Ticket 17706 - Document freeipmi library as a prerequisite for the acct_gather_energy/IPMI plugin
Summary: Document freeipmi library as a prerequisite for the acct_gather_energy/IPMI p...
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Slurm
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Documentation (show other tickets)
Version: 23.02.4
Hardware: Linux Linux
: --- 4 - Minor Issue
Assignee: Oscar Hernández
QA Contact: Ben Roberts
URL:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2023-09-18 00:35 MDT by Ole.H.Nielsen@fysik.dtu.dk
Modified: 2023-10-25 01:00 MDT (History)
1 user (show)

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Description Ole.H.Nielsen@fysik.dtu.dk 2023-09-18 00:35:48 MDT 
The acct_gather.conf manual page[1] should specify that the acct_gather_energy/IPMI plugin will only be built when building Slurm packages, if the precondition freeipmi-libs library has been installed.  This is only mentioned in the quickstart_admin guide in the line:
IPMI Energy Consumption The acct_gather_energy/ipmi accounting plugin will be built if the freeipmi development library is present.

Could you kindly copy that information to the acct_gather.conf manual page so that it will become more self-contained and complete?

Thanks,
Ole

[1] https://slurm.schedmd.com/acct_gather.conf.html#SECTION_acct_gather_energy/IPMI
Comment 1 Ole.H.Nielsen@fysik.dtu.dk 2023-09-21 05:55:50 MDT 
Actually, the precondition RPM package including libraries is installed by:

$ yum install freeipmi-devel
Comment 2 Ole.H.Nielsen@fysik.dtu.dk 2023-09-21 06:28:22 MDT 
FYI: The freeipmi-devel RPM contains the header file required by the Slurm configure script:

$ rpm -qf /usr/include/freeipmi/freeipmi.h
freeipmi-devel-1.5.7-3.el7.x86_64
Comment 3 Oscar Hernández 2023-09-22 05:52:50 MDT 
Hi Ole,

Just updating here to let you know that I will work on that. Since these prereqs are not only for IPMI, and all of them are already specified in[1], I may add some generic note encouraging to check if the libraries were installed, will discuss with my colleagues.

I did also find in this page:

"If the respective plugin for an option is not loaded then that option will appear to be unknown by Slurm and silently ignored. If you decide to change plugin types you may also have to change the related options."

As we have already seen, this is not exactly true. It will fatal, rather than ignoring silently. Will also check this and update documentation if needed.

Cheers,
Oscar

[1]https://slurm.schedmd.com/quickstart_admin.html
Comment 4 Ole.H.Nielsen@fysik.dtu.dk 2023-09-22 06:03:14 MDT 
(In reply to Oscar Hernández from comment #3)
> Just updating here to let you know that I will work on that. Since these
> prereqs are not only for IPMI, and all of them are already specified in[1],
> I may add some generic note encouraging to check if the libraries were
> installed, will discuss with my colleagues.

The quickstart is *very* high-level and general.  It would be an advantage if the quickstart guide specifically could state how to install prerequite packages on RPM-based Linux systems.  

If SchedMD will not offer instructions for prerequisite RPMs, people can always find detailed advice in my Wiki page :-)
https://wiki.fysik.dtu.dk/Niflheim_system/Slurm_installation/#install-prerequisites

IMHO, it would still be good to copy the prerequisites information from quickstart to the acct_gather.conf manual page so that it will become more self-contained and complete.  Or maybe just refer to the quickstart guide for prerequistes!

> "If the respective plugin for an option is not loaded then that option will
> appear to be unknown by Slurm and silently ignored. If you decide to change
> plugin types you may also have to change the related options."
> 
> As we have already seen, this is not exactly true. It will fatal, rather
> than ignoring silently. Will also check this and update documentation if
> needed.

Yes, it would be wonderful if you could update that documentation :-)

Thanks a lot,
Ole
Comment 7 Ole.H.Nielsen@fysik.dtu.dk 2023-10-15 12:40:44 MDT 
There is a new item which would be great if it could be added to the documentation from 23.11:

In bug 17900 a new option will be added to slurm.spec from 23.11 so that users can now specify building RPMs including the freeipmi prerequisite:

$ rpmbuild <...> --with freeipmi

Thanks,
Ole
Comment 11 Oscar Hernández 2023-10-25 00:51:40 MDT 
Hi Ole,

Changes in the documentation suggested have been already committed. You will find them in:

commit db69661333faa92921da55a4e9bbd20ae1dee08c
Author: Oscar Hernández <oscar.hernandez@schedmd.com>
Date:   Thu Oct 12 15:19:41 2023 +0200

    Docs - Improve acct_gather.conf documentation
    
    Clarify that Slurm will fatal when settings in acct_gather.conf do not
    match the plugins loaded. Also mention that freeipmi devel package is
    needed in order for the IPMI plugin to be built.
    
    Bug 17706

and:

commit 3f61e578242598f5686526af9d875a00a3270e40
Author: Oscar Hernández <oscar.hernandez@schedmd.com>
Date:   Fri Oct 20 16:55:44 2023 +0200

    Docs - Document new "--with freeipmi" slurm.spec option
    
    Bug 17706

I am closing as fixed. But let me know if you have any comments on them.

Thanks,
Oscar
Comment 12 Ole.H.Nielsen@fysik.dtu.dk 2023-10-25 01:00:32 MDT 
Hi Oscar,

(In reply to Oscar Hernández from comment #11)
> Changes in the documentation suggested have been already committed. You will
> find them in:
> 
> commit db69661333faa92921da55a4e9bbd20ae1dee08c
> Author: Oscar Hernández <oscar.hernandez@schedmd.com>
> Date:   Thu Oct 12 15:19:41 2023 +0200
> 
>     Docs - Improve acct_gather.conf documentation
>     
>     Clarify that Slurm will fatal when settings in acct_gather.conf do not
>     match the plugins loaded. Also mention that freeipmi devel package is
>     needed in order for the IPMI plugin to be built.

The updated docs look fine!

> commit 3f61e578242598f5686526af9d875a00a3270e40
> Author: Oscar Hernández <oscar.hernandez@schedmd.com>
> Date:   Fri Oct 20 16:55:44 2023 +0200
> 
>     Docs - Document new "--with freeipmi" slurm.spec option

Thanks a lot for documenting the "--with freeipmi"!

Best regards,
Ole