srun(1)

Slurm Commands

srun(1)

NAME
srun Run parallel jobs

SYNOPSIS
srun [OPTIONS...] executable [args...]

DESCRIPTION
Run a parallel job on cluster managed by Slurm. If necessary, srun will first create a resource allocation in
which to run the parallel job.
The following document describes the the influence of various options on the allocation of cpus to jobs and
tasks.
http://slurm.schedmd.com/cpu_management.html

OPTIONS
accelbind=<options>
Control how tasks are bound to generic resources of type gpu, mic and nic. Multiple options may
be specified. Supported options include:
g

Bind each task to GPUs which are closest to the allocated CPUs.

Bind each task to MICs which are closest to the allocated CPUs.

Bind each task to NICs which are closest to the allocated CPUs.

Verbose mode. Log how tasks are bound to GPU and NIC devices.

A, account=<account>
Charge resources used by this job to specified account. The account is an arbitrary string. The
account name may be changed after job submission using the scontrol command.
acctgfreq
Define the job accounting and profiling sampling intervals. This can be used to override the
JobAcctGatherFrequency parameter in Slurms configuration file, slurm.conf. The supported format is follows:
acctgfreq=<datatype>=<interval>
where <datatype>=<interval> specifies the task sampling interval for the
jobacct_gather plugin or a sampling interval for a profiling type by the
acct_gather_profile plugin. Multiple, comma-separated <datatype>=<interval>
intervals may be specified. Supported datatypes are as follows:
task=<interval>
where <interval> is the task sampling interval in seconds for the
jobacct_gather plugins and for task profiling by the acct_gather_profile
plugin. NOTE: This frequency is used to monitor memory usage. If memory limits are enforced the highest frequency a user can request is what is
configured in the slurm.conf file. They can not turn it off (=0) either.
energy=<interval>
where <interval> is the sampling interval in seconds for energy profiling
using the acct_gather_energy plugin
network=<interval>
where <interval> is the sampling interval in seconds for infiniband profiling using the acct_gather_infiniband plugin.

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filesystem=<interval>
where <interval> is the sampling interval in seconds for filesystem profiling using the acct_gather_filesystem plugin.
The default value for the task sampling interval
is 30. The default value for all other intervals is 0. An interval of 0 disables sampling of the specified type. If the task sampling interval is 0, accounting information is collected only at job termination (reducing Slurm interference with the job).
Smaller (nonzero) values have a greater impact upon job performance, but a value of 30 seconds
is not likely to be noticeable for applications having less than 10,000 tasks.
B extranodeinfo=<sockets[:cores[:threads]]>
Request a specific allocation of resources with details as to the number and type of computational
resources within a cluster: number of sockets (or physical processors) per node, cores per socket,
and threads per core. The total amount of resources being requested is the product of all of the
terms. Each value specified is considered a minimum. An asterisk (*) can be used as a placeholder indicating that all available resources of that type are to be utilized. As with nodes, the
individual levels can also be specified in separate options if desired:
socketspernode=<sockets>
corespersocket=<cores>
threadspercore=<threads>
If task/affinity plugin is enabled, then specifying an allocation in this manner also sets a default
cpu_bind option of threads if the B option specifies a thread count, otherwise an option of
cores if a core count is specified, otherwise an option of sockets. If SelectType is configured to
select/cons_res, it must have a parameter of CR_Core, CR_Core_Memory, CR_Socket, or
CR_Socket_Memory for this option to be honored. This option is not supported on BlueGene systems (select/bluegene plugin is configured). If not specified, the scontrol show job will display
ReqS:C:T=*:*:*.
bb=<spec>
Burst buffer specification. The form of the specification is system dependent. Also see bbf.
bbf=<file_name>
Path of file containing burst buffer specification. The form of the specification is system dependent. Also see bb.
bcast[=<dest_path>]
Copy executable file to allocated compute nodes. If a file name is specified, copy the executable to
the specified destination file path. If no path is specified, copy the file to a file named
"slurm_bcast_<job_id>.<step_id>" in the current working.
For example, "srun
bcast=/tmp/mine N3 a.out" will copy the file "a.out" from your current directory to the file
"/tmp/mine" on each of the three allocated compute nodes and execute that file.
begin=<time>
Defer initiation of this job until the specified time. It accepts times of the form HH:MM:SS to run
a job at a specific time of day (seconds are optional). (If that time is already past, the next day is
assumed.) You may also specify midnight, noon, fika (3 PM) or teatime (4 PM) and you can have
a timeofday suffixed with AM or PM for running in the morning or the evening. You can also
say what day the job will be run, by specifying a date of the form MMDDYY or MM/DD/YY
YYYYMMDD.
Combine
date
and
time
using
the
following
format
YYYYMMDD[THH:MM[:SS]]. You can also give times like now + count timeunits, where the
timeunits can be seconds (default), minutes, hours, days, or weeks and you can tell Slurm to run
the job today with the keyword today and to run the job tomorrow with the keyword tomorrow.

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The value may be changed after job submission using the scontrol command. For example:
begin=16:00
begin=now+1hour
begin=now+60
(seconds by default)
begin=20100120T12:34:00
Notes on date/time specifications:
Although the seconds field of the HH:MM:SS time specification is allowed by the code, note
that the poll time of the Slurm scheduler is not precise enough to guarantee dispatch of the job on
the exact second. The job will be eligible to start on the next poll following the specified time.
The exact poll interval depends on the Slurm scheduler (e.g., 60 seconds with the default
sched/builtin).
If no time (HH:MM:SS) is specified, the default is (00:00:00).
If a date is specified without a year (e.g., MM/DD) then the current year is assumed, unless the
combination of MM/DD and HH:MM:SS has already passed for that year, in which case the next
year is used.
checkpoint=<time>
Specifies the interval between creating checkpoints of the job step. By default, the job step will
have no checkpoints created. Acceptable time formats include "minutes", "minutes:seconds",
"hours:minutes:seconds", "dayshours", "dayshours:minutes" and "dayshours:minutes:seconds".
checkpointdir=<directory>
Specifies the directory into which the job or job steps checkpoint should be written (used by the
checkpoint/blcr and checkpoint/xlch plugins only). The default value is the current working directory. Checkpoint files will be of the form "<job_id>.ckpt" for jobs and "<job_id>.<step_id>.ckpt"
for job steps.
comment=<string>
An arbitrary comment.
C, constraint=<list>
Nodes can have features assigned to them by the Slurm administrator. Users can specify which of
these features are required by their job using the constraint option. Only nodes having features
matching the job constraints will be used to satisfy the request. Multiple constraints may be specified with AND, OR, matching OR, resource counts, etc. Supported constraint options include:
Single Name
Only nodes which have the specified feature will be used. For example, constraint="intel"
Node Count
A request can specify the number of nodes needed with some feature by appending an
asterisk and count after the feature name. For example "nodes=16 constraint=graphics*4 ..." indicates that the job requires 16 nodes and that at least four of
those nodes must have the feature "graphics."
AND

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If only nodes with all of specified features will be used. The ampersand is used for an
AND operator. For example, constraint="intel&gpu"

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OR

srun(1)

If only nodes with at least one of specified features will be used. The vertical bar is used
for an OR operator. For example, constraint="intel|amd"

Matching OR
If only one of a set of possible options should be used for all allocated nodes, then use the
OR operator and enclose the options within square brackets. For example: "constraint=[rack1|rack2|rack3|rack4]" might be used to specify that all nodes must be
allocated on a single rack of the cluster, but any of those four racks can be used.
Multiple Counts
Specific counts of multiple resources may be specified by using the AND operator and
enclosing the options within square brackets.
For example: "constraint=[rack1*2&rack2*4]" might be used to specify that two nodes must be allocated
from nodes with the feature of "rack1" and four nodes must be allocated from nodes with
the feature "rack2".

WARNING: When srun is executed from within salloc or sbatch,

the constraint value can only contain a single feature name. None of the other operators are currently supported for job steps.

contiguous
If set, then the allocated nodes must form a contiguous set. Not honored with the topology/tree or
topology/3d_torus plugins, both of which can modify the node ordering. Not honored for a job
steps allocation.

corespersocket=<cores>
Restrict node selection to nodes with at least the specified number of cores per socket. See additional information under B option above when task/affinity plugin is enabled.

cpu_bind=[{quiet,verbose},]type
Bind tasks to CPUs. Used only when the task/affinity or task/cgroup plugin is enabled. The configuration parameter TaskPluginParam may override these options. For example, if TaskPluginParam is configured to bind to cores, your job will not be able to bind tasks to sockets. NOTE: To
have Slurm always report on the selected CPU binding for all commands executed in a shell, you
can enable verbose mode by setting the SLURM_CPU_BIND environment variable value to "verbose".
The following informational environment variables are set when cpu_bind is in use:
SLURM_CPU_BIND_VERBOSE
SLURM_CPU_BIND_TYPE
SLURM_CPU_BIND_LIST
See the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section for a more detailed description of the individual
SLURM_CPU_BIND variables. These variable are available only if the task/affinity plugin is configured.
When using cpuspertask to run multithreaded tasks, be aware that CPU binding is inherited
from the parent of the process. This means that the multithreaded task should either specify or
clear the CPU binding itself to avoid having all threads of the multithreaded task use the same
mask/CPU as the parent. Alternatively, fat masks (masks which specify more than one allowed

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CPU) could be used for the tasks in order to provide multiple CPUs for the multithreaded tasks.
By default, a job step has access to every CPU allocated to the job. To ensure that distinct CPUs
are allocated to each job step, use the exclusive option.
Note that a job step can be allocated different numbers of CPUs on each node or be allocated
CPUs not starting at location zero. Therefore one of the options which automatically generate the
task binding is recommended. Explicitly specified masks or bindings are only honored when the
job step has been allocated every available CPU on the node.
Binding a task to a NUMA locality domain means to bind the task to the set of CPUs that belong
to the NUMA locality domain or "NUMA node". If NUMA locality domain options are used on
systems with no NUMA support, then each socket is considered a locality domain.
Auto Binding
Applies only when task/affinity is enabled. If the job step allocation includes an allocation with a number of sockets, cores, or threads equal to the number of tasks times
cpuspertask, then the tasks will by default be bound to the appropriate resources (auto
binding). Disable this mode of operation by explicitly setting "-cpu_bind=none". Use
TaskPluginParam=autobind=[threads|cores|sockets] to set a default cpu binding in case
"auto binding" doesnt find a match.
Supported options include:
q[uiet] Quietly bind before task runs (default)
v[erbose]
Verbosely report binding before task runs
no[ne] Do not bind tasks to CPUs (default unless auto binding is applied)
rank

Automatically bind by task rank. The lowest numbered task on each node is
bound to socket (or core or thread) zero, etc. Not supported unless the entire
node is allocated to the job.

map_cpu:<list>
Bind by mapping CPU IDs to tasks as specified where <list> is
<cpuid1>,<cpuid2>,...<cpuidN>. The mapping is specified for a node and identical mapping is applied to the tasks on every node (i.e. the lowest task ID on
each node is mapped to the first CPU ID specified in the list, etc.). CPU IDs are
interpreted as decimal values unless they are preceded with 0x in which case
they are interpreted as hexadecimal values. Not supported unless the entire node
is allocated to the job.
mask_cpu:<list>
Bind by setting CPU masks on tasks as specified where <list> is
<mask1>,<mask2>,...<maskN>. The mapping is specified for a node and identical mapping is applied to the tasks on every node (i.e. the lowest task ID on each
node is mapped to the first mask specified in the list, etc.). CPU masks are
always interpreted as hexadecimal values but can be preceded with an optional
0x. Not supported unless the entire node is allocated to the job.

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rank_ldom
Bind to a NUMA locality domain by rank. Not supported unless the entire node
is allocated to the job.
map_ldom:<list>
Bind by mapping NUMA locality domain IDs to tasks as specified where <list>
is <ldom1>,<ldom2>,...<ldomN>. The locality domain IDs are interpreted as
decimal values unless they are preceded with 0x in which case they are interpreted as hexadecimal values. Not supported unless the entire node is allocated
to the job.
mask_ldom:<list>
Bind by setting NUMA locality domain masks on tasks as specified where <list>
is <mask1>,<mask2>,...<maskN>. NUMA locality domain masks are always
interpreted as hexadecimal values but can be preceded with an optional 0x.
Not supported unless the entire node is allocated to the job.
sockets Automatically generate masks binding tasks to sockets. Only the CPUs on the
socket which have been allocated to the job will be used. If the number of tasks
differs from the number of allocated sockets this can result in suboptimal binding.
cores

Automatically generate masks binding tasks to cores. If the number of tasks differs from the number of allocated cores this can result in suboptimal binding.

threads
Automatically generate masks binding tasks to threads. If the number of tasks
differs from the number of allocated threads this can result in suboptimal binding.
ldoms

Automatically generate masks binding tasks to NUMA locality domains. If the

number of tasks differs from the number of allocated locality domains this can
result in suboptimal binding.

boards Automatically generate masks binding tasks to boards. If the number of tasks
differs from the number of allocated boards this can result in suboptimal binding. This option is supported by the task/cgroup plugin only.
help

Show help message for cpu_bind

cpufreq =<p1[p2[:p3]]>
Request that the job step initiated by this srun command be run at some requested frequency if
possible, on the CPUs selected for the step on the compute node(s).
p1 can be [#### | low | medium | high | highm1] which will set the frequency scaling_speed to the
corresponding value, and set the frequency scaling_governor to UserSpace. See below for definition of the values.
p1 can be [Conservative | OnDemand | Performance | PowerSave] which will set the scaling_governor to the corresponding value. The governor has to be in the list set by the slurm.conf option
CpuFreqGovernors.

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When p2 is present, p1 will be the minimum scaling frequency and p2 will be the maximum scaling frequency.
p2 can be [#### | medium | high | highm1] p2 must be greater than p1.
p3 can be [Conservative | OnDemand | Performance | PowerSave | UserSpace] which will set the
governor to the corresponding value.
If p3 is UserSpace, the frequency scaling_speed will be set by a power or energy aware scheduling
strategy to a value between p1 and p2 that lets the job run within the sites power goal. The job
may be delayed if p1 is higher than a frequency that allows the job to run within the goal.
If the current frequency is < min, it will be set to min. Likewise, if the current frequency is > max,
it will be set to max.
Acceptable values at present include:
####

frequency in kilohertz

Low

the lowest available frequency

High

the highest available frequency

HighM1

(high minus one) will select the next highest available frequency

Medium

attempts to set a frequency in the middle of the available range

Conservative

attempts to use the Conservative CPU governor

OnDemand

attempts to use the OnDemand CPU governor (the default value)

Performance

attempts to use the Performance CPU governor

PowerSave

attempts to use the PowerSave CPU governor

UserSpace

attempts to use the UserSpace CPU governor

The following informational environment variable is set in the job

step when cpufreq option is requested.
SLURM_CPU_FREQ_REQ
This environment variable can also be used to supply the value for the CPU frequency request if it
is set when the srun command is issued. The cpufreq on the command line will override the
environment variable value. The form on the environment variable is the same as the command
line. See the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section for a description of the
SLURM_CPU_FREQ_REQ variable.
NOTE: This parameter is treated as a request, not a requirement. If the job steps node does not
support setting the CPU frequency, or the requested value is outside the bounds of the legal frequencies, an error is logged, but the job step is allowed to continue.
NOTE: Setting the frequency for just the CPUs of the job step implies that the tasks are confined
to those CPUs. If task confinement (i.e., TaskPlugin=task/affinity or TaskPlugin=task/cgroup with

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the "ConstrainCores" option) is not configured, this parameter is ignored.

NOTE: When the step completes, the frequency and governor of each selected CPU is reset to the
configured CpuFreqDef value with a default value of the OnDemand CPU governor.
NOTE: When submitting jobs with the cpufreq option with linuxproc as the ProctrackType
can cause jobs to run too quickly before Accounting is able to poll for job information. As a result
not all of accounting information will be present.

c, cpuspertask=<ncpus>
Request that ncpus be allocated per process. This may be useful if the job is multithreaded and
requires more than one CPU per task for optimal performance. The default is one CPU per process. If c is specified without n, as many tasks will be allocated per node as possible while satisfying the c restriction. For instance on a cluster with 8 CPUs per node, a job request for 4 nodes
and 3 CPUs per task may be allocated 3 or 6 CPUs per node (1 or 2 tasks per node) depending
upon resource consumption by other jobs. Such a job may be unable to execute more than a total
of 4 tasks. This option may also be useful to spawn tasks without allocating resources to the job
step from the jobs allocation when running multiple job steps with the exclusive option.
WARNING: There are configurations and options interpreted differently by job and job step
requests which can result in inconsistencies for this option. For example srun c2
threadspercore=1 prog may allocate two cores for the job, but if each of those cores contains two threads, the job allocation will include four CPUs. The job step allocation will then
launch two threads per CPU for a total of two tasks.
WARNING: When srun is executed from within salloc or sbatch, there are configurations and
options which can result in inconsistent allocations when c has a value greater than c on salloc
or sbatch.

d, dependency=<dependency_list>
Defer the start of this job until the specified dependencies have been satisfied completed. This
option does not apply to job steps (executions of srun within an existing salloc or sbatch allocation)
only
to
job
allocations.
<dependency_list>
is
of
the
form
<type:job_id[:job_id][,type:job_id[:job_id]]> or <type:job_id[:job_id][?type:job_id[:job_id]]>.
All dependencies must be satisfied if the "," separator is used. Any dependency may be satisfied if
the "?" separator is used. Many jobs can share the same dependency and these jobs may even
belong to different users. The value may be changed after job submission using the scontrol command. Once a job dependency fails due to the termination state of a preceding job, the dependent
job will never be run, even if the preceding job is requeued and has a different termination state in
a subsequent execution.
after:job_id[:jobid...]
This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have begun execution.
afterany:job_id[:jobid...]
This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have terminated.
afternotok:job_id[:jobid...]
This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have terminated in some failed state
(non-zero exit code, node failure, timed out, etc).
afterok:job_id[:jobid...]
This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have successfully executed (ran to
completion with an exit code of zero).

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expand:job_id
Resources allocated to this job should be used to expand the specified job. The job to
expand must share the same QOS (Quality of Service) and partition. Gang scheduling of
resources in the partition is also not supported.
singleton
This job can begin execution after any previously launched jobs sharing the same job
name and user have terminated.
D, chdir=<path>
Have the remote processes do a chdir to path before beginning execution. The default is to chdir to
the current working directory of the srun process. The path can be specified as full path or relative
path to the directory where the command is executed.
e, error=<mode>
Specify how stderr is to be redirected. By default in interactive mode, srun redirects stderr to the
same file as stdout, if one is specified. The error option is provided to allow stdout and stderr to
be redirected to different locations. See IO Redirection below for more options. If the specified
file already exists, it will be overwritten.
E, preserve-env
Pass the current values of environment variables SLURM_NNODES and SLURM_NTASKS
through to the executable, rather than computing them from commandline parameters.
epilog=<executable>
srun will run executable just after the job step completes. The command line arguments for executable will be the command and arguments of the job step. If executable is "none", then no srun
epilog will be run. This parameter overrides the SrunEpilog parameter in slurm.conf. This parameter is completely independent from the Epilog parameter in slurm.conf.

exclusive[=user]
This option has two slightly different meanings for job and job step allocations. When used to initiate a job, the job allocation cannot share nodes with other running jobs (or just other users with
the "=user" option). The default shared/exclusive behavior depends on system configuration and
the partitions Shared option takes precedence over the jobs option.
This option can also be used when initiating more than one job step within an existing resource
allocation, where you want separate processors to be dedicated to each job step. If sufficient processors are not available to initiate the job step, it will be deferred. This can be thought of as providing a mechanism for resource management to the job within its allocation.
The exclusive allocation of CPUs only applies to job steps explicitly invoked with the exclusive
option. For example, a job might be allocated one node with four CPUs and a remote shell
invoked on the allocated node. If that shell is not invoked with the exclusive option, then it may
create a job step with four tasks using the exclusive option and not conflict with the remote
shells resource allocation. Use the exclusive option to invoke every job step to insure distinct
resources for each step.
Note that all CPUs allocated to a job are available to each job step unless the exclusive option is
used plus task affinity is configured. Since resource management is provided by processor, the
ntasks option must be specified, but the following options should NOT be specified relative,
distribution=arbitrary. See EXAMPLE below.

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export=<environment variables | NONE>

Identify which environment variables are propagated to the launched application. Multiple environment variable names should be comma separated. Environment variable names may be specified to propagate the current value of those variables (e.g. "export=EDITOR") or specific values
for the variables may be exported (e.g.. "export=EDITOR=/bin/vi") in addition to the environment variables that would otherwise be set. By default all environment variables are propagated.
gid=<group>
If srun is run as root, and the gid option is used, submit the job with groups group access permissions. group may be the group name or the numerical group ID.
gres=<list>
Specifies a comma delimited list of generic consumable resources. The format of each entry on
the list is "name[[:type]:count]". The name is that of the consumable resource. The count is the
number of those resources with a default value of 1. The specified resources will be allocated to
the job on each node. The available generic consumable resources is configurable by the system
administrator. A list of available generic consumable resources will be printed and the command
will exit if the option argument is "help". Examples of use include "gres=gpu:2,mic=1",
"gres=gpu:kepler:2", and "gres=help". NOTE: By default, a job step is allocated all of the
generic resources that have allocated to the job. To change the behavior so that each job step is
allocated no generic resources, explicitly set the value of gres to specify zero counts for each
generic resource OR set "gres=none" OR set the SLURM_STEP_GRES environment variable
to "none".
H, hold
Specify the job is to be submitted in a held state (priority of zero). A held job can now be released
using scontrol to reset its priority (e.g. "scontrol release <job_id>").
h, help
Display help information and exit.
hint=<type>
Bind tasks according to application hints.
compute_bound
Select settings for compute bound applications: use all cores in each socket, one thread
per core.
memory_bound
Select settings for memory bound applications: use only one core in each socket, one
thread per core.
[no]multithread
[dont] use extra threads with in-core multi-threading which can benefit communication
intensive applications. Only supported with the task/affinity plugin.
help

show this help message

I, immediate[=<seconds>]
exit if resources are not available within the time period specified. If no argument is given,
resources must be available immediately for the request to succeed. By default, immediate is
off, and the command will block until resources become available. Since this options argument is
optional, for proper parsing the single letter option must be followed immediately with the value
and not include a space between them. For example "I60" and not "I 60".

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i, input=<mode>
Specify how stdin is to redirected. By default, srun redirects stdin from the terminal all tasks. See
IO Redirection below for more options. For OS X, the poll() function does not support stdin, so
input from a terminal is not possible.
J, jobname=<jobname>
Specify a name for the job. The specified name will appear along with the job id number when
querying running jobs on the system. The default is the supplied executable programs name.
NOTE: This information may be written to the slurm_jobacct.log file. This file is space delimited
so if a space is used in the jobname name it will cause problems in properly displaying the contents of the slurm_jobacct.log file when the sacct command is used.
jobid=<jobid>
Initiate a job step under an already allocated job with job id id. Using this option will cause srun
to behave exactly as if the SLURM_JOB_ID environment variable was set.
K, killonbadexit[=0|1]
Controls whether or not to terminate a job if any task exits with a nonzero exit code. If this
option is not specified, the default action will be based upon the Slurm configuration parameter of
KillOnBadExit. If this option is specified, it will take precedence over KillOnBadExit. An option
argument of zero will not terminate the job. A nonzero argument or no argument will terminate
the job. Note: This option takes precedence over the W, wait option to terminate the job
immediately if a task exits with a nonzero exit code. Since this options argument is optional, for
proper parsing the single letter option must be followed immediately with the value and not
include a space between them. For example "K1" and not "K 1".
k, nokill
Do not automatically terminate a job if one of the nodes it has been allocated fails. This option is
only recognized on a job allocation, not for the submission of individual job steps. The job will
assume all responsibilities for faulttolerance. Tasks launch using this option will not be considered terminated (e.g. K, killonbadexit and W, wait options will have no effect upon
the job step). The active job step (MPI job) will likely suffer a fatal error, but subsequent job steps
may be run if this option is specified. The default action is to terminate the job upon node failure.
launch-cmd
Print external launch command instead of running job normally through Slurm. This option is only
valid if using something other than the launch/slurm plugin.
launcheropts=<options>
Options for the external launcher if using something other than the launch/slurm plugin.
l, label
Prepend task number to lines of stdout/err. The label option will prepend lines of output with
the remote task id.
L, licenses=<license>
Specification of licenses (or other resources available on all nodes of the cluster) which must be
allocated to this job. License names can be followed by a colon and count (the default count is
one). Multiple license names should be comma separated (e.g. "licenses=foo:4,bar").

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m, distribution=
*|block|cyclic|arbitrary|plane=<options> [:*|block|cyclic|fcyclic[:*|block|
cyclic|fcyclic]][,Pack|NoPack]
Specify alternate distribution methods for remote processes. This option controls the distribution
of tasks to the nodes on which resources have been allocated, and the distribution of those
resources to tasks for binding (task affinity). The first distribution method (before the first ":") controls the distribution of tasks to nodes. The second distribution method (after the first ":") controls
the distribution of allocated CPUs across sockets for binding to tasks. The third distribution
method (after the second ":") controls the distribution of allocated CPUs across cores for binding
to tasks. The second and third distributions apply only if task affinity is enabled. The third distribution is supported only if the task/cgroup plugin is configured. The default value for each distribution type is specified by *.
Note that with select/cons_res, the number of CPUs allocated on each socket and node may be different. Refer to http://slurm.schedmd.com/mc_support.html for more information on resource allocation, distribution of tasks to nodes, and binding of tasks to CPUs.
First distribution method (distribution of tasks across nodes):
*

Use the default method for distributing tasks to nodes (block).

block

The block distribution method will distribute tasks to a node such that consecutive tasks
share a node. For example, consider an allocation of three nodes each with two cpus. A
fourtask block distribution request will distribute those tasks to the nodes with tasks one
and two on the first node, task three on the second node, and task four on the third node.
Block distribution is the default behavior if the number of tasks exceeds the number of
allocated nodes.

cyclic

The cyclic distribution method will distribute tasks to a node such that consecutive tasks
are distributed over consecutive nodes (in a roundrobin fashion). For example, consider
an allocation of three nodes each with two cpus. A fourtask cyclic distribution request
will distribute those tasks to the nodes with tasks one and four on the first node, task two
on the second node, and task three on the third node. Note that when SelectType is
select/cons_res, the same number of CPUs may not be allocated on each node. Task distribution will be roundrobin among all the nodes with CPUs yet to be assigned to tasks.
Cyclic distribution is the default behavior if the number of tasks is no larger than the
number of allocated nodes.

plane

The tasks are distributed in blocks of a specified size. The options include a number representing the size of the task block. This is followed by an optional specification of the
task distribution scheme within a block of tasks and between the blocks of tasks. The
number of tasks distributed to each node is the same as for cyclic distribution, but the
taskids assigned to each node depend on the plane size. For more details (including examples and diagrams), please see
http://slurm.schedmd.com/mc_support.html
and
http://slurm.schedmd.com/dist_plane.html

arbitrary
The arbitrary method of distribution will allocate processes inorder as listed in file designated by the environment variable SLURM_HOSTFILE. If this variable is listed it will
over ride any other method specified. If not set the method will default to block. Inside
the hostfile must contain at minimum the number of hosts requested and be one per line
or comma separated. If specifying a task count (n, ntasks=<number>), your tasks
will be laid out on the nodes in the order of the file.
NOTE: The arbitrary distribution option on a job allocation only controls the nodes to be

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allocated to the job and not the allocation of CPUs on those nodes. This option is meant
primarily to control a job steps task layout in an existing job allocation for the srun command.
Second distribution method (distribution of CPUs across sockets for binding):
*

Use the default method for distributing CPUs across sockets (cyclic).

block

The block distribution method will distribute allocated CPUs consecutively from the
same socket for binding to tasks, before using the next consecutive socket.

cyclic

The cyclic distribution method will distribute allocated CPUs for binding to a given task
consecutively from the same socket, and from the next consecutive socket for the next
task, in a roundrobin fashion across sockets.

fcyclic The fcyclic distribution method will distribute allocated CPUs for binding to tasks from
consecutive sockets in a roundrobin fashion across the sockets.
Third distribution method (distribution of CPUs across cores for binding):
*

Use the default method for distributing CPUs across cores (inherited from second distribution method).

block

The block distribution method will distribute allocated CPUs consecutively from the
same core for binding to tasks, before using the next consecutive core.

cyclic

The cyclic distribution method will distribute allocated CPUs for binding to a given task
consecutively from the same core, and from the next consecutive core for the next task, in
a roundrobin fashion across cores.

fcyclic The fcyclic distribution method will distribute allocated CPUs for binding to tasks from
consecutive cores in a roundrobin fashion across the cores.

Optional control for task distribution over nodes:

Pack

Rather than evenly distributing a job steps tasks evenly across its allocated nodes, pack
them as tightly as possible on the nodes.

NoPack
Rather than packing a job steps tasks as tightly as possible on the nodes, distribute them
evenly. This user option will supersede the SelectTypeParameters CR_Pack_Nodes configuration parameter.
mailtype=<type>
Notify user by email when certain event types occur. Valid type values are NONE, BEGIN, END,
FAIL, REQUEUE, ALL (equivalent to BEGIN, END, FAIL, REQUEUE, and STAGE_OUT),
STAGE_OUT (burst buffer stage out and teardown completed), TIME_LIMIT, TIME_LIMIT_90
(reached 90 percent of time limit), TIME_LIMIT_80 (reached 80 percent of time limit), and
TIME_LIMIT_50 (reached 50 percent of time limit). Multiple type values may be specified in a
comma separated list. The user to be notified is indicated with mailuser.
mailuser=<user>
User to receive email notification of state changes as defined by mailtype. The default value
is the submitting user.

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mem=<MB>
Specify the real memory required per node in MegaBytes. Default value is DefMemPerNode and
the maximum value is MaxMemPerNode. If configured, both of parameters can be seen using the
scontrol show config command. This parameter would generally be used if whole nodes are allocated to jobs (SelectType=select/linear). Specifying a memory limit of zero for a job step will
restrict the job step to the amount of memory allocated to the job, but not remove any of the jobs
memory allocation from being available to other job steps. Also see mempercpu. mem
and mempercpu are mutually exclusive. NOTE: A memory size specification is treated as a
special case and grants the job access to all of the memory on each node. NOTE: Enforcement of
memory limits currently relies upon the task/cgroup plugin or enabling of accounting, which samples memory use on a periodic basis (data need not be stored, just collected). In both cases memory use is based upon the jobs Resident Set Size (RSS). A task may exceed the memory limit until
the next periodic accounting sample.
mempercpu=<MB>
Minimum memory required per allocated CPU in MegaBytes. Default value is DefMemPerCPU
and the maximum value is MaxMemPerCPU (see exception below). If configured, both of parameters can be seen using the scontrol show config command. Note that if the jobs
mempercpu value exceeds the configured MaxMemPerCPU, then the users limit will be
treated as a memory limit per task; mempercpu will be reduced to a value no larger than
MaxMemPerCPU; cpuspertask will be set and the value of cpuspertask multiplied
by the new mempercpu value will equal the original mempercpu value specified by
the user. This parameter would generally be used if individual processors are allocated to jobs
(SelectType=select/cons_res). If resources are allocated by the core, socket or whole nodes; the
number of CPUs allocated to a job may be higher than the task count and the value of
mempercpu should be adjusted accordingly. Specifying a memory limit of zero for a job
step will restrict the job step to the amount of memory allocated to the job, but not remove any of
the jobs memory allocation from being available to other job steps. Also see mem. mem
and mempercpu are mutually exclusive.
mem_bind=[{quiet,verbose},]type
Bind tasks to memory. Used only when the task/affinity plugin is enabled and the NUMA memory
functions are available. Note that the resolution of CPU and memory binding may differ on
some architectures. For example, CPU binding may be performed at the level of the cores within
a processor while memory binding will be performed at the level of nodes, where the definition of
"nodes" may differ from system to system. The use of any type other than "none" or "local" is
not recommended. If you want greater control, try running a simple test code with the options
"cpu_bind=verbose,none mem_bind=verbose,none" to determine the specific configuration.
NOTE: To have Slurm always report on the selected memory binding for all commands executed
in a shell, you can enable verbose mode by setting the SLURM_MEM_BIND environment variable value to "verbose".
The following informational environment variables are set when mem_bind is in use:
SLURM_MEM_BIND_VERBOSE
SLURM_MEM_BIND_TYPE
SLURM_MEM_BIND_LIST
See the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section for a more detailed description of the individual
SLURM_MEM_BIND* variables.
Supported options include:

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q[uiet] quietly bind before task runs (default)

v[erbose]
verbosely report binding before task runs
no[ne] dont bind tasks to memory (default)
rank

bind by task rank (not recommended)

local

Use memory local to the processor in use

map_mem:<list>
bind by mapping a nodes memory to tasks as specified where <list> is
<cpuid1>,<cpuid2>,...<cpuidN>. CPU IDs are interpreted as decimal values unless they
are preceded with 0x in which case they interpreted as hexadecimal values (not recommended)
mask_mem:<list>
bind by setting memory masks on tasks as specified where <list> is
<mask1>,<mask2>,...<maskN>. memory masks are always interpreted as hexadecimal
values. Note that masks must be preceded with a 0x if they dont begin with [0-9] so
they are seen as numerical values by srun.
help

show this help message

mincpus=<n>
Specify a minimum number of logical cpus/processors per node.
msgtimeout=<seconds>
Modify the job launch message timeout. The default value is MessageTimeout in the Slurm configuration file slurm.conf. Changes to this are typically not recommended, but could be useful to
diagnose problems.
mpi=<mpi_type>
Identify the type of MPI to be used. May result in unique initiation procedures.
list

Lists available mpi types to choose from.

lam

Initiates one lamd process per node and establishes necessary environment variables for
LAM/MPI.

mpich1_shmem
Initiates one process per node and establishes necessary environment variables for
mpich1 shared memory model. This also works for mvapich built for shared memory.
mpichgm
For use with Myrinet.
mvapich
For use with Infiniband.
openmpi
For use with OpenMPI.

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pmi2

To enable PMI2 support. The PMI2 support in Slurm works only if the MPI implementation supports it, in other words if the MPI has the PMI2 interface implemented. The
mpi=pmi2 will load the library lib/slurm/mpi_pmi2.so which provides the server side
functionality but the client side must implement PMI2_Init() and the other interface calls.

none

No special MPI processing. This is the default and works with many other versions of
MPI.

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multiprog
Run a job with different programs and different arguments for each task. In this case, the
executable program specified is actually a configuration file specifying the executable and arguments for each task. See MULTIPLE PROGRAM CONFIGURATION below for details on the
configuration file contents.
N, nodes=<minnodes[maxnodes]>
Request that a minimum of minnodes nodes be allocated to this job. A maximum node count may
also be specified with maxnodes. If only one number is specified, this is used as both the minimum and maximum node count. The partitions node limits supersede those of the job. If a jobs
node limits are outside of the range permitted for its associated partition, the job will be left in a
PENDING state. This permits possible execution at a later time, when the partition limit is
changed. If a job node limit exceeds the number of nodes configured in the partition, the job will
be rejected. Note that the environment variable SLURM_JOB_NUM_NODES (and
SLURM_NNODES for backwards compatibility) will be set to the count of nodes actually allocated to the job. See the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section for more information. If N is
not specified, the default behavior is to allocate enough nodes to satisfy the requirements of the n
and c options. The job will be allocated as many nodes as possible within the range specified and
without delaying the initiation of the job. The node count specification may include a numeric
value followed by a suffix of "k" (multiplies numeric value by 1,024) or "m" (multiplies numeric
value by 1,048,576).
n, ntasks=<number>
Specify the number of tasks to run. Request that srun allocate resources for ntasks tasks. The
default is one task per node, but note that the cpuspertask option will change this default.
network=<type>
Specify information pertaining to the switch or network. The interpretation of type is system
dependent. This option is supported when running Slurm on a Cray natively. It is used to request
using Network Performace Counters. Only one value per request is valid. All options are case
insensitive. In this configuration supported values include:
system
Use the systemwide network performance counters. Only nodes requested will be marked
in use for the job allocation. If the job does not fill up the entire system the rest of the
nodes are not able to be used by other jobs using NPC, if idle their state will appear as PerfCnts. These nodes are still available for other jobs not using NPC.
blade Use the blade network performance counters. Only nodes requested will be marked in use
for the job allocation. If the job does not fill up the entire blade(s) allocated to the job
those blade(s) are not able to be used by other jobs using NPC, if idle their state will
appear as PerfCnts. These nodes are still available for other jobs not using NPC.
In all cases the job or step allocation request must specify the
exclusive option. Otherwise the request will be denied.
Also with any of these options steps are not allowed to share blades, so resources would remain
idle inside an allocation if the step running on a blade does not take up all the nodes on the blade.
The network option is also supported on systems with IBMs Parallel Environment (PE). See
IBMs LoadLeveler job command keyword documentation about the keyword "network" for more
information. Multiple values may be specified in a comma separated list. All options are case
insensitive. Supported values include:

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BULK_XFER[=<resources>]
Enable bulk transfer of data using Remote Direct-Memory Access (RDMA). The
optional resources specification is a numeric value which can have a suffix of "k",
"K", "m", "M", "g" or "G" for kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes. NOTE: The
resources specification is not supported by the underlying IBM infrastructure as of
Parallel Environment version 2.2 and no value should be specified at this time. The
devices allocated to a job must all be of the same type. The default value depends
upon depends upon what hardware is available and in order of preferences is
IPONLY (which is not considered in User Space mode), HFI, IB, HPCE, and
KMUX.
CAU=<count>
Number of Collective Acceleration Units (CAU) required. Applies only to IBM
Power7-IH processors. Default value is zero. Independent CAU will be allocated
for each programming interface (MPI, LAPI, etc.)
DEVNAME=<name>
Specify the device name to use for communications (e.g. "eth0" or "mlx4_0").
DEVTYPE=<type>
Specify the device type to use for communications. The supported values of type
are: "IB" (InfiniBand), "HFI" (P7 Host Fabric Interface), "IPONLY" (IP-Only interfaces), "HPCE" (HPC Ethernet), and "KMUX" (Kernel Emulation of HPCE). The
devices allocated to a job must all be of the same type. The default value depends
upon depends upon what hardware is available and in order of preferences is
IPONLY (which is not considered in User Space mode), HFI, IB, HPCE, and
KMUX.
IMMED =<count>
Number of immediate send slots per window required. Applies only to IBM
Power7-IH processors. Default value is zero.
INSTANCES =<count>
Specify number of network connections for each task on each network connection.
The default instance count is 1.
IPV4

Use Internet Protocol (IP) version 4 communications (default).

IPV6

Use Internet Protocol (IP) version 6 communications.

LAPI

Use the LAPI programming interface.

MPI

Use the MPI programming interface. MPI is the default interface.

PAMI

Use the PAMI programming interface.

SHMEM

Use the OpenSHMEM programming interface.

SN_ALL

Use all available switch networks (default).

SN_SINGLE
Use one available switch network.
UPC

Use the UPC programming interface.

US

Use User Space communications.

Some examples of network specifications:

Instances=2,US,MPI,SN_ALL
Create two user space connections for MPI communications on every switch network for each task.

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US,MPI,Instances=3,Devtype=IB
Create three user space connections for MPI communications on every InfiniBand
network for each task.
IPV4,LAPI,SN_Single
Create a IP version 4 connection for LAPI communications on one switch network
for each task.
Instances=2,US,LAPI,MPI
Create two user space connections each for LAPI and MPI communications on
every switch network for each task. Note that SN_ALL is the default option so
every switch network is used. Also note that Instances=2 specifies that two connections are established for each protocol (LAPI and MPI) and each task. If there are
two networks and four tasks on the node then a total of 32 connections are established (2 instances x 2 protocols x 2 networks x 4 tasks).
nice[=adjustment]
Run the job with an adjusted scheduling priority within Slurm. With no adjustment value the
scheduling priority is decreased by 100. The adjustment range is from 10000 (highest priority) to
10000 (lowest priority). Only privileged users can specify a negative adjustment. NOTE: This
option is presently ignored if SchedulerType=sched/wiki or SchedulerType=sched/wiki2.
ntaskspercore=<ntasks>
Request the maximum ntasks be invoked on each core. This option applies to the job allocation,
but not to step allocations. Meant to be used with the ntasks option. Related to
ntaskspernode except at the core level instead of the node level. Masks will automatically
be generated to bind the tasks to specific core unless cpu_bind=none is specified. NOTE: This
option is not supported unless SelectTypeParameters=CR_Core or SelectTypeParameters=CR_Core_Memory is configured.
ntaskspernode=<ntasks>
Request that ntasks be invoked on each node. If used with the ntasks option, the ntasks
option will take precedence and the ntaskspernode will be treated as a maximum count of
tasks per node. Meant to be used with the nodes option. This is related to
cpuspertask=ncpus, but does not require knowledge of the actual number of cpus on each
node. In some cases, it is more convenient to be able to request that no more than a specific number of tasks be invoked on each node. Examples of this include submitting a hybrid MPI/OpenMP
app where only one MPI "task/rank" should be assigned to each node while allowing the OpenMP
portion to utilize all of the parallelism present in the node, or submitting a single
setup/cleanup/monitoring job to each node of a preexisting allocation as one step in a larger job
script.
ntaskspersocket=<ntasks>
Request the maximum ntasks be invoked on each socket. This option applies to the job allocation,
but not to step allocations. Meant to be used with the ntasks option. Related to
ntaskspernode except at the socket level instead of the node level. Masks will automatically
be generated to bind the tasks to specific sockets unless cpu_bind=none is specified. NOTE:
This option is not supported unless SelectTypeParameters=CR_Socket or SelectTypeParameters=CR_Socket_Memory is configured.
O, overcommit
Overcommit resources. When applied to job allocation, only one CPU is allocated to the job per
node and options used to specify the number of tasks per node, socket, core, etc. are ignored.
When applied to job step allocations (the srun command when executed within an existing job

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allocation), this option can be used to launch more than one task per CPU. Normally, srun will
not allocate more than one process per CPU. By specifying overcommit you are explicitly
allowing more than one process per CPU. However no more than MAX_TASKS_PER_NODE
tasks are permitted to execute per node. NOTE: MAX_TASKS_PER_NODE is defined in the file
slurm.h and is not a variable, it is set at Slurm build time.
o, output=<mode>
Specify the mode for stdout redirection. By default in interactive mode, srun collects stdout from
all tasks and sends this output via TCP/IP to the attached terminal. With output stdout may be
redirected to a file, to one file per task, or to /dev/null. See section IO Redirection below for the
various forms of mode. If the specified file already exists, it will be overwritten.
If error is not also specified on the command line, both stdout and stderr will directed to the file
specified by output.
openmode=<append|truncate>
Open the output and error files using append or truncate mode as specified. The default value is
specified by the system configuration parameter JobFileAppend.
p, partition=<partition_names>
Request a specific partition for the resource allocation. If not specified, the default behavior is to
allow the slurm controller to select the default partition as designated by the system administrator.
If the job can use more than one partition, specify their names in a comma separate list and the one
offering earliest initiation will be used with no regard given to the partition name ordering
(although higher priority partitions will be considered first). When the job is initiated, the name of
the partition used will be placed first in the job record partition string.
power=<flags>
Comma separated list of power management plugin options. Currently available flags include:
level (all nodes allocated to the job should have identical power caps, may be disabled by the
Slurm configuration option PowerParameters=job_no_level).
priority=<value>
Request a specific job priority. May be subject to configuration specific constraints. Only Slurm
operators and administrators can set the priority of a job.
profile=<all|none|[energy[,|task[,|filesystem[,|network]]]]>
enables detailed data collection by the acct_gather_profile plugin. Detailed data are typically
time-series that are stored in an HDF5 file for the job.

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All

All data types are collected. (Cannot be combined with other values.)

None

No data types are collected. This is the default.

(Cannot be combined with other values.)

Energy

Energy data is collected.

Task

Task (I/O, Memory, ...) data is collected.

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Filesystem Filesystem data is collected.

Network

Network (InfiniBand) data is collected.

prolog=<executable>
srun will run executable just before launching the job step. The command line arguments for executable will be the command and arguments of the job step. If executable is "none", then no srun
prolog will be run. This parameter overrides the SrunProlog parameter in slurm.conf. This parameter is completely independent from the Prolog parameter in slurm.conf.
propagate[=rlimits]
Allows users to specify which of the modifiable (soft) resource limits to propagate to the compute
nodes and apply to their jobs. If rlimits is not specified, then all resource limits will be propagated. The following rlimit names are supported by Slurm (although some options may not be
supported on some systems):
ALL

All limits listed below

AS

The maximum address space for a process

CORE

The maximum size of core file

CPU

The maximum amount of CPU time

DATA

The maximum size of a processs data segment

FSIZE

The maximum size of files created. Note that if the user sets FSIZE to less than the
current size of the slurmd.log, job launches will fail with a File size limit exceeded
error.

MEMLOCK
The maximum size that may be locked into memory

pty

NOFILE

The maximum number of open files

NPROC

The maximum number of processes available

RSS

The maximum resident set size

STACK

The maximum stack size

Execute task zero in pseudo terminal mode. Implicitly sets unbuffered. Implicitly sets
error and output to /dev/null for all tasks except task zero, which may cause those tasks to
exit immediately (e.g. shells will typically exit immediately in that situation). Not currently supported on AIX platforms.

Q, quiet
Suppress informational messages from srun. Errors will still be displayed.
q, quitoninterrupt
Quit immediately on single SIGINT (CtrlC). Use of this option disables the status feature normally available when srun receives a single CtrlC and causes srun to instead immediately terminate the running job.
qos=<qos>
Request a quality of service for the job. QOS values can be defined for each user/cluster/account
association in the Slurm database. Users will be limited to their associations defined set of qoss
when the Slurm configuration parameter, AccountingStorageEnforce, includes "qos" in its

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definition.
r, relative=<n>
Run a job step relative to node n of the current allocation. This option may be used to spread several job steps out among the nodes of the current job. If r is used, the current job step will begin
at node n of the allocated nodelist, where the first node is considered node 0. The r option is not
permitted with w or x option and will result in a fatal error when not running within a prior allocation (i.e. when SLURM_JOB_ID is not set). The default for n is 0. If the value of nodes
exceeds the number of nodes identified with the relative option, a warning message will be
printed and the relative option will take precedence.
reboot
Force the allocated nodes to reboot before starting the job. This is only supported with some system configurations and will otherwise be silently ignored.
resvports
Reserve communication ports for this job. Users can specify the number of port they want to
reserve. The parameter MpiParams=ports=12000-12999 must be specified in slurm.conf. If not
specified the default reserve number of ports equal to the number of tasks. If the number of
reserved ports is zero no ports is reserved. Used for OpenMPI.
reservation=<name>
Allocate resources for the job from the named reservation.
restartdir=<directory>
Specifies the directory from which the job or job steps checkpoint should be read (used by the
checkpoint/blcrm and checkpoint/xlch plugins only).
s, share
The job allocation can share resources with other running jobs. The resources to be shared can be
nodes, sockets, cores, or hyperthreads depending upon configuration. The default shared behavior
depends on system configuration and the partitions Shared option takes precedence over the jobs
option. This option may result in the allocation being granted sooner than if the share option
was not set and allow higher system utilization, but application performance will likely suffer due
to competition for resources. Also see the exclusive option.
S, corespec=<num>
Count of specialized cores per node reserved by the job for system operations and not used by the
application. The application will not use these cores, but will be charged for their allocation.
Default value is dependent upon the nodes configured CoreSpecCount value. If a value of zero is
designated and the Slurm configuration option AllowSpecResourcesUsage is enabled, the job will
be allowed to override CoreSpecCount and use the specialized resources on nodes it is allocated.
This option can not be used with the threadspec option.
sicp Identify a job as one which jobs submitted to other clusters can be dependent upon.
signal=<sig_num>[@<sig_time>]
When a job is within sig_time seconds of its end time, send it the signal sig_num. Due to the resolution of event handling by Slurm, the signal may be sent up to 60 seconds earlier than specified.
sig_num may either be a signal number or name (e.g. "10" or "USR1"). sig_time must have an
integer value between 0 and 65535. By default, no signal is sent before the jobs end time. If a

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sig_num is specified without any sig_time, the default time will be 60 seconds.
slurmddebug=<level>
Specify a debug level for slurmd(8). The level may be specified either an integer value between 0
[quiet, only errors are displayed] and 4 [verbose operation] or the SlurmdDebug tags.
quiet

Log nothing

fatal

Log only fatal errors

error

Log only errors

info

Log errors and general informational messages

verbose

Log errors and verbose informational messages

The slurmd debug information is copied onto the stderr of

the job. By default only errors are displayed.
socketspernode=<sockets>
Restrict node selection to nodes with at least the specified number of sockets. See additional
information under B option above when task/affinity plugin is enabled.
switches=<count>[@<maxtime>]
When a tree topology is used, this defines the maximum count of switches desired for the job allocation and optionally the maximum time to wait for that number of switches. If Slurm finds an
allocation containing more switches than the count specified, the job remains pending until it
either finds an allocation with desired switch count or the time limit expires. It there is no switch
count limit, there is no delay in starting the job. Acceptable time formats include "minutes", "minutes:seconds",
"hours:minutes:seconds",
"dayshours",
"dayshours:minutes"
and
"dayshours:minutes:seconds". The jobs maximum time delay may be limited by the system
administrator using the SchedulerParameters configuration parameter with the
max_switch_wait parameter option. The default maxtime is the max_switch_wait SchedulerParameters.
T, threads=<nthreads>
Allows limiting the number of concurrent threads used to send the job request from the srun process to the slurmd processes on the allocated nodes. Default is to use one thread per allocated node
up to a maximum of 60 concurrent threads. Specifying this option limits the number of concurrent
threads to nthreads (less than or equal to 60). This should only be used to set a low thread count
for testing on very small memory computers.
t, time=<time>
Set a limit on the total run time of the job allocation. If the requested time limit exceeds the partitions time limit, the job will be left in a PENDING state (possibly indefinitely). The default time
limit is the partitions default time limit. When the time limit is reached, each task in each job step
is sent SIGTERM followed by SIGKILL. The interval between signals is specified by the Slurm
configuration parameter KillWait. The OverTimeLimit configuration parameter may permit the
job to run longer than scheduled. Time resolution is one minute and second values are rounded up
to the next minute.
A time limit of zero requests that no time limit be imposed. Acceptable time formats include
"minutes", "minutes:seconds", "hours:minutes:seconds", "dayshours", "dayshours:minutes" and
"dayshours:minutes:seconds".

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Slurm Commands

srun(1)

taskepilog=<executable>
The slurmstepd daemon will run executable just after each task terminates. This will be executed
before any TaskEpilog parameter in slurm.conf is executed. This is meant to be a very shortlived
program. If it fails to terminate within a few seconds, it will be killed along with any descendant
processes.
taskprolog=<executable>
The slurmstepd daemon will run executable just before launching each task. This will be executed
after any TaskProlog parameter in slurm.conf is executed. Besides the normal environment variables, this has SLURM_TASK_PID available to identify the process ID of the task being started.
Standard output from this program of the form "export NAME=value" will be used to set environment variables for the task being spawned.
testonly
Returns an estimate of when a job would be scheduled to run given the current job queue and all
the other srun arguments specifying the job. This limits sruns behavior to just return information; no job is actually submitted. EXCEPTION: On Bluegene/Q systems on when running within
an existing job allocation, this disables the use of "runjob" to launch tasks. The program will be
executed directly by the slurmd daemon.
threadspec=<num>
Count of specialized threads per node reserved by the job for system operations and not used by
the application. The application will not use these threads, but will be charged for their allocation.
This option can not be used with the corespec option.
threadspercore=<threads>
Restrict node selection to nodes with at least the specified number of threads per core. NOTE:
"Threads" refers to the number of processing units on each core rather than the number of application tasks to be launched per core. See additional information under B option above when
task/affinity plugin is enabled.
timemin=<time>
Set a minimum time limit on the job allocation. If specified, the job may have its time limit
lowered to a value no lower than timemin if doing so permits the job to begin execution earlier than otherwise possible. The jobs time limit will not be changed after the job is allocated
resources. This is performed by a backfill scheduling algorithm to allocate resources otherwise
reserved for higher priority jobs. Acceptable time formats include "minutes", "minutes:seconds",
"hours:minutes:seconds", "dayshours", "dayshours:minutes" and "dayshours:minutes:seconds".
tmp=<MB>
Specify a minimum amount of temporary disk space.
u, unbuffered
By default the connection between slurmstepd and the user launched application is over a pipe.
The stdio output written by the application is buffered by the glibc until it is flushed or the output
is set as unbuffered. See setbuf(3). If this option is specified the tasks are executed with a pseudo
terminal so that the application output is unbuffered.
usage
Display brief help message and exit.

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Slurm Commands

srun(1)

uid=<user>
Attempt to submit and/or run a job as user instead of the invoking user id. The invoking users credentials will be used to check access permissions for the target partition. User root may use this
option to run jobs as a normal user in a RootOnly partition for example. If run as root, srun will
drop its permissions to the uid specified after node allocation is successful. user may be the user
name or numerical user ID.
V, version
Display version information and exit.
v, verbose
Increase the verbosity of sruns informational messages. Multiple vs will further increase sruns
verbosity. By default only errors will be displayed.
W, wait=<seconds>
Specify how long to wait after the first task terminates before terminating all remaining tasks. A
value of 0 indicates an unlimited wait (a warning will be issued after 60 seconds). The default
value is set by the WaitTime parameter in the slurm configuration file (see slurm.conf(5)). This
option can be useful to insure that a job is terminated in a timely fashion in the event that one or
more tasks terminate prematurely. Note: The K, killonbadexit option takes precedence
over W, wait to terminate the job immediately if a task exits with a nonzero exit code.
w, nodelist=<host1,host2,... or filename>
Request a specific list of hosts. The job will contain all of these hosts and possibly additional
hosts as needed to satisfy resource requirements. The list may be specified as a commaseparated
list of hosts, a range of hosts (host[15,7,...] for example), or a filename. The host list will be
assumed to be a filename if it contains a "/" character. If you specify a minimum node or processor count larger than can be satisfied by the supplied host list, additional resources will be allocated on other nodes as needed. Rather than repeating a host name multiple times, an asterisk and
a repetition count may be appended to a host name. For example "host1,host1" and "host1*2" are
equivalent.
wckey=<wckey>
Specify wckey to be used with job. If TrackWCKey=no (default) in the slurm.conf this value is
ignored.
X, disablestatus
Disable the display of task status when srun receives a single SIGINT (CtrlC). Instead immediately forward the SIGINT to the running job. Without this option a second CtrlC in one second
is required to forcibly terminate the job and srun will immediately exit. May also be set via the
environment variable SLURM_DISABLE_STATUS.
x, exclude=<host1,host2,... or filename>
Request that a specific list of hosts not be included in the resources allocated to this job. The host
list will be assumed to be a filename if it contains a "/"character.
Z, noallocate
Run the specified tasks on a set of nodes without creating a Slurm "job" in the Slurm queue structure, bypassing the normal resource allocation step. The list of nodes must be specified with the
w, nodelist option. This is a privileged option only available for the users "SlurmUser" and
"root".

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srun(1)

Slurm Commands

srun(1)

The following options support Blue Gene systems, but may be applicable to other systems as well.
blrtsimage=<path>
Path to blrts image for bluegene block. BGL only. Default from blugene.conf if not set.
cnloadimage=<path>
Path to compute node image for bluegene block. BGP only. Default from blugene.conf if not set.
conntype=<type>
Require the block connection type to be of a certain type. On Blue Gene the acceptable of type are
MESH, TORUS and NAV. If NAV, or if not set, then Slurm will try to fit a what the DefaultConnType is set to in the bluegene.conf if that isnt set the default is TORUS. You should not normally set this option. If running on a BGP system and wanting to run in HTC mode (only for 1
midplane and below). You can use HTC_S for SMP, HTC_D for Dual, HTC_V for virtual node
mode, and HTC_L for Linux mode. For systems that allow a different connection type per dimension you can supply a comma separated list of connection types may be specified, one for each
dimension (i.e. M,T,T,T will give you a torus connection is all dimensions expect the first).
g, geometry=<XxYxZ> | <AxXxYxZ>
Specify the geometry requirements for the job. On BlueGene/L and BlueGene/P systems there are
three numbers giving dimensions in the X, Y and Z directions, while on BlueGene/Q systems
there are four numbers giving dimensions in the A, X, Y and Z directions and can not be used to
allocate sub-blocks. For example "geometry=1x2x3x4", specifies a block of nodes having 1 x 2
x 3 x 4 = 24 nodes (actually midplanes on BlueGene).
ioloadimage=<path>
Path to io image for bluegene block. BGP only. Default from blugene.conf if not set.
linuximage=<path>
Path to linux image for bluegene block. BGL only. Default from blugene.conf if not set.
mloaderimage=<path>
Path to mloader image for bluegene block. Default from blugene.conf if not set.
R, norotate
Disables rotation of the jobs requested geometry in order to fit an appropriate block. By default
the specified geometry can rotate in three dimensions.
ramdiskimage=<path>
Path to ramdisk image for bluegene block. BGL only. Default from blugene.conf if not set.
srun will submit the job request to the slurm job controller, then initiate all processes on the remote nodes.
If the request cannot be met immediately, srun will block until the resources are free to run the job. If the
I (immediate) option is specified srun will terminate if resources are not immediately available.
When initiating remote processes srun will propagate the current working directory, unless
chdir=<path> is specified, in which case path will become the working directory for the remote processes.
The n, c, and N options control how CPUs and nodes will be allocated to the job. When specifying
only the number of processes to run with n, a default of one CPU per process is allocated. By specifying
the number of CPUs required per task (c), more than one CPU may be allocated per process. If the

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srun(1)

number of nodes is specified with N, srun will attempt to allocate at least the number of nodes specified.
Combinations of the above three options may be used to change how processes are distributed across nodes
and cpus. For instance, by specifying both the number of processes and number of nodes on which to run,
the number of processes per node is implied. However, if the number of CPUs per process is more important then number of processes (n) and the number of CPUs per process (c) should be specified.
srun will refuse to allocate more than one process per CPU unless overcommit (O) is also specified.
srun will attempt to meet the above specifications "at a minimum." That is, if 16 nodes are requested for 32
processes, and some nodes do not have 2 CPUs, the allocation of nodes will be increased in order to meet
the demand for CPUs. In other words, a minimum of 16 nodes are being requested. However, if 16 nodes
are requested for 15 processes, srun will consider this an error, as 15 processes cannot run across 16 nodes.
IO Redirection
By default, stdout and stderr will be redirected from all tasks to the stdout and stderr of srun, and stdin will
be redirected from the standard input of srun to all remote tasks. If stdin is only to be read by a subset of
the spawned tasks, specifying a file to read from rather than forwarding stdin from the srun command may
be preferable as it avoids moving and storing data that will never be read.
For OS X, the poll() function does not support stdin, so input from a terminal is not possible.
For BGQ srun only supports stdin to 1 task running on the system. By default it is taskid 0 but can be
changed with the i<taskid> as described below, or launcheropts="stdinrank=<taskid>".
This behavior may be changed with the output, error, and input (o, e, i) options. Valid format
specifications for these options are
all

stdout stderr is redirected from all tasks to srun. stdin is broadcast to all remote tasks. (This is
the default behavior)

none

stdout and stderr is not received from any task. stdin is not sent to any task (stdin is closed).

taskid

stdout and/or stderr are redirected from only the task with relative id equal to taskid, where 0
<= taskid <= ntasks, where ntasks is the total number of tasks in the current job step. stdin is
redirected from the stdin of srun to this same task. This file will be written on the node
executing the task.

filename

srun will redirect stdout and/or stderr to the named file from all tasks. stdin will be redirected
from the named file and broadcast to all tasks in the job. filename refers to a path on the host
that runs srun. Depending on the clusters file system layout, this may result in the output
appearing in different places depending on whether the job is run in batch mode.

format string
srun allows for a format string to be used to generate the named IO file described above. The
following list of format specifiers may be used in the format string to generate a filename that
will be unique to a given jobid, stepid, node, or task. In each case, the appropriate number of
files are opened and associated with the corresponding tasks. Note that any format string containing %t, %n, and/or %N will be written on the node executing the task rather than the node
where srun executes, these format specifiers are not supported on a BGQ system.

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%A

Job arrays master job allocation number.

%a

Job array ID (index) number.

%J

jobid.stepid of the running job. (e.g. "128.0")

%j

jobid of the running job.

%s

stepid of the running job.

%N

short hostname. This will create a separate IO file per node.

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srun(1)

%n

Node identifier relative to current job (e.g. "0" is the first node of the running job)
This will create a separate IO file per node.

%t

task identifier (rank) relative to current job. This will create a separate IO file per task.

%u

User name.

A number placed between the percent character and format specifier may be used to zeropad
the result in the IO filename. This number is ignored if the format specifier corresponds to
nonnumeric data (%N for example).
Some examples of how the format string may be used for a 4 task job step with a Job ID of 128
and step id of 0 are included below:
job%J.out

job128.0.out

job%4j.out

job0128.out

job%j%2t.out

job12800.out, job12801.out, ...

INPUT ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

Some srun options may be set via environment variables. These environment variables, along with their
corresponding options, are listed below. Note: Command line options will always override these settings.
PMI_FANOUT

This is used exclusively with PMI (MPICH2 and MVAPICH2) and controls the
fanout of data communications. The srun command sends messages to application programs (via the PMI library) and those applications may be called upon
to forward that data to up to this number of additional tasks. Higher values
offload work from the srun command to the applications and likely increase the
vulnerability to failures. The default value is 32.

PMI_FANOUT_OFF_HOST
This is used exclusively with PMI (MPICH2 and MVAPICH2) and controls the
fanout of data communications. The srun command sends messages to application programs (via the PMI library) and those applications may be called upon
to forward that data to additional tasks. By default, srun sends one message per
host and one task on that host forwards the data to other tasks on that host up to
PMI_FANOUT. If PMI_FANOUT_OFF_HOST is defined, the user task may
be required to forward the data to tasks on other hosts. Setting
PMI_FANOUT_OFF_HOST may increase performance. Since more work is
performed by the PMI library loaded by the user application, failures also can
be more common and more difficult to diagnose.
PMI_TIME

This is used exclusively with PMI (MPICH2 and MVAPICH2) and controls how
much the communications from the tasks to the srun are spread out in time in
order to avoid overwhelming the srun command with work. The default value is
500 (microseconds) per task. On relatively slow processors or systems with very
large processor counts (and large PMI data sets), higher values may be required.

SLURM_CONF

The location of the Slurm configuration file.

SLURM_ACCOUNT

Same as A, account

SLURM_ACCTG_FREQ
Same as acctgfreq
SLURM_BCAST

Same as bcast

SLURM_BLRTS_IMAGE
Same as blrtsimage

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Slurm Commands

srun(1)

SLURM_BURST_BUFFER
Same as bb
SLURM_CHECKPOINT
Same as checkpoint
SLURM_CHECKPOINT_DIR
Same as checkpointdir
SLURM_CNLOAD_IMAGE
Same as cnloadimage
SLURM_CONN_TYPE Same as conntype
SLURM_CORE_SPEC Same as corespec
SLURM_CPU_BIND

Same as cpu_bind

SLURM_CPU_FREQ_REQ
Same as cpufreq.
SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK
Same as c, cpuspertask
SLURM_DEBUG

Same as v, verbose

SlurmD_DEBUG

Same as d, slurmddebug

SLURM_DEPENDENCY
P, dependency=<jobid>
SLURM_DISABLE_STATUS
Same as X, disablestatus
SLURM_DIST_PLANESIZE
Same as m plane
SLURM_DISTRIBUTION
Same as m, distribution
SLURM_EPILOG

Same as epilog

SLURM_EXCLUSIVE

Same as exclusive

SLURM_EXIT_ERROR
Specifies the exit code generated when a Slurm error occurs (e.g. invalid
options). This can be used by a script to distinguish application exit codes from
various Slurm error conditions. Also see SLURM_EXIT_IMMEDIATE.
SLURM_EXIT_IMMEDIATE
Specifies the exit code generated when the immediate option is used and
resources are not currently available. This can be used by a script to distinguish
application exit codes from various Slurm error conditions. Also see
SLURM_EXIT_ERROR.
SLURM_GEOMETRY Same as g, geometry
SLURM_HINT

Same as hint

SLURM_GRES

Same as gres. Also see SLURM_STEP_GRES

SLURM_IMMEDIATE Same as I, immediate

SLURM_IOLOAD_IMAGE
Same as ioloadimage
SLURM_JOB_ID (and SLURM_JOBID for backwards compatibility)
Same as jobid

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Slurm Commands

SLURM_JOB_NAME

srun(1)

Same as J, jobname except within an existing allocation, in which case it

is ignored to avoid using the batch jobs name as the name of each job step.

SLURM_JOB_NUM_NODES (and SLURM_NNODES for backwards compatibility)

Total number of nodes in the jobs resource allocation.
SLURM_KILL_BAD_EXIT
Same as K, killonbadexit
SLURM_LABELIO

Same as l, label

SLURM_LINUX_IMAGE
Same as linuximage
SLURM_MEM_BIND

Same as mem_bind

SLURM_MEM_PER_CPU
Same as mempercpu
SLURM_MEM_PER_NODE
Same as mem
SLURM_MLOADER_IMAGE
Same as mloaderimage
SLURM_MPI_TYPE

Same as mpi

SLURM_NETWORK

Same as network

SLURM_NNODES

Same as N, nodes

SLURM_NO_ROTATE Same as R, norotate

SLURM_NTASKS (and SLURM_NPROCS for backwards compatibility)
Same as n, ntasks
SLURM_NTASKS_PER_CORE
Same as ntaskspercore
SLURM_NTASKS_PER_NODE
Same as ntaskspernode
SLURM_NTASKS_PER_SOCKET
Same as ntaskspersocket
SLURM_OPEN_MODE Same as openmode
SLURM_OVERCOMMIT
Same as O, overcommit
SLURM_PARTITION

Same as p, partition

SLURM_PMI_KVS_NO_DUP_KEYS
If set, then PMI keypairs will contain no duplicate keys. MPI can use this variable to inform the PMI library that it will not use duplicate keys so PMI can
skip the check for duplicate keys. This is the case for MPICH2 and reduces
overhead in testing for duplicates for improved performance
SLURM_POWER

Same as power

SLURM_PROFILE

Same as profile

SLURM_PROLOG

Same as prolog

SLURM_QOS

Same as qos

SLURM_RAMDISK_IMAGE
Same as ramdiskimage

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srun(1)

SLURM_REMOTE_CWD
Same as D, chdir=
SLURM_REQ_SWITCH
When a tree topology is used, this defines the maximum count of switches
desired for the job allocation and optionally the maximum time to wait for that
number of switches. See switches
SLURM_RESERVATION
Same as reservation
SLURM_RESTART_DIR
Same as restartdir
SLURM_RESV_PORTS
Same as resvports
SLURM_SICP

Same as sicp

SLURM_SIGNAL

Same as signal

SLURM_STDERRMODE
Same as e, error
SLURM_STDINMODE Same as i, input
SLURM_SRUN_REDUCE_TASK_EXIT_MSG
if set and non-zero, successive task exit messages with the same exit code will
be printed only once.
SLURM_STEP_GRES

Same as gres (only applies to job steps, not to job allocations). Also see
SLURM_GRES

SLURM_STEP_KILLED_MSG_NODE_ID=ID
If set, only the specified node will log when the job or step are killed by a signal.
SLURM_STDOUTMODE
Same as o, output
SLURM_TASK_EPILOG
Same as taskepilog
SLURM_TASK_PROLOG
Same as taskprolog
SLURM_TEST_EXEC

if defined, then verify existence of the executable program on the local computer before attempting to launch it on compute nodes.

SLURM_THREAD_SPEC
Same as threadspec
SLURM_THREADS

Same as T, threads

SLURM_TIMELIMIT

Same as t, time

SLURM_UNBUFFEREDIO
Same as u, unbuffered
SLURM_WAIT

Same as W, wait

SLURM_WAIT4SWITCH
Max time waiting for requested switches. See switches
SLURM_WCKEY

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Same as W, wckey

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Slurm Commands

srun(1)

SLURM_WORKING_DIR
D, chdir

OUTPUT ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

srun will set some environment variables in the environment of the executing tasks on the remote compute
nodes. These environment variables are:
SLURM_CHECKPOINT_IMAGE_DIR
Directory into which checkpoint images should be written if specified on the
execute line.
SLURM_CLUSTER_NAME
Name of the cluster on which the job is executing.
SLURM_CPU_BIND_VERBOSE
cpu_bind verbosity (quiet,verbose).
SLURM_CPU_BIND_TYPE
cpu_bind type (none,rank,map_cpu:,mask_cpu:).
SLURM_CPU_BIND_LIST
cpu_bind map or mask list (list of Slurm CPU IDs or masks for this node,
CPU_ID = Board_ID x threads_per_board + Socket_ID x threads_per_socket +
Core_ID x threads_per_core + Thread_ID).
SLURM_CPU_FREQ_REQ
Contains the value requested for cpu frequency on the srun command as a
numerical frequency in kilohertz, or a coded value for a request of low,
medium,highm1 or high for the frequency. See the description of the
cpufreq option or the SLURM_CPU_FREQ_REQ input environment
variable.
SLURM_CPUS_ON_NODE
Count of processors available to the job on this node. Note the select/linear plugin allocates entire nodes to jobs, so the value indicates the total count of CPUs
on the node. For the select/cons_res plugin, this number indicates the number
of cores on this node allocated to the job.
SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK
Number of cpus requested per task. Only set if the cpuspertask option is
specified.
SLURM_DISTRIBUTION
Distribution type for the allocated jobs. Set the distribution with m, distribution.
SLURM_GTIDS

Global task IDs running on this node. Zero origin and comma separated.

SLURM_JOB_CPUS_PER_NODE
Number of CPUS per node.
SLURM_JOB_DEPENDENCY
Set to value of the dependency option.
SLURM_JOB_ID (and SLURM_JOBID for backwards compatibility)
Job id of the executing job.

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SLURM_JOB_NAME

srun(1)

Set to the value of the jobname option or the command name when srun is
used to create a new job allocation. Not set when srun is used only to create a
job step (i.e. within an existing job allocation).

SLURM_JOB_PARTITION
Name of the partition in which the job is running.
SLURM_LAUNCH_NODE_IPADDR
IP address of the node from which the task launch was initiated (where the srun
command ran from).
SLURM_LOCALID

Node local task ID for the process within a job.

SLURM_MEM_BIND_VERBOSE
mem_bind verbosity (quiet,verbose).
SLURM_MEM_BIND_TYPE
mem_bind type (none,rank,map_mem:,mask_mem:).
SLURM_MEM_BIND_LIST
mem_bind map or mask list (<list of IDs or masks for this node>).
SLURM_NNODES

Total number of nodes in the jobs resource allocation.

SLURM_NODE_ALIASES
Sets of node name, communication address and hostname for nodes allocated to
the job from the cloud. Each element in the set if colon separated and each set is
comma separated. For example: SLURM_NODE_ALIASES=
ec0:1.2.3.4:foo,ec1:1.2.3.5:bar
SLURM_NODEID

The relative node ID of the current node.

SLURM_NODELIST

List of nodes allocated to the job.

SLURM_NTASKS (and SLURM_NPROCS for backwards compatibility)

Total number of processes in the current job.
SLURM_PRIO_PROCESS
The scheduling priority (nice value) at the time of job submission. This value is
propagated to the spawned processes.
SLURM_PROCID

The MPI rank (or relative process ID) of the current process.

SLURM_SRUN_COMM_HOST
IP address of srun communication host.
SLURM_SRUN_COMM_PORT
srun communication port.
SLURM_STEP_LAUNCHER_PORT
Step launcher port.
SLURM_STEP_NODELIST
List of nodes allocated to the step.
SLURM_STEP_NUM_NODES
Number of nodes allocated to the step.
SLURM_STEP_NUM_TASKS
Number of processes in the step.

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SLURM_STEP_TASKS_PER_NODE
Number of processes per node within the step.
SLURM_STEP_ID (and SLURM_STEPID for backwards compatibility)
The step ID of the current job.
SLURM_SUBMIT_DIR The directory from which srun was invoked.
SLURM_SUBMIT_HOST
The hostname of the computer from which salloc was invoked.
SLURM_TASK_PID

The process ID of the task being started.

SLURM_TASKS_PER_NODE
Number of tasks to be initiated on each node. Values are comma separated and
in the same order as SLURM_NODELIST. If two or more consecutive nodes
are to have the same task count, that count is followed by "(x#)" where "#" is
the repetition count. For example, "SLURM_TASKS_PER_NODE=2(x3),1"
indicates that the first three nodes will each execute three tasks and the fourth
node will execute one task.
SLURM_TOPOLOGY_ADDR
This is set only if the system has the topology/tree plugin configured. The value
will be set to the names network switches which may be involved in the jobs
communications from the systems top level switch down to the leaf switch and
ending with node name. A period is used to separate each hardware component
name.
SLURM_TOPOLOGY_ADDR_PATTERN
This is set only if the system has the topology/tree plugin configured. The value
will be set component types listed in SLURM_TOPOLOGY_ADDR. Each
component will be identified as either "switch" or "node". A period is used to
separate each hardware component type.
SRUN_DEBUG

Set to the logging level of the srun command. Default value is 3 (info level).
The value is incremented or decremented based upon the verbose and
quiet options.

MPIRUN_NOALLOCATE
Do not allocate a block on Blue Gene systems only.
MPIRUN_NOFREE

Do not free a block on Blue Gene systems only.

MPIRUN_PARTITION The block name on Blue Gene systems only.

SIGNALS AND ESCAPE SEQUENCES

Signals sent to the srun command are automatically forwarded to the tasks it is controlling with a few
exceptions. The escape sequence <controlc> will report the state of all tasks associated with the srun
command. If <controlc> is entered twice within one second, then the associated SIGINT signal will be
sent to all tasks and a termination sequence will be entered sending SIGCONT, SIGTERM, and SIGKILL
to all spawned tasks. If a third <controlc> is received, the srun program will be terminated without waiting for remote tasks to exit or their I/O to complete.
The escape sequence <controlz> is presently ignored. Our intent is for this put the srun command into a
mode where various special actions may be invoked.

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srun(1)

MPI SUPPORT
MPI use depends upon the type of MPI being used. There are three fundamentally different modes of operation used by these various MPI implementation.
1. Slurm directly launches the tasks and performs initialization of communications (Quadrics MPI,
MPICH2, MPICH-GM, MVAPICH, MVAPICH2 and some MPICH1 modes). For example: "srun n16
a.out".
2. Slurm creates a resource allocation for the job and then mpirun launches tasks using Slurms infrastructure (OpenMPI, LAM/MPI, HP-MPI and some MPICH1 modes).
3. Slurm creates a resource allocation for the job and then mpirun launches tasks using some mechanism
other than Slurm, such as SSH or RSH (BlueGene MPI and some MPICH1 modes). These tasks initiated
outside of Slurms monitoring or control. Slurms epilog should be configured to purge these tasks when the
jobs allocation is relinquished.
See http://slurm.schedmd.com/mpi_guide.html for more information on use of these various MPI implementation with Slurm.

MULTIPLE PROGRAM CONFIGURATION

Comments in the configuration file must have a "#" in column one. The configuration file contains the following fields separated by white space:
Task rank
One or more task ranks to use this configuration. Multiple values may be comma separated.
Ranges may be indicated with two numbers separated with a with the smaller number first (e.g.
"04" and not "40"). To indicate all tasks not otherwise specified, specify a rank of * as the last
line of the file. If an attempt is made to initiate a task for which no executable program is defined,
the following error message will be produced "No executable program specified for this task".
Executable
The name of the program to execute. May be fully qualified pathname if desired.
Arguments
Program arguments. The expression "%t" will be replaced with the tasks number. The expression
"%o" will be replaced with the tasks offset within this range (e.g. a configured task rank value of
"15" would have offset values of "04"). Single quotes may be used to avoid having the enclosed
values interpreted. This field is optional. Any arguments for the program entered on the command line will be added to the arguments specified in the configuration file.
For example:
###################################################################
# srun multiple program configuration file
#
# srun n8 l multiprog silly.conf
###################################################################
46
hostname
1,7
echo task:%t
0,23 echo offset:%o
> srun n8 l multiprog silly.conf
0: offset:0
1: task:1
2: offset:1
3: offset:2
4: linux15.llnl.gov

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srun(1)

Slurm Commands

srun(1)

5: linux16.llnl.gov
6: linux17.llnl.gov
7: task:7

EXAMPLES
This simple example demonstrates the execution of the command hostname in eight tasks. At least eight
processors will be allocated to the job (the same as the task count) on however many nodes are required to
satisfy the request. The output of each task will be proceeded with its task number. (The machine "dev" in
the example below has a total of two CPUs per node)

> srun n8 l hostname

0: dev0
1: dev0
2: dev1
3: dev1
4: dev2
5: dev2
6: dev3
7: dev3
The srun r option is used within a job script to run two job steps on disjoint nodes in the following example. The script is run using allocate mode instead of as a batch job in this case.

> cat test.sh

#!/bin/sh
echo $SLURM_NODELIST
srun lN2 r2 hostname
srun lN2 hostname
> salloc N4 test.sh
dev[710]
0: dev9
1: dev10
0: dev7
1: dev8
The following script runs two job steps in parallel within an allocated set of nodes.

> cat test.sh

#!/bin/bash
srun lN2 n4 r 2 sleep 60 &
srun lN2 r 0 sleep 60 &
sleep 1
squeue
squeue s
wait
> salloc N4 test.sh

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srun(1)

Slurm Commands

srun(1)

JOBID PARTITION NAME USER ST

TIME NODES NODELIST
65641 batch test.sh grondo R
0:01
4 dev[710]
STEPID
65641.0
65641.1

PARTITION USER
TIME NODELIST
batch grondo
0:01 dev[78]
batch grondo
0:01 dev[910]

This example demonstrates how one executes a simple MPICH job. We use srun to build a list of machines
(nodes) to be used by mpirun in its required format. A sample command line and the script to be executed
follow.

> cat test.sh

#!/bin/sh
MACHINEFILE="nodes.$SLURM_JOB_ID"
# Generate Machinefile for mpich such that hosts are in the same
# order as if run via srun
#
srun l /bin/hostname | sort n | awk {print $2} > $MACHINEFILE
# Run using generated Machine file:
mpirun np $SLURM_NTASKS machinefile $MACHINEFILE mpiapp
rm $MACHINEFILE
> salloc N2 n4 test.sh
This simple example demonstrates the execution of different jobs on different nodes in the same srun. You
can do this for any number of nodes or any number of jobs. The executables are placed on the nodes sited
by the SLURM_NODEID env var. Starting at 0 and going to the number specified on the srun commandline.

> cat test.sh

case $SLURM_NODEID in
0) echo "I am running on "
hostname ;;
1) hostname
echo "is where I am running" ;;
esac
> srun N2 test.sh
dev0
is where I am running
I am running on
dev1
This example demonstrates use of multicore options to control layout of tasks. We request that four sockets per node and two cores per socket be dedicated to the job.

> srun N2 B 44:22 a.out

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srun(1)

Slurm Commands

srun(1)

This example shows a script in which Slurm is used to provide resource management for a job by executing
the various job steps as processors become available for their dedicated use.

> cat my.script

#!/bin/bash
srun exclusive n4 prog1 &
srun exclusive n3 prog2 &
srun exclusive n1 prog3 &
srun exclusive n1 prog4 &
wait

COPYING
Copyright (C) 20062007 The Regents of the University of California. Produced at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (cf, DISCLAIMER).
Copyright (C) 20082010 Lawrence Livermore National Security.
Copyright (C) 20102015 SchedMD LLC.
This file is part of Slurm, a resource management program. For details, see <http://slurm.schedmd.com/>.
Slurm is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option)
any later version.
Slurm is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

SEE ALSO
salloc(1), sattach(1), sbatch(1), sbcast(1),
sched_setaffinity (2), numa (3) getrlimit (2)

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scancel(1),

Slurm Commands

scontrol(1),

squeue(1),

slurm.conf(5),

37