QUEUE_CONF(5)

NAME
queue_conf - Grid Engine queue configuration file format

DESCRIPTION
Queue_conf reflects the format of the template file for the cluster queue configuration. Via the -aq and -mq options of the command, you can add cluster queues and modify the configuration of any queue in the cluster.

The queue_conf parameters take as values strings, integer decimal numbers or boolean, time and memory specifiers as well as comma separated lists. A time specifier either consists of a positive decimal, hexadecimal or octal integer constant, in which case the value is interpreted to be in seconds, or is built by 3 decimal integer numbers separated by colon signs where the first number counts the hours, the second the minutes and the third the seconds. If a number would be zero it can be left out but the separating colon must remain (e.g. 1:0:1 = 1::1 means 1 hours and 1 second).

Memory specifiers are positive decimal, hexadecimal or octal integer constants which may be followed by a multiplier letter. Valid multiplier letters are k, K, m, M, g and G, where k means multiply the value by 1000, K multiply by 1024, m multiply by 1000*1000, M multiply by 1024*1024, g multiply by 1000*1000*1000 and G multiply by 1024*1024*1024. If no multiplier is present, the value is just counted in bytes.

If more than one host is specified under 'hostlist' (by means of a list of hosts or with host groups) it can be desirable to specify divergences from the setting used for each host. These divergences can be expressed using the enhanced queue_conf specifier syntax. This syntax builds upon the regular parameter specifier syntax as described below under 'FORMAT' separately for each parameter and in the paragraph above:

"["host_identifier=<parameters_specifier_syntax>"]" [,"["host_identifier=<parameters_specifier_syntax>"]" ]

Even in the enhanced queue_conf specifier syntax an entry

<current_attribute_syntax>

without brackets denoting the default setting is required and used for all queue instances where no divergences are specified. Tuples with a host group host_identifier override the default setting. Tuples with a host name host_identifier override both the default and the host group setting. Note that also with the enhanced queue_conf specifier syntax a default setting is always needed for all configuration attributes.

Integrity verifications will be applied on the configuration.

Configurations without default setting are rejected. Ambiguous configurations with more than one attribute setting for a particular host are rejected. Configurations containing override values for hosts not enlisted under 'hostname' are accepted but are indicated by -sick of The cluster queue should contain an unambiguous specification for each configuration attribute of each queue instance specified under hostname in queue_conf. Ambiguous configurations with more than one attribute setting resulting from overlapping host groups are indicated by -explain c of and cause the queue instance with ambiguous configurations to enter the c(onfiguration ambiguous) state.

FORMAT
The following list of queue_conf parameters specifies the queue_conf content:

  qname
The name of the cluster queue(type string; template default: template).

  hostlist
A list of host names (fully-qualified) and host group names. Host group names must begin with an "@" sign. If multiple hosts are specified the queue_conf constitutes multiple queue instances. Each host may be specified only once in this list. (type string; template default: NONE).

  seq_no
In conjunction with the hosts load situation at a time this parameter specifies this queue's position in the scheduling order within the suitable queues for a job to be dispatched under consideration of the queue_sort_method (see ).

Regardless of the queue_sort_method setting, reports queue information in the order defined by the value of the seq_no. Set this parameter to a monotonically increasing sequence. (type number; template default: 0).

  load_thresholds
load_thresholds is a list of load thresholds. Already if one of the thresholds is exceeded no further jobs will be scheduled to the queues and will signal an overload condition for this node. Arbitrary load values being defined in the "host" and "global" complexes (see for details) can be used.

The syntax is that of a comma separated list with each list element consisting of the name of a load value, an equal sign and the threshold value being intended to trigger the overload situation (e.g. load_avg=1.75,users_logged_in=5).

Note: Load values as well as consumable resources may be scaled differently for different hosts if specified in the corresponding execution host definitions (refer to for more information). Load thresholds are compared against the scaled load and consumable values.

  suspend_thresholds
A list of load thresholds with the same semantics as that of the load_thresholds parameter (see above) except that exceeding one of the denoted thresholds initiates suspension of one of multiple jobs in the queue. See the nsuspend parameter below for details on the number of jobs which are suspended.

  nsuspend
The number of jobs which are suspended/enabled per time interval if at least one of the load thresholds in the suspend_thresholds list is exceeded or if no suspend_threshold is violated anymore respectively. Nsuspend jobs are suspended in each time interval until no suspend_thresholds are exceeded anymore or all jobs in the queue are suspended. Jobs are enabled in the corresponding way if the suspend_thresholds are no longer exceeded. The time interval in which the suspensions of the jobs occur is defined in suspend_interval below.

  suspend_interval
The time interval in which further nsuspend jobs are suspended if one of the suspend_thresholds (see above for both) is exceeded by the current load on the host on which the queue is located. The time interval is also used when enabling the jobs.

  priority
The priority parameter specifies the value at which jobs in this queue will be run. The type is number and the default is zero (which means no nice value is set explicitly). Negative values (up to -20) correspond to a higher scheduling priority, positive values (up to +20) correspond to a lower scheduling priority.

Note, the value of priority has no effect, if Grid Engine adjusts priorities dynamically to implement ticket-based entitlement policy goals. Dynamic priority adjustment is switched off by default due to reprioritize being set to false.

  min_cpu_interval
The time between two automatic checkpoints in case of transparently checkpointing jobs. The maximum of the time requested by the user via and the time defined by the queue configuration is used as checkpoint interval. Since checkpoint files may be considerably large and thus writing them to the file system may become expensive, users and administrators are advised to choose sufficiently large time intervals. min_cpu_interval is of type time and the default is 5 minutes (which usually is suitable for test purposes only).

  processors
A set of processors in case of a multiprocessor execution host can be defined to which the jobs executing in this queue are bound. The value type of this parameter is a range description like that of the -pe option of (e.g. 1-4,8,10) denoting the processor numbers for the processor group to be used. Obviously the interpretation of these values relies on operating system specifics and is thus performed inside running on the queue host. Therefore, the parsing of the parameter has to be provided by the execution daemon and the parameter is only passed through as a string.

Currently, support is only provided for SGI multiprocessor machines running IRIX 6.2 and Digital UNIX multiprocessor machines. In the case of Digital UNIX only one job per processor set is allowed to execute at the same time, i.e. slots (see above) should be set to 1 for this queue.

  qtype
The type of queue. Currently batch, interactive or a combination in a comma separated list or NONE.

The formerly supported types parallel and checkpointing are not allowed anymore. A queue instance is implicitly of type parallel/checkpointing if there is a parallel environment or a checkpointing interface specified for this queue instance in pe_list/ckpt_list. Formerly possible settings e.g.

qtype   PARALLEL

could be transferred into

qtype   NONE
pe_list pe_name

(type string; default: batch interactive).

  pe_list
The list of administrator-defined parallel environments to be associated with the queue. The default is NONE.

  ckpt_list
The list of administrator-defined checkpointing interfaces to be associated with the queue. The default is NONE.

  rerun
Defines a default behavior for jobs which are aborted by system crashes or manual "violent" (via shutdown of the complete Grid Engine system (including the of the jobs and their process hierarchy) on the queue host. As soon as is restarted and detects that a job has been aborted for such reasons it can be restarted if the jobs are restartable. A job may not be restartable, for example, if it updates databases (first reads then writes to the same record of a database/file) because the abortion of the job may have left the database in an inconsistent state. If the owner of a job wants to overrule the default behavior for the jobs in the queue the -r option of can be used.

The type of this parameter is boolean, thus either TRUE or FALSE can be specified. The default is FALSE, i.e. do not restart jobs automatically.

  slots
The maximum number of concurrently executing jobs allowed in the queue. Type is number.

  tmpdir
The tmpdir parameter specifies the absolute path to the base of the temporary directory filesystem. When launches a job, it creates a uniquely-named directory in this filesystem for the purpose of holding scratch files during job execution. At job completion, this directory and its contents are removed automatically. The environment variables TMPDIR and TMP are set to the path of each jobs scratch directory (type string; default: /tmp).

  shell
If either posix_compliant or script_from_stdin is specified as the shell_start_mode parameter in the shell parameter specifies the executable path of the command interpreter (e.g. or to be used to process the job scripts executed in the queue. The definition of shell can be overruled by the job owner via the -S option.

The type of the parameter is string. The default is /bin/csh.

  shell_start_mode
This parameter defines the mechanisms which are used to actually invoke the job scripts on the execution hosts. The following values are recognized:

unix_behavior
    If a user starts a job shell script under UNIX interactively by invoking it just with the script name the operating system's executable loader uses the information provided in a comment such as `#!/bin/csh' in the first line of the script to detect which command interpreter to start to interpret the script. This mechanism is used by Grid Engine when starting jobs if unix_behavior is defined as shell_start_mode.

posix_compliant
    POSIX does not consider first script line comments such a `#!/bin/csh' as being significant. The POSIX standard for batch queuing systems (P1003.2d) therefore requires a compliant queuing system to ignore such lines but to use user specified or configured default command interpreters instead. Thus, if shell_start_mode is set to posix_compliant Grid Engine will either use the command interpreter indicated by the -S option of the command or the shell parameter of the queue to be used (see above).

script_from_stdin
    Setting the shell_start_mode parameter either to posix_compliant or unix_behavior requires you to set the umask in use for such that every user has read access to the active_jobs directory in the spool directory of the corresponding execution daemon. In case you have prolog and epilog scripts configured, they also need to be readable by any user who may execute jobs.
    If this violates your site's security policies you may want to set shell_start_mode to script_from_stdin. This will force Grid Engine to open the job script as well as the epilogue and prologue scripts for reading into STDIN as root (if was started as root) before changing to the job owner's user account. The script is then fed into the STDIN stream of the command interpreter indicated by the -S option of the command or the shell parameter of the queue to be used (see above).
    Thus setting shell_start_mode to script_from_stdin also implies posix_compliant behavior. Note, however, that feeding scripts into the STDIN stream of a command interpreter may cause trouble if commands like are invoked inside a job script as they also process the STDIN stream of the command interpreter. These problems can usually be resolved by redirecting the STDIN channel of those commands to come from /dev/null (e.g. rsh host date < /dev/null). Note also, that any command-line options associated with the job are passed to the executing shell. The shell will only forward them to the job if they are not recognized as valid shell options.

The default for shell_start_mode is posix_compliant. Note, though, that the shell_start_mode can only used for batch jobs submitted by qsub and can not used for interactive jobs submitted by qrsh, qsh, qlogin.

  prolog
The executable path of a shell script that is started before execution of Grid Engine jobs with the same environment setting as that for the Grid Engine jobs to be started afterwards. An optional prefix "user@" specifies the user under which this procedure is to be started. The procedures standard output and the error output stream are written to the same file used also for the standard output and error output of each job. This procedure is intended as a means for the Grid Engine administrator to automate the execution of general site specific tasks like the preparation of temporary file systems with the need for the same context information as the job. This queue configuration entry overwrites cluster global or execution host specific prolog definitions (see

The default for prolog is the special value NONE, which prevents from execution of a prologue script. The special variables for constituting a command line are the same like in prolog definitions of the cluster configuration (see

  epilog
The executable path of a shell script that is started after execution of Grid Engine jobs with the same environment setting as that for the Grid Engine jobs that has just completed. An optional prefix "user@" specifies the user under which this procedure is to be started. The procedures standard output and the error output stream are written to the same file used also for the standard output and error output of each job. This procedure is intended as a means for the Grid Engine administrator to automate the execution of general site specific tasks like the cleaning up of temporary file systems with the need for the same context information as the job. This queue configuration entry overwrites cluster global or execution host specific epilog definitions (see

The default for epilog is the special value NONE, which prevents from execution of a epilogue script. The special variables for constituting a command line are the same like in prolog definitions of the cluster configuration (see

  starter_method
The specified executable path will be used as a job starter facility responsible for starting batch jobs. The executable path will be executed instead of the configured shell to start the job. The job arguments will be passed as arguments to the job starter. The following environment variables are used to pass information to the job starter concerning the shell environment which was configured or requested to start the job.

SGE_STARTER_SHELL_PATH
    The name of the requested shell to start the job

SGE_STARTER_SHELL_START_MODE
    The configured shell_start_mode

SGE_STARTER_USE_LOGIN_SHELL
    Set to "true" if the shell is supposed to be used as a login shell (see login_shells in

The starter_method will not be invoked for qsh, qlogin or qrsh acting as rlogin.

  suspend_method

  resume_method

  terminate_method
These parameters can be used for overwriting the default method used by Grid Engine for suspension, release of a suspension and for termination of a job. Per default, the signals SIGSTOP, SIGCONT and SIGKILL are delivered to the job to perform these actions. However, for some applications this is not appropriate. If no executable path is given, Grid Engine takes the specified parameter entries as the signal to be delivered instead of the default signal. A signal must be either a positive number or a signal name with "SIG" as prefix and the signal name as printed by kill -l (e.g. SIGTERM). If an executable path is given (it must be an absolute path starting with a "/") then this command together with its arguments is started by Grid Engine to perform the appropriate action. The following special variables are expanded at runtime and can be used (besides any other strings which have to be interpreted by the procedures) to constitute a command line:

$host
    The name of the host on which the procedure is started.

$job_owner
    The user name of the job owner.

$job_id
    Grid Engine's unique job identification number.

$job_name
    The name of the job.

$queue
    The name of the queue.

$job_pid
    The pid of the job.

  notify
The time waited between delivery of SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2 notification signals and suspend/kill signals if job was submitted with the -notify option.

  owner_list
The owner_list names the login names (in a comma separated list) of those users who are authorized to disable and suspend this queue through (Grid Engine operators and managers can do this by default). It is customary to set this field for queues on interactive workstations where the computing resources are shared between interactive sessions and Grid Engine jobs, allowing the workstation owner to have priority access (type string; default: NONE).

  user_lists
The user_lists parameter contains a comma separated list of so called user access lists as described in Each user contained in at least one of the enlisted access lists has access to the queue. If the user_lists parameter is set to NONE (the default) any user has access being not explicitly excluded via the xuser_lists parameter described below. If a user is contained both in an access list enlisted in xuser_lists and user_lists the user is denied access to the queue.

  xuser_lists
The xuser_lists parameter contains a comma separated list of so called user access lists as described in Each user contained in at least one of the enlisted access lists is not allowed to access the queue. If the xuser_lists parameter is set to NONE (the default) any user has access. If a user is contained both in an access list enlisted in xuser_lists and user_lists the user is denied access to the queue.

  projects
The projects parameter contains a comma separated list of projects that have access to the queue. Any projects not in this list are denied access to the queue. If set to NONE (the default), any project has access that is not specifically excluded via the xprojects parameter described below. If a project is in both the projects and xprojects parameters, the project is denied access to the queue.

  xprojects
The xprojects parameter contains a comma separated list of projects that are denied access to the queue. If set to NONE (the default), no projects are denied access other than those denied access based on the projects parameter described above. If a project is in both the projects and xprojects parameters, the project is denied access to the queue.

  subordinate_list
A list of Grid Engine cluster queues. Subordinate relationships are in effect only between queue instances residing at the same host. If there is a queue instance (be in the sub- or superordinated one) on only one particular host this relationship is ignored. queue instances residing on the same host will be suspended when a specified count of jobs is running in this queue instance. The list specification is the same as that of the load_thresholds parameter above, e.g. low_pri_q=5,small_q. The numbers denote the job slots of the queue that have to be filled to trigger the suspension of the subordinated queue. If no value is assigned a suspension is triggered if all slots of the queue are filled.

On nodes which host more than one queue, you might wish to accord better service to certain classes of jobs (e.g., queues that are dedicated to parallel processing might need priority over low priority production queues; default: NONE).

  complex_values
complex_values defines quotas for resource attributes managed via this queue. The syntax is the same as for load_thresholds (see above). The quotas are related to the resource consumption of all jobs in a queue in the case of consumable resources (see for details on consumable resources) or they are interpreted on a per queue slot (see slots above) basis in the case of non-consumable resources. Consumable resource attributes are commonly used to manage free memory, free disk space or available floating software licenses while non-consumable attributes usually define distinctive characteristics like type of hardware installed.

For consumable resource attributes an available resource amount is determined by subtracting the current resource consumption of all running jobs in the queue from the quota in the complex_values list. Jobs can only be dispatched to a queue if no resource requests exceed any corresponding resource availability obtained by this scheme. The quota definition in the complex_values list is automatically replaced by the current load value reported for this attribute, if load is monitored for this resource and if the reported load value is more stringent than the quota. This effectively avoids oversubscription of resources.

Note: Load values replacing the quota specifications may have become more stringent because they have been scaled (see and/or load adjusted (see The -F option of and the load display in the queue control dialog (activated by clicking on a queue icon while the "Shift" key is pressed) provide detailed information on the actual availability of consumable resources and on the origin of the values taken into account currently.

Note also: The resource consumption of running jobs (used for the availability calculation) as well as the resource requests of the jobs waiting to be dispatched either may be derived from explicit user requests during job submission (see the -l option to or from a "default" value configured for an attribute by the administrator (see The -r option to can be used for retrieving full detail on the actual resource requests of all jobs in the system.

For non-consumable resources Grid Engine simply compares the job's attribute requests with the corresponding specification in complex_values taking the relation operator of the complex attribute definition into account (see If the result of the comparison is "true", the queue is suitable for the job with respect to the particular attribute. For parallel jobs each queue slot to be occupied by a parallel task is meant to provide the same resource attribute value.

Note: Only numeric complex attributes can be defined as consumable resources and hence non-numeric attributes are always handled on a per queue slot basis.

The default value for this parameter is NONE, i.e. no administrator defined resource attribute quotas are associated with the queue.

  calendar
specifies the calendar to be valid for this queue or contains NONE (the default). A calendar defines the availability of a queue depending on time of day, week and year. Please refer to for details on the Grid Engine calendar facility.

Note: Jobs can request queues with a certain calendar model via a "-l c=<cal_name>" option to

  initial_state
defines an initial state for the queue either when adding the queue to the system for the first time or on start-up of the on the host on which the queue resides. Possible values are:

default
    The queue is enabled when adding the queue or is reset to the previous status when comes up (this corresponds to the behavior in earlier Grid Engine releases not supporting initial_state).

enabled
    The queue is enabled in either case. This is equivalent to a manual and explicit 'qmod -e' command (see

disabled
    The queue is disable in either case. This is equivalent to a manual and explicit 'qmod -d' command (see

RESOURCE LIMITS
The first two resource limit parameters, s_rt and h_rt, are implemented by Grid Engine. They define the "real time" or also called "elapsed" or "wall clock" time having passed since the start of the job. If h_rt is exceeded by a job running in the queue, it is aborted via the SIGKILL signal (see If s_rt is exceeded, the job is first "warned" via the SIGUSR1 signal (which can be caught by the job) and finally aborted after the notification time defined in the queue configuration parameter notify (see above) has passed.

The resource limit parameters s_cpu and h_cpu are implemented by Grid Engine as a job limit. They impose a limit on the amount of combined CPU time consumed by all the processes in the job. If h_cpu is exceeded by a job running in the queue, it is aborted via a SIGKILL signal (see If s_cpu is exceeded, the job is sent a SIGXCPU signal which can be caught by the job. If you wish to allow a job to be "warned" so it can exit gracefully before it is killed then you should set the s_cpu limit to a lower value than h_cpu. For parallel processes, the limit is applied per slot which means that the limit is multiplied by the number of slots being used by the job before being applied.

The resource limit parameters s_vmem and h_vmem are implemented by Grid Engine as a job limit. They impose a limit on the amount of combined virtual memory consumed by all the processes in the job. If h_vmem is exceeded by a job running in the queue, it is aborted via a SIGKILL signal (see kill(1)). If s_vmem is exceeded, the job is sent a SIGXCPU signal which can be caught by the job. If you wish to allow a job to be "warned" so it can exit gracefully before it is killed then you should set the s_vmem limit to a lower value than h_vmem. For parallel processes, the limit is applied per slot which means that the limit is multiplied by the number of slots being used by the job before being applied.

The remaining parameters in the queue configuration template specify per job soft and hard resource limits as implemented by the system call. See this manual page on your system for more information. By default, each limit field is set to infinity (which means RLIM_INFINITY as described in the manual page). The value type for the CPU-time limits s_cpu and h_cpu is time. The value type for the other limits is memory. Note: Not all systems support

Note also: s_vmem and h_vmem (virtual memory) are only available on systems supporting RLIMIT_VMEM (see on your operating system).

The UNICOS operating system supplied by SGI/Cray does not support the system call, using their own resource limit-setting system call instead. For UNICOS systems only, the following meanings apply:

s_cpu
    The per-process CPU time limit in seconds.

s_core
    The per-process maximum core file size in bytes.

s_data
    The per-process maximum memory limit in bytes.

s_vmem
    The same as s_data (if both are set the minimum is used).

h_cpu
    The per-job CPU time limit in seconds.

h_data
    The per-job maximum memory limit in bytes.

h_vmem
    The same as h_data (if both are set the minimum is used).

h_fsize
    The total number of disk blocks that this job can create.

SEE ALSO

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