showbf

showbf
    [ -A ]            // show information accessible by any user, group, or account
    [ -a ACCOUNT ]
    [ -c CLASS ]
    [ -d DURATION ]
    [ -D ]     // show deep resource availability
    [ -f FEATURELIST ]
    [ -g GROUP ]
    [ -h ]
    [ -m [ MEMCMP ] MEMORY ]
    [ -n NODECOUNT ]
    [ -p PARTITION ]
    [ -q QOS ]
    [ -u USER ]
    [ -v ]           // VERBOSE

Purpose

    Shows what resources are available for immediate use.   NOTE:  if specific information is not specified, showbf will return information for the user and group running but with global access for other fields.  For example, if '-q <QOS>' is not specified, Maui will return backfill information for a job which could magically access all QOS based resources (ie, resources covered by reservations with a QOS based ACL), if '-c <CLASS>' is not specifed, it will return the info for resources accessible to any class.

Permissions

    This command can be run by any user.

Parameters

ACCOUNT	Account name.
CLASS	Class/queue required.
DURATION	Time duration specified as the number of seconds or in [DD:]HH:MM:SS notation.
FEATURELIST	Colon separated list of node features required.
GROUP	Specify particular group.
MEMCMP	Memory comparison used with the -m flag. Valid signs are >, >=, ==, <=, and <.
MEMORY	Specifies the amount of required real memory configured on the node, (in MB), used with the -m flag.
NODECOUNT	Specify number of nodes for inquiry with -n flag.
PARTITION	Specify partition to check with -p flag.
QOS	Specify QOS to check with -q flag.
USER	Specify particular user to check with -u flag.

  PARTITION        Specify partition to check with -p flag.
 

Flags

-A	Show resource availability information for all users, groups, and accounts.  By default, showbf uses the default user, group, and account ID of the user issuing the command.
-a	Show resource availability information only for specified account.
-d	Show resource availability information for specified duration.
-D	Display current and future resource availability notation.
-g	Show resource availability information only for specified group.
-h	Help for this command.
-m	Allows user to specify the memory requirements for the backfill nodes of interest. It is important to note that if the optional MEMCMP and MEMORY parameters are used, they MUST be enclosed in single ticks (') to avoid interpretation by the shell. For example, enter showbf -m '==256' to request nodes with 256 MB memory.
-n	Show resource availability information for a specified number of nodes. That is, this flag can be used to force showbf to display only blocks of resources with at least this many nodes available.
-p -q	Show resource availability information for the specified partition. Show information for the specified QOS.
-u	Show resource availability information only for specified user.

Description

    This command can be used by any user to find out how many processors are available for immediate use on the system. It is anticipated that users will use this information to submit jobs that meet these criteria and thus obtain quick job turnaround times. This command incorporates down time, reservations, and node state information in determining the available backfill window.

Example 1

% showbf

backFill window (user: 'john' group: 'staff' partition: ALL) Mon Feb 16 08:28:54

partition Fast:
   9 procs available for  4:54:18

partition Slow:
   34 procs available for 10:25:30
   26 procs available for  7:00:19
    1 proc available with no timelimit

   In this example, a job requiring up to 34 processors could be submitted for immediate execution in partition 2 as long as it required less than 10 hours, 25 minutes. Likewise, jobs requiring up to 26 processors that complete in less than 7 hours could also run in partition Slow. A single-processor job with arbitrary wallclock limits could also run in this partition.

   In this example, the window is specifically for user john in group staff. This information is important because processors can be reserved for particular users and groups, thus causing backfill windows to be different for each person.  Backfill window information for a non-default user, group, and/or account can be displayed using the -u, -g, and -a flags, respectively.  A backfill window with global user, group, and account access can be displayed using the -A flag.

Example 2

% showbf -r 16 -d 3:00:00

backFill window (user: 'john' group: 'staff' partition: ALL) Mon Feb 16 08:28:54

partition ALL:
 33 procs available with no time limit

    In this example, the output verifies that a backfill window exists for jobs requiring a 3 hour runtime and at least 16 processors.  Specifying job duration is of value when time based access is assigned to reservations (i.e., using the SRCFG TIMELIMIT ACL)

Example 3

% showbf -m '>=512'

backfill window (user: 'john' group: 'staff' partition: ALL) Thu Jun 18 16:03:04

no procs available

Related Commands

Use the showq command to show jobs in the various queues.

Use the diagnose command to show the partitions.

Notes