Usually the slurm.spec file provided doesn't change that much between
versions. What we do here is that we maintain a git repository of our
slurm.spec that we use with our modifications. Then each time Slurm is
released we compare ours against what is provided, and simply modify the
provided one with our changes.
Unless you make specific tweaks to the slurm.spec, you should be able to
just use it out of the box no problem. As always read the changelog to
see if there are any major changes between the versions in case a
feature you were using was deprecated. This can happen during major
version upgrades.
At least from my experience if you follow the directions on the Slurm
documentation regarding upgrades, you should be fine. The only real
hitch is that by default the RPM's do restart the slurmdbd and slurmctld
services, which you don't want when upgrading. You should either neuter
this or have those both stopped during the upgrade. After the upgrade
you should run slurmdbd and slurmctld in commandline mode for the
initial run. Once it is done and running normally you can kill these and
restart the relevant services.
-Paul Edmon-
On 12/4/2020 2:36 PM, Jason Simms wrote:
Hello all,
Thank you for being such a helpful resource for All Things Slurm; I
sincerely appreciate the helpful feedback. Right now, we are running
20.02 and considering upgrading to 20.11 during our next maintenance
window in January. This will be the first time we have upgraded Slurm,
so understandably we are somewhat nervous and have some questions.
I am able to download the source and build RPMs successfully. What is
unclear to me is whether I have to adjust anything in the slurm.spec
file or use a .rpmmacros file to control certain aspects of the
installation. Since this would be an upgrade, rather than a new
install, do I have to adjust, e.g., the --prefix value, and all other
settings (X11 support, etc.)? Or, will a yum update "correctly" put
the files where they are on my system, using settings from the
existing 20.02 version?
We purchased the system from a vendor, and of course they use custom
scripts to build and install Slurm, and those are tailored for an
initial installation, not an upgrade. Their advice to us was, don't
upgrade if you don't need to, which seems reasonable, except that many
of you respond to initial requests for help by recommending an
upgrade. And in any case, Slurm doesn't upgrade nicely from more than
two major versions back, so I'm hesitant to go too long without patching.
I'm terribly sorry for my ignorance of all this. But I really lament
how terrible most resources are about all this. They assume that you
have built the RPMs already, without offering any real guidance as to
how to adjust relevant options, or even whether that is a requirement
for an upgrade vs. a fresh installation.
Any guidance would be most welcome.
Warmest regards,
Jason
--
*Jason L. Simms, Ph.D., M.P.H.*
Manager of Research and High-Performance Computing
XSEDE Campus Champion
Lafayette College
Information Technology Services
710 Sullivan Rd | Easton, PA 18042
Office: 112 Skillman Library
p: (610) 330-5632
