek (condor team)