Platform LSF Administration Guide Version 6.2

Chapter 36
Running Interactive and Remote Tasks
Administering Platform LSF
533
Interactive Tasks
LSF supports transparent execution of tasks on all server hosts in the cluster. You can
run your program on the best available host and interact with it just as if it were running
directly on your workstation. Keyboard signals such as
CTRL-Z and CTRL-C work as
expected.
Interactive tasks communicate with the user in real time. Programs like
vi use a text-
based terminal interface. Computer Aided Design and desktop publishing applications
usually use a graphic user interface (GUI).
This section outlines issues for running interactive tasks with the non-batch utilities
lsrun, lsgrun, etc. To run interactive tasks with these utilities, use the -i option.
For more details, see the
lsrun(1) and lsgrun(1) man pages.
In this section
◆ “Interactive tasks on remote hosts” on page 533
◆ “Interactive processing and scheduling policies” on page 533
◆ “Shared files and user IDs” on page 533
◆ “Shell mode for remote execution” on page 534
◆ “Run windows” on page 534
◆ “Redirecting streams to files” on page 534
Interactive tasks on remote hosts
Job controls
When you run an interactive task on a remote host, you can perform most of the job
controls as if it were running locally. If your shell supports job control, you can suspend
and resume the task and bring the task to background or foreground as if it were a local
task.
For a complete description, see the
lsrun(1) man page.
Hiding remote
execution
You can also write one-line shell scripts or csh aliases to hide remote execution. For
example:
#!/bin/sh
# Script to remotely execute mytask
exec lsrun -m hostD mytask
OR
% alias mytask "lsrun -m hostD mytask"
Interactive processing and scheduling policies
LSF lets you run interactive tasks on any computer on the network, using your own
terminal or workstation. Interactive tasks run immediately and normally require some
input through a text-based or graphical user interface. All the input and output is
transparently sent between the local host and the job execution host.
Shared files and user IDs
When LSF runs a task on a remote host, the task uses standard UNIX system calls to
access files and devices. The user must have an account on the remote host. All
operations on the remote host are done with the user’s access permissions.