MSI has created and released a Mesabi Interactive Queue. The purpose of the Mesabi Interactive Queue is to increase the availability of nodes for interactive use and to replace the interactive resources available in the LabQi Cluster. The Mesabi Interactive Queue can be used in real-time for tasks such as interactive data exploration, creating plots or images, visualizations, or testing sections of code that will be used on other MSI queues.
Here are several examples of how you can request an interactive HPC job on the new Mesabi Interactive Queue:
The basic syntax for submitting an interactive job on Mesabi:
qsub -l nodes=1:ppn=4,mem=8gb,walltime=12:00:00 -q interactive -I
The basic syntax for testing MPI code between 2 nodes:
qsub -l nodes=2:ppn=2,mem=8gb,walltime=12:00:00 -q interactive -W x=nmatchpolicy:exactnode -I
The basic syntax for creating a job with X-forwarding for GUI's and visulization:
qsub -X -l nodes=1:ppn=4,mem=8gb,walltime=12:00:00 -q interactive -I
The full specifications of the Mesabi Interactive Queue can be found on the MSI Queues webpage. Also, more examples on how to use qsub -I for interactive use can be found on the Interactive queue use with qsub webpage.
As mentioned, one objective of this rollout is to replace interactive resources available on the LabQi Cluster. MSI's LabQi Cluster will be shut down and decommissioned on February 5, 2020. Following the dismantling of the LabQi Clusters, MSI will no longer support workflows dependent on CentOS 6.
If you have questions about what these changes mean for you and your group or need assistance, please contact the MSI Help Desk through the online Support Request Form, via email to help@msi.umn.edu, or by calling 612-626-0802.