Common Sense Suggestions when Using Fusion Group Resources

We are primarily discussing the domori and sampaka clusters here, but it applies to any machine solely owned/operated by the Fusion Group.

We've had some incidents lately and the offenders have claimed that they somehow didn't understand how to share other group's computers properly. So what follows are the terms and conditions for sharing our resources. This isn't anything new, it's just a formal codifying of the rules.

In general CSL is a friendly environment and we try to share our group's resources whenever possible. We try to keep our machines open to anyone affiliated with CSL.

Sometimes it is necessary to take one of the clusters aside for private use. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we are doing sysadmin work, sometimes we are doing timing runs that can't be perturbed, sometimes we are having problems with the NBS system and are running jobs by hand.

In the above cases, we will politely ask anyone currently running jobs to finish up, and we will disable the batch queue. The disabled batch queue is a hint that the cluster is not open for general use.

If the batch queue is disabled, this is *not* a hint that you should try to run jobs in other ways (such as ssh'ing to individual nodes, or else trying to use alternate queues).

The MPI queue on the various clusters is for running massively parallel MPI runs. It is not there for people to get around the closing of the batch queue.

Here are some general rules:

1. Only run on clusters that have the batch queue enabled unless you've made specific alternate arrangements with the group.
2. If you're going to be making a run that uses more than 25% of the cluster, it is polite to ask first to make sure that's OK.
3. Fusion group users and collaborators get highest priority on Fusion group machines. We are always open to starting new and exciting collaborations with other groups.
4. While we do our best to maintain files and backups, we do not gaurantee this. Always backup your files. We reserve the right to delete any files off of the /fusion filesytems at any time with no warning (but we probably won't).
5. We also reserve the right to kill any jobs on our systems at any time for any reason (again, we probably won't do this).
6. Subverting the clusters to run jobs when the batch queue is disabled is grounds for immediate suspension of your fusion account.
7. Using an account other than the one supplied to you will result in both accounts being banned.
8. We're all computer architechts here, so we have the same paper deadlines. You do not get a higher priority on your jobs because you are not good at planning and leave everything until the last minute.
9. Fusion sysadmins have final say on any activity taking place on Fusion machines.
10. We do not have to justify why we are using a machine in a certain way. Believe us, there's a reason.
11. If you break something on one of our machines, notify us *immediately*. We will be much more forgiving if you tell us right away, rather than if we waste time having to figure out what went wrong and who did it.
12. If you disagree with any of these rules, we kindly ask that you not use our machines.
13. No Whining!