Monitoring Jobs

This page provides information about monitoring user jobs. Slurm provides different commands to gather information about current, future and past jobs.

• squeue - provides information on current and future jobs
• scontrol - provides detailed information on currently running jobs
• sacct - provides detailed information on past jobs

Note that the output format of most Slurm commands is highly configurable to your needs. Look for the —format or —Format options in the man pages of the command.

squeue

Monitoring your jobs

Use the squeue --me command to get a overview of all your active (running and pending) jobs in the cluster.

Syntax

bash

 squeue [options]

Common options

bash

--me                                Display all your currently pending or running jobs
--jobs=<job_id[,job_id[,...]]>      Request specific jobs to be displayed
--partition=<part[,part[,...]]>     Request jobs to be displayed from a comma separated list of partitions
--states=<state[,state[,...]]>      Display jobs in specific states. Comma separated list or "all". Default: "PD,R,CG"

The default output format is as follows:

bash

JOBID PARTITION NAME USER ST TIME NODES NODELIST(REASON)

where

bash

JOBID              Job or step ID. For array jobs, the job ID format will be of the form <job_id>_<index>
PARTITION          Partition of the job/step
NAME               Name of the job/step
USER               Owner of the job/step
ST                 State of the job/step. See below for a description of the most common states
TIME               Time used by the job/step. Format is days-hours:minutes:seconds
                   (days,hours only printed as needed)
NODES              Number of nodes allocated to the job or the minimum amount of nodes required
                   by a pending job
NODELIST(REASON)   For pending jobs: Reason why pending. For failed jobs: Reason why failed.
                   For all other job states: List of allocated nodes. See below for a list of the most
                   common reason codes

See the man page for more information: man squeue

Job States

During its lifetime, a job passes through several states:

bash

PD                 Pending. Job is waiting for resource allocation
R                  Running. Job has an allocation and is running
S                  Suspended. Execution has been suspended and resources have been released for other jobs
CA                 Cancelled. Job was explicitly cancelled by the user or the system administrator
CG                 Completing. Job is in the process of completing. Some processes on some nodes may still be active
CD                 Completed. Job has terminated all processes on all nodes with an exit code of zero
F                  Failed. Job has terminated with non-zero exit code or other failure condition

Why is my job still pending?

Finding a REASON

The REASON column of the squeue --me output gives you a hint why your job is not running.

(Resources)

The job is waiting for resources to become available so that the jobs resource request can be fulfilled.

(Priority)

The job is not allowed to run because at least one higher prioritized job is waiting for resources.

(Dependency)

The job is waiting for another job to finish first (—dependency=… option).

(DependencyNeverSatisfied)

The job is waiting for a dependency that can never be satisfied. Such a job will remain pending forever. Please cancel such jobs.

(QOSMaxCpuPerUserLimit)

The job is not allowed to start because your currently running jobs consume all allowed CPU resources for your user in a specific partition. Wait for jobs to finish.

(AssocGrpCpuLimit)

dito.

(AssocGrpJobsLimit)

The job is not allowed to start because you have reached the maximum of allowed running jobs for your user in a specific partition. Wait for jobs to finish.

(ReqNodeNotAvail, UnavailableNodes:…)

Some node required by the job is currently not available. The node may currently be in use, reserved for another job, in an advanced reservation, DOWN, DRAINED, or not responding. Most probably there is an active reservation for all nodes due to an upcoming maintenance downtime and your job is not able to finish before the start of the downtime. Another reason why you should specify the duration of a job (—time) as accurately as possible. Your job will start after the downtime has finished. You can list all active reservations using scontrol show reservation.

Why can’t I submit further jobs?

_sbatch: error: Batch job submission failed: Job violates accounting/QOS policy (job submit limit, user's size and/or time limits)

… indicates that you have reached the maximum of allowed jobs to be submitted to a specific partition.

Examples

List all your currently running jobs:

bash

squeue --me --states=R

List all your currently running jobs in the gpu partition:

bash

squeue --me --partition=gpu --states=R

scontrol

Use the scontrol command to show more detailed information about a job

Syntax

bash

 scontrol [options] [command]

Examples

Show detailed information about job with ID 500:

bash

scontrol show jobid 500

Show even more detailed information about job with ID 500 (including the jobscript):

bash

scontrol -dd show jobid 500

sacct

Use the sacct command to query information about past jobs

Syntax

bash

 sacct [options]

Common options

bash

--endtime=end_time            Select jobs in any state before the specified time.
--starttime=start_time        Select jobs in any state after the specified time.
--state=state[,state[,...]]   Select jobs based on their state during the time period given.
                              By default, the start and end time will be the current time
                              when the --state option is specified, and hence only currently
                              running jobs will be displayed.