LSF Version 7.3 - Administering Platform LSF

Command-Level Job Starters
568 Administering Platform LSF
Queue-level Defined by the LSF administrator, and run batch jobs submitted to a queue defined
with the JOB_STARTER parameter set. Use
bsub to submit jobs to queues with
job-level job starters.
A queue-level job starter is configured in the queue definition in
lsb.queues. See
Queue-Level Job Starters on page 570 for detailed information.
Pre-execution commands are not job starters
A job starter differs from a pre-execution command. A pre-execution command
must run successfully and exit before the LSF job starts. It can signal LSF to dispatch
the job, but because the pre-execution command is an unrelated process, it does not
control the job or affect the execution environment of the job. A job starter,
however, is the process that LSF controls. It is responsible for invoking LSF and
controls the execution environment of the job.
See Chapter 36, “Pre-Execution and Post-Execution Commands” for more
information.
Examples
The following are some examples of job starters:
◆ In UNIX, a job starter defined as /bin/ksh -c causes jobs to be run under a
Korn shell environment.
◆ In Windows, a job starter defined as C:\cmd.exe /C causes jobs to be run
under a DOS shell environment.
NOTE: For job starters that execute on a Windows Server 2003, x64 Edition platform, users must
have “Read” and “Execute” privileges for cmd.exe.
◆ Setting the JOB_STARTER parameter in lsb.queues to $USER_STARTER
enables users to define their own job starters by defining the environment
variable USER_STARTER.
◆ Setting a job starter to make clean causes the command make clean to be run
before the user job.
Command-Level Job Starters
A command-level job starter allows you to specify an executable file that does any
necessary setup for the job and runs the job when the setup is complete. You can
select an existing command to be a job starter, or you can create a script containing
a desired set of commands to serve as a job starter.
This section describes how to set up and use a command-level job starter to run
interactive jobs.
Command-level job starters have no effect on batch jobs, including interactive
batch jobs. See Chapter 40, “Interactive Jobs with bsub” for information on
interactive batch jobs.
A job starter can also be defined at the queue level using the JOB_STARTER
parameter. Only the LSF administrator can configure queue-level job starters. See
Queue-Level Job Starters on page 570 for more information.