Zest | Slurm Support

Zest is the Syracuse University researching computing high-performance computing (HPC) cluster. Zest is a non-interactive Linux environment intended to run analyses that require extensive parallelism or running for extended durations.

IDEs and Development

Zest is not intended to be used as a development environment. Activities on the cluster should be limited to submitting jobs, doing light editing with a text editor such as nano or vim, and running small tests that use a single core for no more than a few minutes. The use of IDEs such as Jupyter, Spyder, VSCode, etc is prohibited as these programs can interfere with other users of the system or, in the worst case, impact the system as a whole. If you need a development environment please contact us and other more appropriate resources can be provided.

Looking for OrangeGrid? While similar, the Zest and OrangeGrid clusters are unique environments. Information about OrangeGrid is available on the OrangeGrid (OG) | HTCondor Support home page.

On This Page

Accessing Zest
To access Zest, simply make an SSH connection using your NetID and specifying the login node you have been assigned. The example below uses 'its-zest-login2.syr.edu'. Refer to the access email you received from Research Computing staff with your node information. The cluster supports connection via CMD, programs like Putty, and the use of SCP and WinSCP.
Example SSH Connection

ssh netid@its-zest-login2.syr.edu

Off Campus?

Off-campus networks cannot access the cluster directly. Users off campus need to connect to campus via Remote Desktop Services (RDS). RDS will provide you with a Windows 10 desktop that has access to your G: drive, campus OneDrive, and the research clusters. Once connected, SSH and SCP are available from the Windows command prompt or you can use Putty and WinSCP which are also installed. Full instructions and details for connection to RDS are available on the RDS home page. Note that Azure VPN is an alternative option, but not available for all users. See the Azure VPN page for more details.

Slurm Basics

Slurm Commands
Command Description
sinfo
Show node information
squeue
Show job queue
sacct
Display job accounting information
sbatch [script name]
Submits job script
salloc [options] [command]
Starts an interactive job
srun [options] [command]
Launch parallel job steps, usually runs in a SBATCH script
srun --pty [options] bash
Launch interactive job on a worker node
sstat [job id]
Display running job status
scancel [job id]
Cancel job

Slurm Environmental Variables
Command Description
$SLURM_JOB_ID
Job ID
$SLURM_JOB_NAME
Job name
$SLURM_SUBMIT_DIR
Submit directory from login node
$SLURM_SUBMIT_HOST
Submission host
$SLURM_NTASKS
Total number of tasks for job
$SLURM_NODEID
Index to node relative to job
$SLURM_PROCID
Index to process relative to job
$SLURM_CPUS_ON_NODE
Number of cores/node

Submitting Jobs

Zest FAQ

Additional Zest Resources
Link1
Link2

Additional Research Computing Resources
ITS Research Computing Home
ITS Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
OrangeGrid/HTCondor Support Home Page
Research Computing Events and Colloquia

Getting Help
Question about Research Computing? Any questions about using or acquiring research computing resources or access can be directed at researchcomputing@syr.edu.

Command	Description
sinfo	Show node information
squeue	Show job queue
sacct	Display job accounting information
sbatch [script name]	Submits job script
salloc [options] [command]	Starts an interactive job
srun [options] [command]	Launch parallel job steps, usually runs in a SBATCH script
srun --pty [options] bash	Launch interactive job on a worker node
sstat [job id]	Display running job status
scancel [job id]	Cancel job

Command	Description
$SLURM_JOB_ID	Job ID
$SLURM_JOB_NAME	Job name
$SLURM_SUBMIT_DIR	Submit directory from login node
$SLURM_SUBMIT_HOST	Submission host
$SLURM_NTASKS	Total number of tasks for job
$SLURM_NODEID	Index to node relative to job
$SLURM_PROCID	Index to process relative to job
$SLURM_CPUS_ON_NODE	Number of cores/node