FAQ: Difference between revisions

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Users' mailing-list subscription is tied to your Grid'5000 account.  You can configure your subscriptions in your account settings:
Users' mailing-list subscription is tied to your Grid'5000 account.  You can configure your subscriptions in your account settings:


[[File:Grid5000-unsubscribe-mailing-list.png|thumb|How to unsubscribe from the mailing list]]  
[[File:Grid5000-unsubscribe-mailing-list.png|thumb|How to unsubscribe from the mailing list]]
* Login to https://api.grid5000.fr/ui/account
* Login to https://api.grid5000.fr/ui/account
* Go to the "My account" tab, then click on the "Actions" button, then choose "Manage mailing lists"
* Go to the "My account" tab, then click on the "Actions" button, then choose "Manage mailing lists"
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=== Is access to the Internet possible from nodes? ===
=== Is access to the Internet possible from nodes? ===
Full Internet access is allowed from Grid'5000 network to the Internet.  
Full Internet access is allowed from Grid'5000 network to the Internet.


All IPv4 communication is NATed, while with [[IPv6]] each node uses its own public IPv6 address.
All IPv4 communication is NATed, while with [[IPv6]] each node uses its own public IPv6 address.
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This is how things should work: a basic set of software is installed on the frontends and nodes' standard environment of each site. If you need some other software packages on nodes, you can create a Kadeploy image including them, and deploy it. You can also use at sudo-g5k. If you think those software should be installed by default, you can contact the [[Support|support-staff]].
This is how things should work: a basic set of software is installed on the frontends and nodes' standard environment of each site. If you need some other software packages on nodes, you can create a Kadeploy image including them, and deploy it. You can also use at sudo-g5k. If you think those software should be installed by default, you can contact the [[Support|support-staff]].


== Deployment related issues ==  
== Deployment related issues ==
See [[Advanced_Kadeploy#FAQ]].


=== My environment does not work on all clusters ===
== About resources reservations (jobs) ==
It some rare occasion, an environment may not work on a given cluster:
# The kernel used does not support all hardware. You are advised to base your environment on one of the reference environments to avoid dealing with this, or to carefully read the hardware section of each site to see the list of kernel drivers that need to be compiled in your environment for it to be able to boot on all clusters. Of course, when a new cluster is integrated, you might need to update your kernel for portability.
# The post-installation scripts do not recognize your environment, and therefore network access, console access or site specific configurations are not taken into account. You can check the contents of the default post-installation scripts to see the variables set by kadeploy by looking at environment's description using kaenv.


=== Kadeploy fails with ''Image file not found!'' ===
=== How can I check whether my reservations are respecting the Grid'5000 Usage Policy? ===
This means that <code>kadeploy</code> is not able to read your environment's main archive. This can be caused by many reasons, i.e:
* registered filename is wrong
* extension is not right (for example <code>.tar.gz</code> does not work, whereas <code>.tgz</code> is OK)
 
=== Kadeploy is complaining about a node already involved in an other deployment===
The waring you see is
node <code class="replace">node</code> is already involved in another deployment
This error occurs
* when 2 concurrent deployments are attempted on the same node. If you have 2 simultaneous deployments, make sure you have 2 distinct sets of nodes.
* when there is a problem in the kadeploy database: typically when a deployment ended in a strange way, this can happen. The best is to wait for about 15 minutes and retry the deployment: kadeploy can correct its database automatically.
 
=== How to kill all my processes on a host ? ===
On the currently connected host (warning, it will disconnect you)
<code class="command">kill</code> -KILL -1
 
=== How do I exit from kaconsole on cluster X from site Y ===
You can try '''&''' then '''.''' sequence (just like typing '''&.'''), but this may not work on all clusters. The [[Kaconsole#Escape_sequence_for_every_site|Kaconsole]] page may give you more information.
 
== Job submission related issues ==
 
=== What is the so called "best-effort" mode of OAR? ===
 
The best-effort was implemented to back-fill the cluster with jobs considered as less important without blocking "regular" jobs.
To submit jobs under that policy, you simply have to select the besteffort type of job in your oarsub command.
 
<code class="command">oarsub</code> <code class="replace">-t besteffort</code> script_to_launch
 
Jobs submitted that way will only get scheduled on resources when no other job use them (any regular job
overtake besteffort jobs in the waiting queue, regardless of submission times).
Moreover, these jobs are killed (as if oardel were called) when a regular job recently submitted needs the nodes used by a besteffort job.
 
By default, no checkpointing or automatic restart of besteffort jobs is provided. They are just killed. That is why this mode
is best used with a tool which can detect the killed jobs and resubmit them. However OAR2 provides options for that.
 
=== How to pass arguments to my script ===
When you do passive submission through <code class="command">oarsub</code>, you must specify a script. This script can be a simple script name or a more complex command line with arguments.
 
To pass arguments, you have to quote the whole command line, like in the following example:
<code class="command">oarsub</code> -l nodes=4,walltime=2 <code class="replace">"/path/to/myscript arg1 arg2 arg3"</code>
 
'''Note:''' to avoid random code injection, <code class="command">oarsub</code> allows only alphanumeric characters (<code>[a-zA-Z0-9_]</code>), whitespace characters (<code>[ \t\n\r\f\v]</code>) and few others (<code>[/.-]</code>) inside its command line argument.
 
=== Why are /core and -t deploy or -t use_classic_ssh incompatible ? ===
Jobs with type <code>deploy</code> or type <code>allow_classic_ssh</code> imply the exclusive usage of a node. Therefore, specifying core information for your submission can only lead to some inconsistencies. It is therefore prohibited by an admission rule.
 
=== Why did my advance reservation start with less than all the resources I requested ? ===
Since resources states are transitional, the advance reservation process considers indifferently the current state of resources, be it ''alive'', ''suspended'' or ''absent''. Indeed, at the requested start time of an advance reservation, all resources in any of those states should presumably be back in the ''alive'' states.
 
This is different for resources in the ''dead'' state, which mark failed resources. Although ''dead'' resources may be repaired at some point, that state is less transitional, so ''dead'' resources are excluded from eligible resources for advance reservations.
 
Also, the allocation of resources to an advance reservation is fixed at the time of validation of the submission (contrarily to batch jobs for which both the start time and allocated resources can change up until the job is effectively started, in order to fit with all requested resources available). As a consequence, resources allocated to an advance reservation which would end up unavailable at the job start time are not replaced by other ''alive'' resources.
 
In fact, at the start time of an advance reservation, OAR looks after any unavailable resources (''absent'' or ''suspected''), and whenever some exists, wait for them to return to the ''alive'' state for 5 minutes. Then, if they are not back in time, the job starts with less resources than requested and initially allocated (assuming at least one resource is available).
 
;NB
Information about reduced number of resources or reduced walltime for a reservation due to this mechanism are available in the event part of the output of
<code class='command'>oarstat -fj </code><code class='replace'>jobid</code>
 
=== How can I check whether my reservations are respecting the Grid'5000 Usage Policy ? ===
You can use the script <code>usagepolicycheck</code>, present on all frontends. See if your current reservations are respecting the Policy with <code>usagepolicycheck -t</code>, use <code>usagepolicycheck -h</code> to see the other options.
You can use the script <code>usagepolicycheck</code>, present on all frontends. See if your current reservations are respecting the Policy with <code>usagepolicycheck -t</code>, use <code>usagepolicycheck -h</code> to see the other options.


To help respecting the usage policy, it is possible to use <code>day</code> and <code>night</code> OAR job types to fit batch jobs inside day vs. night / week-end time frames. More details are available in the [[Advanced OAR#Restricting_jobs_to_daytime_or_night.2Fweek-end_time|Advanced OAR]] guide.
To help respecting the usage policy, it is possible to use <code>day</code> and <code>night</code> OAR job types to fit batch jobs inside day vs. night / week-end time frames. More details are available in the [[Advanced OAR#Restricting_jobs_to_daytime_or_night.2Fweek-end_time|Advanced OAR]] guide.


== Access to logs ==
=== OAR database logs ===
Grid'5000 gives the possibility to all users to use a read only access to OAR's database. You should be able to connect using PostgresSQL client as user <code>oarreader</code> with password <code>read</code> to database <code>oar2</code> on all <code class=host>oardb.</code><code class=replace>site</code><code class=host>.grid5000.fr</code>. This gives you access to the complete history of jobs on all Grid'5000 sites. This gives you read-only access to the production database of OAR: please be careful with your queries to avoid overloading the testbed!


{{Note|text=Careful: Grid'5000 is not a computation grid, nor HPC center, nor a Cloud (Grid'5000 is a research instrument). That means that the usage of Grid'5000 by itself (OAR logs of Grid'5000 users' reservations) does not reflect a typical usage of any such infrastructure. It is therefore not relevant to analyze Grid'5000 OAR logs to that purpose. As a user, one can however use Grid'5000 to emulate a HPC cluster or cloud on reserved resources (in a job), possibly injecting a real load from a real infrastructure.}}
== How can I execute a campaign of tasks within previously reserved resources? (or smaller job in a bigger job) ==
This can be done either with OAR's ''container'' jobs, or with '''[[GNU Parallel]]''':
* If all jobs, container and inner are from a same user, using '''[[GNU Parallel]]''' should be '''preferred''.
* Container job are mostly relevant for tutorials or teaching labs, where jobs are created by a set of '''different users'''. More information in [[Advanced_OAR#Container_jobs]]


=== Example of access to logs ===
== About checkpoint/restart support of job ==


In this example, we use the PostgresSQL client to generate a CSV file, named '~/oardata.csv', containing all the jobs of the user 'toto'. Each row of the file will be one job of the user. The columns of the CSV file will be the list of nodes assigned to the job, the number of nodes, the number of cores, the cluster name, the submission time, start time and stop time, the job ID, the job name (if any), the job type, the command executed by the job (if any) and the request made by the user.
The Grid'5000 OAR service setup does not provide a seamless checkpoint/restart mechanism for jobs. While this is obviously a most wanted feature especially for long-running tasks that have to be split in order to fit in the platform usage policy, we think this is better to let the user take care of it. Indeed, while some techniques exist, such as [https://criu.org/ CRIU], none seems satisfactory enough for a sustainable deployment in Grid'5000.


First, on one of the frontend nodes, launch the client
Note that OAR provides a [[Advanced_OAR#Using_the_checkpointing_trigger_mechanism|mechanism]] to trigger an application to checkpoint itself, and to get a checkpointed job resubmitted.
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
psql -h oardb.grenoble.grid5000.fr -U oarreader oar2
</syntaxhighlight>


Then, after entering the password, run the following command (change the user name and the file name if needed):
== Continuous Integration (CI) jobs ==
<syntaxhighlight lang="sql">
\copy (Select string_agg(Distinct host, '/') as hosts, Count(Distinct host) as nb_hosts, Count(Distinct resources.resource_id) as nb_cores,cluster,submission_time,start_time,stop_time,job_id,job_name,job_type,command,initial_request From jobs Inner Join assigned_resources on jobs.assigned_moldable_job = assigned_resources.moldable_job_id Inner Join resources on assigned_resources.resource_id = resources.resource_id Where job_user = 'toto' Group By jobs.submission_time,jobs.start_time,jobs.stop_time,jobs.job_id,jobs.job_name,jobs.job_type,jobs.command,resources.cluster) To '~/oardata.csv' With CSV;
</syntaxhighlight>


= About OAR =
Running CI tasks on Grid'5000 is allowed, but special precautions must be taken:
== How to know if a node is in energy-saving mode or really absent? ==
* Inform the [[Support|support staff]] that you plan to use Grid'5000 for CI
* Use a dedicated user account (not your personal user account) that reflects your project's name, and make sure that the ''Professional status/Employee type'' is set to ''bot''. This is important to allow differentiating between your own personal usage, and usage potentially generated by others through CI (however, remember that you remain responsible for the usage made by your project's bot account). It also allows the testbed operators to track usage generated by CI (for statistics).
** If you need to share data between your personal user account and your bot account, you can use a [[Group Storage]].
* If you use GitHub, [https://docs.github.com/en/actions/managing-workflow-runs/approving-workflow-runs-from-public-forks configure GitHub Actions to require approval before running workflows from external collaborators].


Nodes in energy-saving mode are:
Orchestrating such tasks can be done using the [[API|Grid'5000 REST API]], together with client libraries described on [[Grid5000:Software|Software]] and [[Experiment_scripting_tutorial]].
* displayed in the standby state with a cyan color in the platform [[Status#Resources_reservations_.28OAR.29_status|status diagrams (Drawgantt and Monika)]]
* displayed with the state "Absent (standby)" by the oarnodes command.


The state "Absent (standby)" means that the node is shut down in order to save energy.
Several schemas are possible to run such tasks from GitLab (and manage credentials):
* Use an existing GitLab runner (such as GitLab's shared ones), store credentials (Grid5000 user account and password) in GitLab secrets, and create a job that will reserve resources as needed (typically using the Grid5000 API). See for example [https://gitlab.inria.fr/discovery/enoslib/-/blob/main/.gitlab-ci.yml?ref_type=heads#L45 test_invivo_g5k* in EnOSLib's .gitlab-ci.yml]
* Run your own GitLab runner on a Grid5000 frontend, as documented in the [https://gitlab.inria.fr/gitlabci_gallery/orchestration/supercomputer-oar GitLab CI gallery]. In that case, you do not need to store your Grid5000 user account and password in your home directory (because users are automatically identified when using the API from frontends). However you will need to store the gitlab runner token in your home directory, which might be a security issue (homes are not suitable for storing sensitive data).
* Use a [[Persistent Virtual Machine]] to host your GitLab runner service. All credentials (Grid5000's and runner's) are stored in the virtual machine.


Nodes in the standby state will be automatically started by OAR when it will be needed.
== Maintenance on Grid'5000 ==


Advanced users who check directly the OAR database can determine if a node is in energy-saving mode or absent with the field "available_upto" in the resources table.
A maintenance slot is planned every Thursday on Grid'5000.


If energy-saving is enabled on the cluster, the field "available_upto" provides a date (Unix timestamp) until when the resource will be available.
If a maintenance can impact the users jobs, we announce it on the mailing list users@lists.grid5000.fr .


* A node "Absent" is in energy-saving mode if the field "available_upto" is greater than the current Unix timestamp
When a maintenance is announced, you can follow its progress on ''[https://www.grid5000.fr/status/ the platform's operation schedule]''


An example of SQL query listing absent nodes because of the energy-saving mode:
== How to use MPI in Grid5000? ==
SELECT distinct(host) FROM resources WHERE state="Absent" AND available_upto >= UNIX_TIMESTAMP()


* A node "Absent" is really absent if :
See [[Run_MPI_On_Grid'5000|The MPI Tutorial]].
- the field "available_upto" is equal to 0<br>
- or the field "available_upto" is smaller than the current UNIX timestamp (this case should not occur upon Grid'5000)


An example of SQL query listing really absent nodes:
== How to share data with other users in Grid5000? ==
SELECT distinct(host) FROM resources WHERE state='Absent' AND (available_upto < UNIX_TIMESTAMP() OR available_upto = 0)


Note that if looking in the past at a node (e.g. in the Drawgantt diagram) that was woken-up, it just shows a period of "absent" state (blue stipes) rather than "standby".
See [[Storage]].


== How to detect nodes in maintenance ? ==
== How do I access to other scientific infrastructures from Grid'5000 ? ==
Nodes in maintenance are nodes with a ''Dead'' state, a OAR ''maintenance'' property set to ''YES'', or temporary in a really absent state (see above).


== How to execute jobs within another one ? ==
=== Jean Zay supercomputer (and possibly others GENCI supercomputers) ===
For this functionality OAR provides the ''container job type''. But please also have a look at the '''[[GNU Parallel]]''' tool, which may be more relevant and efficient.
 
With this functionality it is possible to execute several jobs inside another one, involving the OAR scheduling. This is especially '''relevant for tutorials or teaching labs''', where jobs are created by a set of '''different users'''.
 
If all jobs, container and inner are from a same user, using '''[[GNU Parallel]]''' should be '''prefered'''.
 
* First create a job of type container, for example:
{{Term|location=node|cmd=<code class="command">oarsub</code> -I -t container -t cosystem -l nodes=10,walltime=2:10:00}}
...
OAR_JOB_ID=13542
...
 
* Then the ''inner'' job type can be used, to get new jobs scheduled inside the previously created container job:
{{Term|location=node|cmd=<code class="command">oarsub</code> -I -t inner=13542 -l nodes=7,walltime=0:30:00}}
{{Term|location=node|cmd=<code class="command">oarsub</code> -I -t inner=13542 -l nodes=3,walltime=0:45:00}}
 
More information in [[Advanced_OAR#Container_jobs]]
 
== About checkpoint/restart support in OAR ==
 
The Grid'5000 OAR service setup does not provide a seamless checkpoint/restart mechanism for jobs. While this is obviously a most wanted feature especially for long running tasks that have to be split in order to fit in the platform usage policy, we think this is better to let the user take care of it. Indeed, while some techniques exist, such as CRIU [1], none seems satisfactory enough for a sustainable  deployment in Grid'5000.
 
Note that OAR provides a mechanism to trigger an application to checkpoint itself [2], and to get a checkpointed job resubmitted.
 
* [1] https://criu.org/
* [2] [[Advanced_OAR#Using_the_checkpointing_trigger_mechanism]]
 
= How to use MPI in Grid5000? =
 
See also : [[Run_MPI_On_Grid'5000|The MPI Tutorial]]
 
= How to share data with other users in Grid5000? =
 
See also : [[Storage]]
 
= How do I access to other scientific infrastructures from Grid'5000 ? =
 
== Jean Zay supercomputer (and possibly others GENCI supercomputers) ==


If you have an account on the Jean Zay supercomputer operated by the Institute for Development and Resources in Intensive Scientific Computing (IDRIS), it is possible to connect directly to it using ssh/scp/sftp from Grid'5000 frontends or reserved nodes.
If you have an account on the Jean Zay supercomputer operated by the Institute for Development and Resources in Intensive Scientific Computing (IDRIS), it is possible to connect directly to it using ssh/scp/sftp from Grid'5000 frontends or reserved nodes.
Line 294: Line 188:
** English: http://www.idris.fr/media/eng/forms/fgc-eng.pdf
** English: http://www.idris.fr/media/eng/forms/fgc-eng.pdf
** French: http://www.idris.fr/media/data/formulaires/fgc.pdf
** French: http://www.idris.fr/media/data/formulaires/fgc.pdf
 
 
* Then fill in the required sections:
* Then fill in the required sections:
** "Add, modify or delete machines"
** "Add, modify or delete machines"
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*** Address: '''https://www.grid5000.fr'''
*** Address: '''https://www.grid5000.fr'''
*** Telephone: leave this field blank
*** Telephone: leave this field blank
*** Last name, first name and qualification/function of the site manager: '''Pierre Neyron/Simon Delamare, Technical Directors'''
*** Last name, first name and qualification/function of the site manager: '''Guillaume Schreiner, Technical Director'''
*** Professional e-mail address: '''support-staff@grid5000.fr'''
*** Professional e-mail address: '''support-staff@lists.grid5000.fr'''
*** Telephone: leave this field blank
*** Telephone: leave this field blank
* Send us your request by mail at '''support-staff@grid5000.fr''':
* Send us your request by mail at '''support-staff@lists.grid5000.fr''':
** Subject: ''Request to connect to Jean Zay supercomputer from Grid'5000''
** Subject: ''Request to connect to Jean Zay supercomputer from Grid'5000''
** Attached: the above form filled and signed (PDF)
** Attached: the above form filled and signed (PDF)
** Body of the mail (example): ''Hello, could you please sign the attached form because I need it to access to Jean Zay from Grid'5000 ? Best regards. YOU.''
** Body of the mail (example): ''Hello, could you please sign the attached form because I need it to access to Jean Zay from Grid'5000 ? Best regards. YOU.''
* We will send you back the form with our signature, and you will have to send the form to '''gestutil@idris.fr''' (this will take roughly a day for this to be effective)
* We will send you back the form with our signature, and you will have to send the form to '''gestutil@idris.fr''' (this will take roughly a day for this to be effective)

Latest revision as of 21:20, 28 March 2024

About this document

How to add/correct an entry to the FAQ?

Note.png Note

Just like any other page of this wiki, you can edit the FAQ yourself to improve it. If you click on one of the little "edit" placed after each question, you'll get the possibility to edit that particular question. To edit the whole page, simply choose the edit tab at the top of the page.

Publications and Grid'5000

Is there an official acknowledgement ?

Yes there is: you agreed to it when accepting the usage policy. As the policy might have been updated since, please refer to the latest version. You should use it on all publications presenting results obtained (even partially) using Grid'5000.

How to mention Grid'5000 in HAL  ?

HAL is an open archive you're invited to use. If you do so, the recommended way of mentioning Grid'5000 is to use the collaboration field of submission form, with the Grid'5000 keyword, capitalized as such.

Account management

I forgot my password, how can I retrieve it ?

To retrieve your password, you can use this form, or ask your account manager to reset it.

My account expired, how can I extend it?

Use the account management interface (Manage account link in the sidebar).

Why doesn't my home directory contain the same files on every site?

Every site has its own file server, this is the user's responsibility to synchronize the personal data between his home directory on the different sites. You may use the rsync command to synchronize a remote site home directory (be careful this will erase any file that are not the same as on the local home directory): 

rsync -n --delete -avz ~ frontend.site.grid5000.fr:~

NB : please remove the -n argument once you are sure you actually don't want to do a dry-run only...;)

How to get my home mounted on deployed nodes?

This is completely automatic if you deploy a *-nfs or *-big image (automount).

  • You can connect using your own username and should land in your home;
  • If connecting as root, once connected to the node, just change directory your home and it will be mounted:
 cd /home/username
Note.png Note

But home of other users cannot be mounted, for security reasons.

How to restore a wrongly deleted file?

No backup facility is provided by Grid'5000 platform. Please watch your fingers and do backup your data using external backup services.

What about disk quotas ?

See the section about the /home in the Storage page.

How do I unsubscribe from the mailing-list ?

Users' mailing-list subscription is tied to your Grid'5000 account. You can configure your subscriptions in your account settings:

How to unsubscribe from the mailing list

Alternate method, by configuring Sympa to stop receiving any email from the list (while still being subscribed):

  • If you haven't done it before, ask for a password on sympa.inria.fr from this form: https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/firstpasswd/. Use the email address you used to register to Grid'5000.
  • Connect to https://sympa.inria.fr using your email address you used to register to Grid'5000 and your sympa.inria.fr password.
  • From the left panel, select users_grid5000. Then go to your subscriber options (Options d'abonné) and in the reception field (Mode de réception), select suspend (interrompre la réception des messages).

Network access to/from Grid'5000

How can I connect to Grid'5000 ?

This is documented at length in the Getting Started tutorial.

You should be able to access Grid'5000 from anywhere on the Internet, by connecting to access.grid5000.fr using SSH. You'll need SSH keys properly configured (please refer to the page dedicated to SSH if you don't understand these last words) as this machine will not allow you to log using a password.

Some sites have an access.site.grid5000.fr machine, which is only reachable from an IP address coming from local laboratory (replace site with the actual site name).

How to connect from different workstations with the same account?

You can associate several public SSH keys to your account. In order to do so, you have to:

  • login
  • go to User Portal > Manage Account,
  • select the My account top tab,
  • select the SSH keys left tab,
  • then, manage your keys:
    • add a new public SSH key ;
    • remove an old one.

More information in the SSH page and the Public key authentication page.

How to directly connect by SSH to any machine within Grid'5000 from my workstation?

This tip consists of customizing SSH configuration file ~/.ssh/config (compatible with OpenSSH ssh client) 

Host *.g5k
   User login
   ProxyCommand ssh login@access.grid5000.fr -W "$(basename %h .g5k):%p"

You can then connect to any machine using ssh machine.site.g5k

Please have a look at the SSH page for a deeper understanding and more information.

For users of powershell in Microsoft Windows which also comes with OpenSSH ssh client, mind adapting the configuration as the basename command may not be available.

Note.png Note

Grid'5000 internal network uses private IP V4 addresses and are not directly reachable from outside of Grid'5000

Is access to the Internet possible from nodes?

Full Internet access is allowed from Grid'5000 network to the Internet.

All IPv4 communication is NATed, while with IPv6 each node uses its own public IPv6 address.

Warning.png Warning

For security reasons, all connections are logged.

What is the source address of outcoming traffic from Grid'5000 nodes to the Internet?

The IPv4 outcoming traffic from Grid'5000 nodes to the Internet is NATed. The public IPv4 addresses used as sources for the NATed packets are: 

   194.254.60.35 (nr-lil-536.grid5000.fr)
   194.254.60.13 (nr-sop-535.grid5000.fr)

How can I connect to an HTTP or HTTPS service running on a node?

See the HTTP/HTTPs_access page.

How can I share file from Grid'5000 using HTTP?

See the HTTP/HTTPs_access page.

Could I access Grid'5000 nodes directly from the internet?

For other protocols than SSH and HTTP/HTTPs which provide lighter specific solutions, see the VPN and Reconfigurable_Firewall.

SSH related questions

See the SSH page.

Software installation issues

What is the general philosophy ?

This is how things should work: a basic set of software is installed on the frontends and nodes' standard environment of each site. If you need some other software packages on nodes, you can create a Kadeploy image including them, and deploy it. You can also use at sudo-g5k. If you think those software should be installed by default, you can contact the support-staff.

Deployment related issues

See Advanced_Kadeploy#FAQ.

About resources reservations (jobs)

How can I check whether my reservations are respecting the Grid'5000 Usage Policy?

You can use the script usagepolicycheck, present on all frontends. See if your current reservations are respecting the Policy with usagepolicycheck -t, use usagepolicycheck -h to see the other options.

To help respecting the usage policy, it is possible to use day and night OAR job types to fit batch jobs inside day vs. night / week-end time frames. More details are available in the Advanced OAR guide.


How can I execute a campaign of tasks within previously reserved resources? (or smaller job in a bigger job)

This can be done either with OAR's container jobs, or with GNU Parallel:

  • If all jobs, container and inner are from a same user, using GNU Parallel' should be preferred.
  • Container job are mostly relevant for tutorials or teaching labs, where jobs are created by a set of different users. More information in Advanced_OAR#Container_jobs

About checkpoint/restart support of job

The Grid'5000 OAR service setup does not provide a seamless checkpoint/restart mechanism for jobs. While this is obviously a most wanted feature especially for long-running tasks that have to be split in order to fit in the platform usage policy, we think this is better to let the user take care of it. Indeed, while some techniques exist, such as CRIU, none seems satisfactory enough for a sustainable deployment in Grid'5000.

Note that OAR provides a mechanism to trigger an application to checkpoint itself, and to get a checkpointed job resubmitted.

Continuous Integration (CI) jobs

Running CI tasks on Grid'5000 is allowed, but special precautions must be taken:

  • Inform the support staff that you plan to use Grid'5000 for CI
  • Use a dedicated user account (not your personal user account) that reflects your project's name, and make sure that the Professional status/Employee type is set to bot. This is important to allow differentiating between your own personal usage, and usage potentially generated by others through CI (however, remember that you remain responsible for the usage made by your project's bot account). It also allows the testbed operators to track usage generated by CI (for statistics).
    • If you need to share data between your personal user account and your bot account, you can use a Group Storage.
  • If you use GitHub, configure GitHub Actions to require approval before running workflows from external collaborators.

Orchestrating such tasks can be done using the Grid'5000 REST API, together with client libraries described on Software and Experiment_scripting_tutorial.

Several schemas are possible to run such tasks from GitLab (and manage credentials):

  • Use an existing GitLab runner (such as GitLab's shared ones), store credentials (Grid5000 user account and password) in GitLab secrets, and create a job that will reserve resources as needed (typically using the Grid5000 API). See for example test_invivo_g5k* in EnOSLib's .gitlab-ci.yml
  • Run your own GitLab runner on a Grid5000 frontend, as documented in the GitLab CI gallery. In that case, you do not need to store your Grid5000 user account and password in your home directory (because users are automatically identified when using the API from frontends). However you will need to store the gitlab runner token in your home directory, which might be a security issue (homes are not suitable for storing sensitive data).
  • Use a Persistent Virtual Machine to host your GitLab runner service. All credentials (Grid5000's and runner's) are stored in the virtual machine.

Maintenance on Grid'5000

A maintenance slot is planned every Thursday on Grid'5000.

If a maintenance can impact the users jobs, we announce it on the mailing list users@lists.grid5000.fr .

When a maintenance is announced, you can follow its progress on the platform's operation schedule

How to use MPI in Grid5000?

See The MPI Tutorial.

How to share data with other users in Grid5000?

See Storage.

How do I access to other scientific infrastructures from Grid'5000 ?

Jean Zay supercomputer (and possibly others GENCI supercomputers)

If you have an account on the Jean Zay supercomputer operated by the Institute for Development and Resources in Intensive Scientific Computing (IDRIS), it is possible to connect directly to it using ssh/scp/sftp from Grid'5000 frontends or reserved nodes.

For this to be effective, you must add the Grid'5000 SSH outcoming IP addresses to the list of the IP addresses bound to your Jean Zay account.

These addresses are:

  • 194.254.60.35 (nr-lil-536.grid5000.fr)
  • 194.254.60.13 (nr-sop-535.grid5000.fr)

The procedure is the following:

  • Then fill in the required sections:
    • "Add, modify or delete machines"
      • add IP/name of the two IP/name addresses cited above
      • both you and your associated security manager must sign this part of the form
    • "Complete this box only if the machines are under the responsibility of an organisation or a department which is not the demander’s organisation"
      • Organisation hosting the machines: GIS Grid'5000
      • Laboratory unit number (if CNRS) or acronym: Grid'5000
      • Address: https://www.grid5000.fr
      • Telephone: leave this field blank
      • Last name, first name and qualification/function of the site manager: Guillaume Schreiner, Technical Director
      • Professional e-mail address: support-staff@lists.grid5000.fr
      • Telephone: leave this field blank
  • Send us your request by mail at support-staff@lists.grid5000.fr:
    • Subject: Request to connect to Jean Zay supercomputer from Grid'5000
    • Attached: the above form filled and signed (PDF)
    • Body of the mail (example): Hello, could you please sign the attached form because I need it to access to Jean Zay from Grid'5000 ? Best regards. YOU.
  • We will send you back the form with our signature, and you will have to send the form to gestutil@idris.fr (this will take roughly a day for this to be effective)
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