Job submission

Basic job submission

A basic BSUB job submission command consists of three parts:

bsub

LSF options

job

1. The BSUB executable command
2. LSF options requesting resources and defining job-related options
3. A job to be submitted

Here is an example:

bsub

-n 1 -W 4:00 -R "rusage[mem=4096]"

"python myscript.py"

When the job is submitted, LSF shows job's information:

$ bsub -n 1 -W 4:00 -R "rusage[mem=4096]" "python myscript.py"
Generic job.
Job <8146539> is submitted to queue <normal.4h>

1. Job type, e.g., Generic Job or MPI Job
2. Job ID, e.g., 8146539
3. The queue, e.g., normal.4h

Job

A job can be one of the following:

Job	Command	Examples of job submission command
a single Linux command	cmd
a program with its path	/path/to/myprogram	bsub ./bin/hello
a command or program with its arguments	cmd arg1 arg2	bsub echo hello
multiple commands	"cmd1 ; cmd2"	bsub "date; pwd; ls -l"
piped command	"cmd1 | cmd2"
a command with I/O redirection, quote	"cmd<in >out"	bsub "du -sk /scratch > du.out"
a here document, passed via "<<"	<< EOF ... EOF
a shell script, passed via "<"	< script	bsub < hello.sh

LSF options

Requesting resources

Resources	Format	Default values
Maximum run time	-W HH:MM	04:00 (4 hours)
Number of processors	-n nprocs	1 processor
Memory	-R "rusage[mem=2048]"	1024 MB per core
Scratch space	-R "rusage[scratch=10000]"

Other LSF options

-o outfile	append job’s standard output to outfile
-e errfile	append job’s error messages to errfile
-R "rusage[...]"	advanced resource requirement (memory,...)
-J jobname	assign a jobname to the job
-w "depcond"	wait until dependency condition is satisfied
-Is	submit an interactive job with pseudo-terminal
-B /-N	send an email when the job begins/ends
-u user@domain	use this address instead of username@ethz.ch

LSF submission line advisor can assist your to find LSF options you need.

Job script and #BSUB pragmas

Create a job script called job_script.bsub

#!/bin/bash
#BSUB -n 24                     # 24 cores
#BSUB -W 8:00                   # 8-hour run-time
#BSUB -R "rusage[mem=4000]"     # 4000 MB per core
#BSUB -J analysis1
#BSUB -o analysis1.out
#BSUB -e analysis1.err
#BSUB -N

module load gcc/6.3.0 openmpi/3.0.2
cd /path/to/execution/folder
mpirun myprogram arg1

Submit a job

bsub < job_script.bsub

Interactive session on a compute node

To run a quick test or a benchmark, you can request an interactive session on a compute node by using the BSUB option -I, -Ip or -Is, for example:

[jarunanp@eu-login-38 ~]$ bsub -n 4 -W 01:00 -Is bash
Generic job.
Job <161197292> is submitted to queue <normal.4h>.
<<Waiting for dispatch ...>>
<<Starting on eu-ms-001-15>>
[jarunanp@eu-ms-001-15 ~]$

Further reading

• User guide: Using the batch system
• Job arrays
• Job chaining
• LSF mini reference