Getting started with PST

This document provides a brief overview of downloading, installing, configuring and using the Practical Supercomputing Toolkit (PST). Each of these aspects has more detailed and comprehensive documents, to which this document refers with instructions and hyperlinks. Read this document to acquire a sense of context and direction, then read the appropriate more detailed documents to learn more about the topics that interest you.

Most users probably only care about USING PST, so they probably want to skip past the sections regarding downloading, installing and configuring PST, since system administrators should perform those tasks. On systems that lack PST, however, intrepid users might choose to install PST for themselves in their own private subdirectory. PST will work just as well in that capacity.

Why use PST: PST helps users use multiple HPC sites

Typical use of high performance computing facilities includes accessing unusually massive amounts of data on archive storage systems, and mediating jobs through a job batch queue system. Although those operations are fundamentally similar, each site and each machine within each site typically provides a different user interface to those operations. This heterogeneity introduces major problems for users, including these:

• Users who have accounts on multiple machines or sites must learn multiple interfaces to perform the same tasks.
• Scripts that automate job submission or archive access do not run on multiple sites or machines without modification.

PST includes Tools for Uniform SuperComputing (TUSC), also known as the Uniform Command-Line Interface (UCLI), which provides uniform commands to access archive systems and submit jobs to a batch queue. At each site that installs PST, users need only learn one set of commands and directives for archiving and job preparation and submission, and their batch scripts will be portable.

For more information about its motivation and development plan, read the Description of PST.

How to install PST

Installation of PST includes these steps:

• Make sure Perl is installed on all machine that will run PST.
• Download the latest PST distribution from the Download section of the PST website.
• Unpack the distribution.
• Run the install script.
• Write the local configuration modules for archive and qprep.

The README file in the base directory of the PST distribution contains more detailed instructions for installing PST. Also, each subdirectory within the PST source hierarchy contains further README documents that describe details regarding the files in the corresponding subdirectory.

How to use PST TUSC (a.k.a UCLI)

The archive command provides typical functionality, such as storing and retrieving files on the archive system.

Job batch queue systems typically submit scripts that include directives in the form of pseudo-comments at the top of the script. The qprep command translates from its own set of directives into directives for the target queue system, then submits that translated script to the queue for execution.

The manual pages for those commands describe the details of their usage.

Responsibilities for each site

Each site must write their own local configuration modules. After writing those modules, the author should send the modules back to the PST maintainers to be included in the official distribution.

Writing a local configuration module generally proceeds in this way:

• After installing PST, look in the TUSC/other_sites subdirectory.
• Find the local configuration module for the situation that most closely resembles your situation.
• Copy that module to a new file.
• Manually edit that new file to make any changes you want or need.
• Test the new local configuration module.
• Send the configuration to the PST maintainers.

Each site must also report to the PST maintainers the formal status of PST for each HPC machine at the site. See the Status page for a formal specification of status. Send email to the PST core team, which includes Dr. Michael Gourlay. and Dr. Joseph Werne.

Getting help

The PST website contains copious documentation about configuring and using PST. The site also includes a formal way to report bugs.

PST has discussion groups for supporting developers and users, and delivering general announcements. Visit the Discussions page for information on how to subscribe and participate.