Practical Supercomputing Toolkit


PST

The Practical Supercomputing Toolkit (PST) enhances usability of supercomputing facilities. The PST TUSC component (Tools for Unified SuperComputing, also known as the Uniform Command-Line Interface or UCLI) provides a unified syntax for accessing archive file systems and preparing and submitting jobs into a batch queue system.

Read the Description page for more details about the motivation and development plan for PST.

GETTING STARTED

Read the GETTING STARTED document for an overview and references to more documentation for why and how to download, install, configure and use PST.

News

  • 2003 September:
    • NAVO MSRC includes comprehensive PSToolkit Overview links on it's website and advertises a UCLI How-To to users. See Related Links to access these useful NAVO pages, which include general information about the Uniform Command Line Interface (UCLI) and information for accessing archive and qprep at NAVO.

  • 2003 May:
    • U.S.Army Space and Missile Defense Command Simulation Center (USASMDC-SC) completed implementation of the UCLI. Thanks to Brian Guckenberger, Gwen Kingery, Ron Lovell, and Charles Wilcox. The version including SMDC's contribution (PST-2003may08.tar.gz) is available from PST's Download page.

  • 2003 April:
    • Funding for PST resumed: roughly two month's salary support in 2003 for Joe Werne to continue with the project. This ends a 5 and 1/2 month funding hiatus for PST.
    • Plans for PST in 2003 include:
      • qprep: implement rerun=y|n;
      • qprep: mail=n (so that batch-generated mail can be turned off);
      • qprep: ensure that batch-job stderr and stdout can be the same file;
      • qprep: permit multiple occurances of target_script_directive="..." (currently only one is allowed, but certainly more might be needed);
      • Implement/maintain/advertise common UCLI web pages homed at pstoolkit.org and mirrored at various supercomputer centers.
      • Develop UCLI survey questions for users.
      • Implement more detailed "Getting Started" pages on pstoolkit.org for users and center sys-admins. Establish separate installation routines for PST.
      • Develop UCLI module to address: uniform queue naming, uniform work-directory name, uniform specification of the target computing platform, and uniform specification of the target queue system. This will allow users a glossary and syntax for dealing with these unnecessarily site-specific aspects of supercomputer center usage.
      • Specify and implement a uniform syntax for job execution (e.g., like mpprun, mpirun, ...).
      • Maintain the PST website and tools, integrate user feedback, and administer software version control and release
      • Enhance Management & Documentation (MD), Source Editing Tools (SET), and Tools for Uniform Supercomputing (TUSC) layers of the toolkit, as necessary, and work with pst-dev participants to implement local-configuration modules for individual centers.
      • Continue to provide user support through the MSRC's and DC's, the pstoolkit.org website and the pst-dev, pst-news, and pst-users forums.
      • Time/funding permitting, adapt erdc's automatic script generator to include all PST directives and to generate converted output for all supercomputer centers that have adopted PST.
    • Two prominent and extremely productive participants Mike Gourlay and Dan Duffy have made major career changes, and they are no longer available to contribute to PST. We are sad to see them go.

  • 2003 January:
    • NAVO archival storage system upgrade disrupted PST function temporarily, but archive commands at NAVO are working again.

  • 2002 June:
    • New "Links" page on PST website with links to PST-related web pages written by PST clients.
    • All seven pioneer DoD HPC sites report AVAILABLE status for PST archive and qprep.
    • Dr. Dan Duffy writes quickstart guide for PST qprep.
    • PST status reports at DoD HPC UGC 2002 in Austin, Texas.
    • MCWG BoF meeting includes PST status report by Werne and Gourlay.
    • HPCMO director Cray Henry includes PST (UCLI) in his "state of the program" address, as a success.
    • Several members of the Users Feedback panel report PST UCLI as an example of the responsiveness of HPCMP to requests by the users.
    • Werne and Gourlay present talk on PST to the users.

  • 2002 April:
    • Addition of total_cpus directive to qprep.
    • Activity on PST development forum jumps dramatically. 115 messages in April, as compared to 59 messages total over the previous 12 months!
    • Several users at HPCMP SRC sites begin to use PST archive in production code.

  • 2002 March:
    • New Getting Started page on website.
    • Updated qprep local configuration module for PBS at ERDC. (Thanks Dan Duffy.)
    • New qprep local configuration module for GRD at ARL.
    • Miscellaneous enhancements.
    • Status page has more information, including status of PST at DoD HPC sites, and points of contact for each site.

  • 2002 February:
    • PST featured at DoD HPCMP MCWG Grid Workshop at ERDC.

  • 2001 Dec:
    • PST release 2001dec31 available.
    • PST release 1.2.1 will be ready after HPC collaborators respond.
    • PST GGF charter draft released in pst-news. See "News" link in Discussions.
    • PST 2001dec06 beta release with preliminary qprep is now in the Download section. This includes local configuration modules for PBS for ASC and ERDC sites, plus a partial configuration module for the ERDC Compaq with LSF.
    • HPC collaborators are working on next release of PST, version 1.2.1, with qprep!
    • This website has new Description page.
    • The Development page contains more documents related to PST development, including internal documentation of subroutines within PST utilities.

http://pstoolkit.org/ / webmaster@pstoolkit.org