Running Jobs
To run a command as a job you can either use
srun
to quickly run it interactively or
sbatch
to spool it for asynchronous execution.
In either case you always need to specify at least three parameters for the job:
- The course for which you run the job. You can see the course tags that you can use when you log in via
ssh
.
- The amount of GPUs, usually one
- The maximum runtime you expect this command to run

If course, number of GPUs and maximum runtime are not given then the job will most likely not start.
Using srun
For a simple, short-running command you can use
srun
with the
-A
,
-G
and
-t
switch. For instance, to get the properties of the GPU at your disposal (and at most spend ten seconds) run:
srun -A {course tag} -G 1 -t 00:10 -o nvidia-smi.out nvidia-smi
Running Interactive Jobs
If you need to interact with a program via terminal then you can also use
srun
with the
--pty
argument. To get an interactive bash on a node for at most 60 minutes you can run:
srun --pty -A {course tag} -G 1 -t 60 bash
Using sbatch
For
sbatch
you will put your commands in a script and add comment lines at the beginning that contain additional parameters for
sbatch
. The example from above but using
sbatch
would require a script containing this:
#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --gpus=1
#SBATCH --time=00:10
#SBATCH --account={course queue}
#SBATCH --output=nvidia-smi.out
nvidia-smi
To send the script to the cluster for execution run:
Checking the Job Queue
To see if you job is still waiting in the queue run:
If you see jobs listed then they are either executing or they are waiting, in case of the later there will be a reason given why the job cannot start yet.

This cluster is maximizing energy efficiency and powers down nodes that are idle. It may first need to start a node to run your job if all others are busy. This can delay the start for five minutes.
Output
Terminal output of commands in the job by default go to a file
slurm-{job ID}.out
in your home directory. The file name for the output can also be set. In the above examples the terminal output of the job will be in the file
nvidia-smi.out
.
Aborting Jobs
If you already know that a running or spooled job is not going to do the right thing, cancel it using
This will save resources and energy.