[Mauiusers] Node idle but load is HIGH

[Jan Ploski]

Garrick Staples wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 28, 2007 at 09:31:01AM +0200, Jan Ploski alleged:
>> Hello,
>>
>> diagnose -n on my system gives the following message for quite a few 
>> nodes:
>>
>> WARNING:  node 'node38' has been idle for 8:25:00 but load is HIGH.  load: 
>>  3.020 (check for runaway processes?)
>>
>> However, the node is running three jobs:
>>
>> node38                   Idle   4:4     7988:7988        1:1 15314:15314 
>> 1.00  linux [NONE] DEF   3.00 003 [dgiseq_4:4][verylong_4:4][sma [DEFAULT] 
>>                      [dual][eth] 
>> node38
>>      state = free
> 
> PBS is reporting the node as "free", not "busy" and maui is giving you a
> warning on this.  It sees "free" with a higher load average as an indication of
> something being misconfigured.  If everything is working fine, then just ignore
> it.
> 
> If you want to fix it, then configure pbs_mom's $max_load and $ideal_load so
> that nodes get reported as "busy".

Thanks for the tips. The node was indeed "free" in the sense that only 3 
out of 4 possible jobs were running on it (actual load < max_load == 4). 
However, it is difficult to say whether the warning can or should be 
ignored. In particular, I am concerned about the 4:4 indications which I 
suppose is "class initializers". If these were inconsistent with the 
actual number of running jobs, then more than the configured number of 
jobs would be able to start in the given class (if I understand the 
concept correctly).

Best regards,
Jan Ploski