Platform LSF Administration Guide Version 6.2

Using Job Groups
Administering Platform LSF
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Using Job Groups
A collection of jobs can be organized into job groups for easy management. A job group
is a container for jobs in much the same way that a directory in a file system is a container
for files. For example, a payroll application may have one group of jobs that calculates
weekly payments, another job group for calculating monthly salaries, and a third job
group that handles the salaries of part-time or contract employees. Users can submit,
view, and control jobs according to their groups rather than looking at individual jobs.
Job group
hierarchy
Jobs in job groups are organized into a hierarchical tree similar to the directory structure
of a file system. Like a file system, the tree contains groups (which are like directories)
and jobs (which are like files). Each group can contain other groups or individual jobs.
Job groups are created independently of jobs, and can have dependency conditions
which control when jobs within the group are considered for scheduling.
Job group path
The job group path is the name and location of a job group within the job group
hierarchy. Multiple levels of job groups can be defined to form a hierarchical tree. A job
group can contain jobs and sub-groups.
Root job group
LSF maintains a single tree under which all jobs in the system are organized. The top-
most level of the tree is represented by a top-level “root” job group, named “
/”. The
root group is owned by the primary LSF Administrator and cannot be removed. Users
create new groups under the root group. By default, if you do not specify a job group
path name when submitting a job, the job is created under the top-level “root” job
group, named
/”.
Job group owner
Each group is owned by the user who created it. The login name of the user who creates
the job group is the job group owner. Users can add job groups into a groups that are
owned by other users, and they can submit jobs to groups owned by other users.
Job control under
job groups
Job owners can control their own jobs attached to job groups as usual. Job group owners
can also control any job under the groups they own and below.
For example:
Job group /A is created by user1
Job group /A/B is created by user2
Job group /A/B/C is created by user3
All users can submit jobs to any job group, and control the jobs they own in all job
groups. For jobs submitted by other users:
user1 can control jobs submitted by other users in all 3 job groups: /A, /A/B, and
/A/B/C
user2 can control jobs submitted by other users only in 2 job groups: /A/B and
/A/B/C
user3 can control jobs submitted by other users only in job group /A/B/C
The LSF administrator can control jobs in any job group.
Creating a job group
Use the bgadd command to create a new job group. You must provide full group path
name for the new job group. The last component of the path is the name of the new
group to be created: