CHECKPOINT(5)              Grid Engine File Formats              CHECKPOINT(5)



[1mNAME[0m
       checkpoint  -  Grid Engine checkpointing environment configuration file
       format

[1mDESCRIPTION[0m
       Checkpointing is a facility to save the complete status of an executing
       program  or  job  and to restore and restart from this so called check-
       point at a later point of time if  the  original  program  or  job  was
       halted, e.g.  through a system crash.

       Grid  Engine  provides  various  levels  of  checkpointing support (see
       [4mge_ckpt[24m(1)).  The checkpointing environment described here is  a  means
       to  configure the different types of checkpointing in use for your Grid
       Engine cluster or parts thereof. For that purpose you  can  define  the
       operations which have to be executed in initiating a checkpoint genera-
       tion, a migration of a checkpoint to another host or  a  restart  of  a
       checkpointed application as well as the list of queues which are eligi-
       ble for a checkpointing method.

       Supporting different operating systems may easily force Grid Engine  to
       introduce  operating  system  dependencies for the configuration of the
       checkpointing configuration file and updates of the supported operating
       system versions may lead to frequently changing implementation details.
       Please refer to the <ge_root>/ckpt directory for more information.

       Please use the [4m-ackpt[24m, [4m-dckpt[24m, [4m-mckpt[24m or [4m-sckpt[24m options to the [4mqconf[24m(1)
       command  to manipulate checkpointing environments from the command-line
       or use the corresponding [4mqmon[24m(1) dialogue for X-Windows based  interac-
       tive configuration.

       Note,  Grid  Engine  allows  backslashes  (\) be used to escape newline
       (\newline) characters. The backslash and the newline are replaced  with
       a space (" ") character before any interpretation.

[1mFORMAT[0m
       The format of a [4mcheckpoint[24m file is defined as follows:

   [1mckpt_name[0m
       The  name  of the checkpointing environment as defined for [4mckpt_name[24m in
       [4msge_types[24m(1).  [4mqsub[24m(1) [1m-ckpt [22mswitch or for the  [4mqconf[24m(1)  options  men-
       tioned above.

   [1minterface[0m
       The  type  of  checkpointing to be used. Currently, the following types
       are valid:

       [4mhibernator[0m
              The Hibernator kernel level checkpointing is interfaced.

       [4mcpr[24m    The SGI kernel level checkpointing is used.

       [4mcray-ckpt[0m
              The Cray kernel level checkpointing is assumed.

       [4mtransparent[0m
              Grid Engine assumes that the jobs submitted  with  reference  to
              this checkpointing interface use a checkpointing library such as
              provided by the public domain package [4mCondor[24m.

       [4muserdefined[0m
              Grid Engine assumes that the jobs submitted  with  reference  to
              this checkpointing interface perform their private checkpointing
              method.

       [4mapplication-level[0m
              Uses all of the interface commands configured in the checkpoint-
              ing  object  like  in the case of one of the kernel level check-
              pointing  interfaces  ([4mcpr[24m,  [4mcray-ckpt[24m,  etc.)  except  for  the
              [1mrestart_command  [22m(see  below),  which is not used (even if it is
              configured) but the job script is invoked in case of  a  restart
              instead.

   [1mckpt_command[0m
       A  command-line  type  command  string to be executed by Grid Engine in
       order to initiate a checkpoint.

   [1mmigr_command[0m
       A command-line type command string to be executed by Grid Engine during
       a migration of a checkpointing job from one host to another.

   [1mrestart_command[0m
       A  command-line  type command string to be executed by Grid Engine when
       restarting a previously checkpointed application.

   [1mclean_command[0m
       A command-line type command string to be executed  by  Grid  Engine  in
       order to cleanup after a checkpointed application has finished.

   [1mckpt_dir[0m
       A file system location to which checkpoints of potentially considerable
       size should be stored.

   [1mckpt_signal[0m
       A Unix signal to be sent to a job by Grid Engine to initiate  a  check-
       point  generation.  The  value  for this field can either be a symbolic
       name from the list produced by the [4m-l[24m option of the [4mkill[24m(1) command  or
       an  integer number which must be a valid signal on the systems used for
       checkpointing.

   [1mwhen[0m
       The points of time when  checkpoints  are  expected  to  be  generated.
       Valid values for this parameter are composed by the letters [4ms[24m, [4mm[24m, [4mx[24m and
       [4mr[24m and any combinations thereof  without  any  separating  character  in
       between.  The same letters are allowed for the [4m-c[24m option of the [4mqsub[24m(1)
       command which will overwrite the definitions in the used  checkpointing
       environment.  The meaning of the letters is defined as follows:

       [4ms[24m      A  job  is checkpointed, aborted and if possible migrated if the
              corresponding [4mge_execd[24m(8) is shut down on the job's machine.

       [4mm[24m      Checkpoints are generated periodically at  the  [4mmin_cpu_interval[0m
              interval defined by the queue (see [4mqueue_conf[24m(5)) in which a job
              executes.

       [4mx[24m      A job is checkpointed, aborted and if possible migrated as  soon
              as the job gets suspended (manually as well as automatically).

       [4mr[24m      A  job  will  be rescheduled (not checkpointed) when the host on
              which the job currently runs went into  unknown  state  and  the
              time interval [4mreschedule_unknown[24m (see [4mge_conf[24m(5)) defined in the
              global/local cluster configuration will be exceeded.


[1mRESTRICTIONS[0m
       [1mNote[22m, that the functionality of any checkpointing, migration or restart
       procedures  provided  by  default  with the Grid Engine distribution as
       well as the way how they are invoked in the [4mckpt_command[24m,  [4mmigr_command[0m
       or [4mrestart_command[24m parameters of any default checkpointing environments
       should not be changed or otherwise the functionality remains  the  full
       responsibility of the administrator configuring the checkpointing envi-
       ronment.  Grid Engine will just invoke these  procedures  and  evaluate
       their  exit  status. If the procedures do not perform their tasks prop-
       erly or are not invoked in a proper fashion, the  checkpointing  mecha-
       nism  may behave unexpectedly, Grid Engine has no means to detect this.

[1mSEE ALSO[0m
       [4mge_intro[24m(1),  [4mge_ckpt[24m(1),  [4mge__types[24m(1),  [4mqconf[24m(1),  [4mqmod[24m(1),  [4mqsub[24m(1),
       [4mge_execd[24m(8).

[1mCOPYRIGHT[0m
       See [4mge_intro[24m(1) for a full statement of rights and permissions.



GE 6.2u2                 $Date: 2007/02/14 12:58:39 $            CHECKPOINT(5)
