Process Accounting on a Linux Cluster

[Dan Yocum]

Gary Stiehr wrote:

> 1.) Has anyone had experience with process accounting on a Linux
> cluster?  We are interested in knowing who is using what resources
> (simply for our information).  I found a package psacct that is(was?)
> maintained by the FSF. (I looked at gnu.org but didn't see much
> information about it.)  Anyway, I can use this program on each
> individual node and then collect all of the statistics individually, but
> I was just wondering if anyone had come up with a different way (or if
> you know of any other Linux process accounting packages).

At Fermilab they use psacct with a frontend called facct (Fermi
accounting; cute, eh?  ;), since psacct just provides the data, but
doesn't really present it in a meaningful format.  

In any case, facct is open source and available here as an RPM package:

ftp://linux1.fnal.gov/linux/611/i386/Fermi/workgroups/Farms/RPMS/facct-2.0-2.i386.rpm

The source RPM is up one dir and under SRPMS/facct-2.0-2.src.rpm.

I have not used this package, so you should direct any and all questions
to Terry Jones: jonest at fnal.gov.  Tell 'im I sent ya - you'll get a good
snide remark out of that.  ;-)


> 3.) Does anyone limit the amount of resources that each user can use?
> Or assign certain nodes to certain users?  If so, which types of
> programs do you use.

Generally, this is written into the job submission software - LSF has
this capability, and I'm sure other packages do, too.  

Cheers,
Dan


-- 
Dan Yocum, Sr. Linux Consultant
Linuxcare, Inc.
630.697.8066 tel
yocum at linuxcare.com, http://www.linuxcare.com

Linuxcare. Support for the revolution.