I have asked this question on TorqueUsers list. Responses from that list suggests that the question be asked on this list:
The situation is: I can submit my jobs as in: > qsub -l nodes=6:ppn=2 /path/to/mpi_program where "mpi_program" is: /path/to/mpirun -np 12 /path/to/my_program -- however everything went to run on the head node (one time on the first compute node). Jobs can be done anyway. While the mpirun can run on its own by specifying a "-machinefile", it is pointed out by Glen among others, and also on this web site http://wiki.hpc.ufl.edu/index.php/Common_Problems (I got the same error as the last example on that web page) that it's not a good idea to provide machinefile since it's "already handled by OpenMPI and Torque". My question is, why the OpenMPI and Torque is not handling the jobs to all nodes? ps 1: The OpenMPI is configured and installed with the "--with-tm" option, and the "ompi_info" does show lines: MCA ras: tm (MCA v1.0, API v1.3, Component v1.2.7) MCA pls: tm (MCA v1.0, API v1.3, Component v1.2.7) ps 2: "/path/to/mpirun -np 12 -machinefile /path/to/machinefile /path/to/my_program" works normal (send jobs to all nodes). Thanks, Zhiliang