This section describes how to install, configure, and license LSF on Windows NT hosts, using LSF's graphical installation tool for Windows, LSF Setup. You can also use LSF Setup to upgrade or uninstall LSF, to upgrade LSF licenses, and to add or remove hosts from a cluster.
This chapter assumes that you have already read Chapter 1, "LSF Installation Concepts".
LSF for Windows NT is delivered in a self-extracting executable file that automatically runs LSF Setup. There are two versions of this file, one for Intel Pentium machines and one for Alpha machines. To create a cluster that includes both types of architectures, you will need both executable files.
lsf3.2_nt-x86.exe (for Windows NT on Intel Pentium)
lsf3.2_nt-alpha.exe (for Windows NT on Alpha)The files are available from your LSF vendor, and from Platform's web and FTP sites. Download or copy the executable file to any location on the network that can be accessed by the machine that will install LSF.
You need a license to run LSF. Evaluation (DEMO) and permanent license keys may be requested from your LSF vendor or from Platform.
An evaluation license key is a temporary licence file that you can easily replace with a permanent licence later on. You will get a permanent license key when you purchase LSF.
LSF permanent licenses use the FLEXlm license management software from GLOBEtrotter Software, Inc. For more information, see `License Reference' on page 109.
Download or copy the license key to any location on the network that can be accessed by the machine that will install LSF.
This procedure describes how to install LSF and create a new cluster that can include Windows NT hosts but will not include UNIX hosts. To create a mixed cluster of Windows NT hosts and UNIX hosts, or to modify a cluster that you have already created, read this procedure and then refer to `Running LSF Setup to modify an existing cluster' on page 56.
Read these instructions once before you begin the installation, and plan which computers, directories, accounts, and passwords you will use for your LSF cluster.
LSF user accounts, including the special LSF primary administrator user account, must have a user name that does not include any spaces.
You may need to prepare some directory structures or user accounts before you run LSF Setup. The following sections will help you understand the choices you have to make.
To decompress the LSF Setup program files, run the self-extracting LSF executable file.
You will be prompted to specify a directory for the installation program files. The default directory is
C:\Program Files\LSF Suite 3.2To make a change, type the path to a new directory.
After the installation files are extracted, the LSF Setup program (setup.exe) runs automatically.
For a new installation, choose "Install LSF and create a Windows NT cluster".
The default products for a new installation are LSF Base and LSF Batch.
An LSF cluster may include hosts from multiple domains, but the LSF user accounts must belong to a single Windows NT domain, called the LSF user domain (which may or may not contain LSF hosts). All the user and group accounts created during the installation, including the LSF primary administrator user account, will belong to this domain.
By default, LSF Setup uses the current host domain as the LSF user domain.
To make a change, specify the name of the domain that will be the LSF user domain.
If you change the LSF user domain, and need to create a new account or group there, make sure your logon account has administrator privileges for that domain.
If you are creating a cross-domain cluster, the LSF user domain has to be trusted by each LSF host domain, so that the LSF user accounts can be used by the LSF host domains.
If you have Backup Domain Controllers (BDCs) on your LSF user domain, we suggest using an existing account as the LSF primary administrator account, even if you have to create it before you run LSF Setup. Otherwise, until all the user databases are synchronized (every 5 minutes by default), the new user account that you create might be recognized by some controllers but not by others.
LSF services run under the LSF primary administrator user account. LSF will prompt you to create a new domain account for this purpose, called lsfadmin.
You will be prompted to choose a password for this account. You should choose a permanent password at this point, because changing the password after installation is not easy (you would have to modify LSF services on every host individually).
You may choose to use an existing user account (any domain account in the LSF user domain) as the LSF primary administrator user account. However, the LSF primary administrator user account should be reserved for use by LSF only. Do not choose a Windows NT domain administrator, or any person's individual account.
To make a change, select "Use an existing account" and type over the default selection with the name and password of your existing account. Make sure you enter the correct password, as LSF Setup does not check this information.
If your LSF user domain has BDCs, we recommend using an existing account.
To use products in the LSF Suite, users need the "Logon as a batch job" privilege for all the LSF server host machines. Instead of trying to enable this privilege on all relevant hosts for each user, we suggest that you let LSF enable this privilege for a global user group on all the LSF server hosts, and then add LSF users to the group after installation.
LSF Setup will prompt you to create a new group for this purpose, called lsfusers. The LSF cluster administrators that you specify during the installation will automatically be added to the group.
You may choose to use an existing group as the LSF user group. To make a change, select "Use an existing group" and type over the default selection with the name of the group you want to use.
On Windows NT, LSF uses user groups to assign administrative privileges to LSF administrator accounts. This is done automatically; all you need to do is specify the names of the user groups.
LSF puts the LSF administrators in a local group on each host, which is then called the local LSF administrators group. The group must have same name on each host. Members of this group will be able to start and stop the LSF services.
LSF will prompt you to use a group called LSF Local Admins. If this group does not already exist on a host, LSF will create it. To make a change, type over the default selection with the name of the group you want to use.
Instead of adding the individual LSF administrator accounts to each local LSF administrator group, LSF adds the LSF primary administrator and other cluster administrators to a global group, then makes the global LSF administrator group a member of each local LSF administrator group. This way, changes made once to the global group affect every LSF host.
LSF will prompt you to use a group called LSF Global Admins. If this group does not already exist, LSF will create it. To make a change, type over the default selection with the name of the group you want to use.
Specify the name of the cluster that LSF Setup creates for you during installation. The default name is cluster1.
The cluster name cannot include spaces.
Cluster administrators are able to start, stop, and configure LSF services. The LSF primary administrator user account automatically becomes a cluster administrator, but we recommend that you use a different account for regular use (to start and stop LSF services). Therefore, you must specify at least one more cluster administrator. The default is the account you are currently using.
To make a change, type over the default selection with the logon name of the user you want to be the cluster administrator. To create additional cluster administrators, type the user names separated by spaces.
Specify the hosts that you want to include in the cluster. Type the names of the hosts separated by spaces, or select hosts from the list (which displays name of hosts in the domain). LSF will be installed on the selected hosts.
A host cannot belong to two clusters at once. The list of available hosts includes all the hosts in your current domain, but you cannot select hosts that already have LSF installed on them.
Remember that there are two versions of LSF Setup. If your domain includes both Intel Pentium machines and Alpha machines, the list of available hosts will include them all, but you must work with one architecture at a time.
All the LSF files are installed on one machine, which is then called the LSF file server. You should choose a computer running Windows NT Server to be your LSF file server; LSF hosts will need to access files on this machine and Windows NT Workstation only supports a limited number of connections.
On the file server, you need a special directory just for LSF files, which is then called the LSF top directory. It must be a shared network directory.
Specify the full path to the LSF top directory in UNC format. If you specify a directory that already exists, it must already be shared. If you specify a directory that does not yet exist, it must be a subdirectory of a shared directory that already exists.
By default, the same LSF binary files that are installed on the LSF file server are also copied to each LSF host. They will be installed in the same directory on each host, which is then called the default local directory. If you don't want to install the files in this directory on every host, you can change the configuration of individual hosts later.
Specify the path to a local directory where binary files can be installed on each host. The default path is C:\LSF_32.
If the directory you specify does not already exist on a host, LSF Setup will create it for you.
By default, each host is a server host. A server host is available to run LSF jobs, so you get the best performance from a cluster when all the machines are server hosts.
A client host only sends jobs out to run on server hosts. If a machine is very slow or hasn't got enough resources to run jobs, you should change it into a client host. To do so, select the name of the individual host from the list and choose "Client Host" instead of "Server Host".
By default, LSF Setup copies LSF binary files to each host and stores them in the default local directory you specified earlier. You can install the files on a different local directory if you want to.
If you don't want to install the files locally, the host can use the files on the LSF file server or on any other LSF host, as long as the files are in a shared directory. You might notice performance problems if too many hosts use the LSF binary files on the LSF file server.
If you want a host to use binary files at a different location, select the name of the individual host from the list and specify a new path using either UNC format or drive letter convention. If you use drive letter convention, "C:\" refers to C drive on the individual host you selected (not C drive on the file server or C drive on the machine running LSF Setup). Any drive you specify this way must be a local hard drive, not a network-mapped drive.
If the LSF file server is one of the selected hosts, it will be marked with an asterisk (*). You will not be able to change to location of binary files for this host.
Specify the type of license you will install (evaluation or permanent).
If you don't have a license file yet, choose "Skip this step". You can still install LSF and create the cluster, but you will have to license the software before you can use LSF to run jobs (see `Adding or upgrading a license' on page 59).
Specify the path to your license file.
If you are installing a permanent license, you will need to perform additional steps after you install LSF (see `Permanent Licenses' on page 60).
The LSF Setup program summarizes the configuration information for you. To make a change, click Back and return to the appropriate dialog. To complete the installation of LSF, click Next.
A cluster can be created by running LSF Setup just once. However, to make some changes to an existing cluster, you need to run LSF Setup again.
When describing procedures in this section, we assume that you have read `Running LSF Setup for the first time' on page 50. When you modify an existing cluster, you run LSF Setup as usual, but you choose a different setup option, and you must specify the LSF top directory that already exists on the LSF file server.
We assume that you are familiar with the requirements and procedures for installing LSF on each platform.
To combine UNIX hosts and Windows NT hosts in a single cluster, you must have a shared file system, so that Windows NT hosts can read and set the configuration files on the UNIX file server.
Make sure the LSF primary administrator user account is the same on UNIX and Windows NT. You might need to create these accounts before you begin.
If you see a display of port settings, it means LSF Setup could not find
the current port settings for LSF daemons in the lsf.conf file.
LSF will use the default settings which are shown on the screen.
LSF Setup can only operate on hosts of one architecture at a time.
Whenever you have hosts of both types of architectures in a domain, you need to run both versions of LSF Setup.
For example, run the Intel Pentium version of LSF Setup and install for the first time as usual, creating a cluster of Intel Pentium machines. Then run the Alpha version of LSF Setup and add Alpha hosts, following the steps in `Adding a host' on page 58.
If you installed the Alpha machines first, add hosts using the Intel Pentium version of LSF Setup.
LSF Setup can only operate on hosts in one domain at a time. Whenever you install or modify a cluster that contains multiple domains, you need to run LSF Setup separately in each domain.
Run LSF Setup for the first time as usual, creating a cluster that includes hosts from one domain. Then run LSF Setup again in the second domain, and add hosts following the steps in `Adding a host' on page 58.
If you cannot access your copy of LSF Setup in the first domain from the second domain, you need to install a second copy of LSF Setup in the second domain.
You may add hosts to as many additional domains as you choose. For better performance and stability, we recommend storing LSF binary files locally, or on a host in the same domain, rather than on the LSF file server in another domain.
Hosts that already have LSF installed may appear in the list of available hosts, but they should not be selected for the "Add hosts" operation.
By default, LSF Setup automatically selects all the NT hosts listed in the cluster configuration file. However, if the cluster configuration file has been modified, or if LSF Setup has any problem reading the cluster configuration file, you will have to make corrections to the default selections.
If you have LSF version 3.0 or earlier, you cannot use LSF Setup to upgrade. You must uninstall the old version completely, and then install the new version.
The setup option "Add or remove hosts" cannot remove LSF from the LSF file server. To completely remove an LSF cluster, use the option "Uninstall LSF Suite", which can remove LSF from hosts in the domain and also removes the LSF files on the LSF file server.
LSF must be removed from all the hosts before it is removed from the LSF file server. If your LSF cluster includes multiple domains, this means using the Remove option to remove hosts on all but one domain, and using the Uninstall option only on the last domain (the one that contains the LSF file server).
After you have completed the installation of LSF on the desired hosts in your domain, each LSF host will have a Start/Program folder bearing the name "LSF Suite for Workload Management". All LSF-related icons are under this folder.
This section describes the steps you must take before you can start using LSF.
If you have a permanent license, you need to install and start FLEXlm before starting the LSF Service and daemons .
To install FLEXlm as a Windows NT service on the license server host, take the following steps:
c:\flexlm\bin directory and type the following:
install c:\flexlm\bin\lmgrd.exe
LSF Setup has already created the c:\flexlm directory and
copied all the necessary files to it.
To start the FLEXlm License daemon, restart the machine, or choose "Services" in the Windows NT Control Panel on your license server host.
For each host, LSF Setup makes changes to the system environment variables LSF_ENVDIR and PATH during the installation. Restart each machine to make the new environment effective for all users.
You may choose not to restart a machine at this time. If so, log off and log on again to make these changes take effect locally. However, other users, such as those who telnet to the machine, will not be able to use LSF until you restart.
The LSF service and daemons on each LSF server host will start automatically when the machine is restarted.
If you cannot restart each host at this time, log on as an LSF cluster administrator (a member of the LSF Global Administrators group) and start the LSF service and daemons manually.
You should not use the primary LSF administrator's account (normally lsfadmin) to start or stop LSF service and daemons.
To start the LSF service and daemons, use any one of the following methods:
lssrvcntrl start -m all lssrvman
Usage information for lssrvcntrl is available by typing lssrvcntrl
with no options.
When LSF users log onto the LSF user domain, they must use a domain user account, not a local user account. LSF needs the password of each domain user account. Enter the passwords using the lspasswd.exe command, and follow the instructions. For example:
lspasswd [-u user_name]
If you do not specify the -u option, the password applies to the current user account.
In addition, all LSF users need to have the "Logon as a batch job" privilege on every LSF server host. To make this simple, put all LSF users into the LSF user group, since user accounts in the LSF user group have the necessary privileges enabled automatically.