How to allocate and run interactive and GUI based jobs

GUI Jobs

Users interested in executing a program on a node with X11 may use the “–x11” flag with srun. Example code:

module load slurm matlab

srun --x11 matlab

module load slurm

srun --x11 xterm

Not all jobs can be scripted for easy submission to the KoKo HPC cluster. In these instances, you should do the following to allocate resources and start the GUI of the program you wish to use. These instructions are generic and will apply to most GUI based programs; however, several programs, such as Fluent from Ansys, have their own special scripts for starting up properly. Please see other posts for these scripts and startup procedures. To allocate resources please do the following:

1. Log into the KoKo head node via X2Go or SSH with x11 forwarding.
2. Open a terminal session.
3. Load the module you wish to use with the syntax “module load <module name>”. To see a list of available modules, type “module avail” (warning: this is a very long list).
4. Use the “srun” command to allocate resources and start your program

   1. srun -N 2 -n 40 --x11 -p longq7 <program name>

      1. N refers to the number of nodes you need
      2. n refers to the number of CPUs/Cores/Threads you need
      3. –x11 sets x11 forwarding which is required for interactive use
      4. p refers to the partition/queue you wish to use, different queues have different allocation times (click here for details)
      5. Lastly is your programs name or script to start the program
5. When complete, close the interactive window and press ctrl+d to deallocate the resources in the terminal prompt.