Frequently Asked Questions

Interactive session example

To get an interactive session for an hour on one node with 8 cpus. Any of the arguments you've seen for sbatch can be provided here too

srun --time=01:00:00 --nodes=1 --cpus-per-task=8 --partition=interactive --pty /usr/bin/bash

I want a GPU

Add the following line to your existing sbatch script

#SBATCH --gres=gpu:1 #If you just need one gpu, you're done, if you need more you can change the number
#SBATCH --partition=gpu #specify the gpu partition

If you want a specific type of GPU, see our article about GPU types.

I want to run on a specific machine

This is done by selecting a specific partition if you're looking to for example use the 'biocrunch' machines.

#SBATCH --partition=biocrunch # specify which partition your job should be submitted to

if you want to get even more advanced, and for some reason you need a specific node

#SBATCH --partition=gpu # ask for the gpu machine partition
#SBATCH --nodelist=crysis # specifically say that you need to run on this list of nodes, in this case the single node crysis

I want to use X Forwarding to run a GUI program

Follow the directions in X Forwarding for Mac and Windows. Be sure to add the -X flag to your ssh command when connecting to pronto.

Then request an interactive session as described above, but add the --x11 flag to the srun command. Example:

srun --x11 --time=01:00:00 --nodes=1 --cpus-per-task=8 --pty /usr/bin/bash

I want to know more

Please see the sbatch documentation for more information.

You can also find this documentation on the cluster by using the man command.

man sbatch