Installing Ansys EM Tools on LSF Cluster

The LSF scheduler is supported on Linux only.

lsf.conf should contain this line:

LSF_UNIT_FOR_LIMITS=MB

The administrator should have this line in the lsb.params file to ensure that memory reservations are per-slot (per-core):

RESOURCE_RESERVE_PER_SLOT=Y

Jobs may be submitted in any of the following ways:

Using LSF commands (bsub, etc.)
Using the generic scheduler GUI in local mode
Using the generic scheduler GUI in service mode

See the Ansys Electromagnetics Suite 2024 R2 Linux Installation Guide for additional information on supported schedulers.

Setup:

Install on a single node, on a shared drive.
Setup 'temp directory' to a path that is same on all nodes (for example, /tmp).
Ensure that the product is available using the same path on all nodes.

Permissions:

All users of the cluster should have read/write permissions to temp directory.
All users should have read/execute permissions to installation directory.
Turn OFF firewall between cluster nodes.

When a desktop scheduler GUI is run the same node as the job submission node, no other configuration is necessary; installation is sufficient. Select the scheduler through the Electronics Desktop GUI. Ensure that scheduler commands are available in the path before you launch Electronics Desktop.

Note:

There is no need to install RSM unless you are using the scheduler GUI on a post-processing node that is different from the job submission node. In this case, RSM must be configured with the scheduler type and path.

A post-processing node is a node in the cluster that can run Electronics Desktop in graphical mode. A job submission node is a node in the cluster in which job submission commands are available.

Per-Slot Resource Reservation

Set the cluster for per-slot resource allocation if the automatic cores and RAM resource selection method is to be used. You can check the cluster to see if per-slot resource allocation is configured by using the "bparams -a" command. Search the output for "RESOURCE_RESERVE_PER_SLOT" to determine the setting (either "Y" or "N"). If set to "N" then consult the LSF administration guide on how to change this to "Y".

Scenario 1: Postprocessing node and job-submission node roles are served by distinct machines.

In this case, perform the following configuration:

The job-submission node should be configured to run RSM service, which serves as a proxy to scheduler. The RSM Service should be running as 'root' in order to facilitate jobs running using the credentials of the job's owner. A configuration file in the RSM installation folder should be edited to specify information regarding the scheduler that manages jobs on this cluster. A block labeled 'Scheduler' must be included within the 'AnsoftCOMDaemon' block. This block contains two string entries:

SchedulerName: this contains the unique part of the scheduler proxy library name
ConfigString: this contains a scheduler specific configuration string

The case of the SchedulerName string is significant on Linux because Linux file names are case sensitive. In Ansys Electromagnetics Suite 2024 R2, possible scheduler names are: lsf and sge. The ConfigString entry is a scheduler specific configuration string, described below.

In addition, the AnsoftRSMService must be started with appropriate environment variables set. Generally, the environment variables must be set the same as they would be set for using the scheduler via command lines.

LSF Details

For the LSF scheduler proxy library, the ConfigString entry in the ansoftrsmservice.cfg configuration file is ignored. It may be empty or omitted entirely.

The AnsoftRSMService must be started with the environment set as it would be set for submitting jobs to the LSF cluster.

For Linux, the cshrc.lsf or the profile.lsf file may be sourced to set up the environment, depending on the shell.

Example ansoftrsmservice.cfg configuration file:

$begin 'AnsoftCOMDaemon'

$begin 'Managed COM Servers'

$end 'Managed COM Servers'

$begin 'Scheduler'

'SchedulerName'='lsf'

'ConfigString'=''

$end 'Scheduler'

$end 'AnsoftCOMDaemon'

Scenario 2: Postprocessing node and job-submission node roles are served by the same machine.

The Select Scheduler... command (as described in the Job Management User Interface for LSF section) is used to gather details about the scheduler. In this case, the Desktop process should be started in an environment suitable for submitting jobs to the scheduler.

The environment should be configured so that the following LSF environment variables are set appropriately for the LSF cluster in use: LSF_BINDIR, LSF_SERVERDIR, LSF_LIBDIR, and LSF_ENVDIR. In addition, the following LSF commands should be found in the LSF_BINDIR directory: "bsub", "bjobs", "bkill", "lsid", "lsrun", "lshosts", "bmgroup", "bparams" and "bqueues".