Interactive job

Starting an interacitve job

You can run an interactive job like this:

$ srun -p short --nodes=1 --ntasks-per-node=1 --time=01:00:00 --pty bash -i

Here we ask for a single core on one interactive node for one hour with the default amount of memory in the short partition. The command prompt will appear as soon as the job starts. You can add other options same as when you prepare a bath script like --mem, -p, -w and etc.

Exit the bash shell to end the job. If you exceed the time or memory limits the job will also abort.

Interactive jobs have the same policies as normal batch jobs, there are no extra restrictions. You should be aware that you might be sharing the node with other users, so play nice.

Keeping interactive jobs alive

Interactive jobs die when you disconnect from the frontend node either by choice or by internet connection problems.

X11 enabled interactive job

As our current slurm srun command does not forward X11 automatically, you can use srun.x11 command for those interactive jobs which need to forward X11. For example:

$ srun.x11 -p short --nodes=1 --ntasks-per-node=1 --time=01:00:00 --mem=1GB

To test run the simple xclock program in the terminal session provided to you.

Like the sun command, you can use slurm option according to your needs. Please note for proper forwarding of X11 to your local computer, you had to log in to the login node with -Y -X arguments. See Logging in for the first time for more info.