This section provides information specific to the Linux port of Condor. Linux is a difficult platform to support. It changes very frequently, and Condor has some extremely system-dependent code (for example, the checkpointing library).
Condor is sensitive to changes in the following elements of the system:
The Condor Team tries to provide support for various releases of the distribution of Linux. Red Hat is probably the most popular Linux distribution, and it provides a common set of versions for the above system components at which Condor can aim support. Condor will often work with Linux distributions other than Red Hat (for example, Debian or SuSE) that have the same versions of the above components. However, we do not usually test Condor on other Linux distributions and we do not provide any guarantees about this.
New releases of Red Hat usually change the versions of some or all of the above system-level components. A version of Condor that works with one release of Red Hat might not work with newer releases. The following sections describe the details of Condor's support for the currently available versions of Red Hat Linux on x86 architecture machines.
Distributions that rely on the Linux 2.4.x and all Linux 2.6.x kernels through version 2.6.10 do not modify the atime of the input device file. This leads to difficulty when Condor is run using one of these kernels. The problem manifests itself in that Condor cannot properly detect keyboard or mouse activity. Therefore, using the activity in policy setting cannot signal that Condor should stop running a job on a machine.
Condor version 6.6.8 implements a workaround for PS/2 devices. A better fix is the Linux 2.6.10 kernel patch linked to from the directions posted at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/kernel.patch.html. This patch works better for PS/2 devices, and may also work for USB devices. A future version of Condor will implement better recognition of USB devices, such that the kernel patch will also definitively work for USB devices.
Red Hat version 6.x is an older release of Red Hat, but it is still used by a number of sites. Since Condor has worked on this platform since it was first released, we still provide binaries that support it. Red Hat 6.2 uses the 2.2.x Linux kernel series, glibc version 2.1.x, and GCC version egcs-1.1.2. To run Condor on this platform and be able to use condor_ compile, you should download the Condor Version 6.8.3 binaries listed for use with ``Linux 2.0.x and 2.2.x (glibc 2.1)''.
Red Hat version 7.x is fully supported in Condor Version 6.8.3. condor_ compile works to link user jobs for the Standard universe with the versions of GCC and glibc that comes with Red Hat 7.x. Both the statically linked and dynamically linked versions of the Condor binaries listed for use with ``Linux 2.4.x (glibc 2.2) - Red Hat 7.1, 7.2, 7.3'' will work with no additional effort.
Red Hat version 8.x is fully supported in Condor Version 6.8.3. condor_ compile works to link user jobs for the Standard universe with the versions of gcc and glibc that come with Red Hat 8.x.
Red Hat version 9.x is fully supported in Condor Version 6.8.3. condor_ compile works to link user jobs for the Standard universe with the versions of gcc and glibc that come with Red Hat 9.x.
Redhat Fedora Core 1, 2, and 3 now support the checkpointing of statically linked executables just like previous revisions of Condor for Red Hat. condor_ compile works to link user jobs for the Standard universe with the versions of gcc that are distributed with Red Hat Fedora Core 1, 2, and 3.
However, there are some caveats: A) You must install and use the dynamic Red Hat 9.x binaries on the Fedora machine and B) if you wish to do run a condor_ compiled binary in standalone mode(either initially or in resumption mode), then you must prepend the execution of said binary with setarch i386. Here is an example: suppose we have a Condor-linked binary called myapp, running this application as a standalone executable will result in this command: setarch i386 myapp. The subsequent resumption command will be: setarch i386 myapp -_condor_restart myapp.ckpt.
When standard universe executables condor_ compiled under any currently supported Linux architecture of the same kind (including Fedora 1, 2, and 3) are running inside Condor, they will automatically execute in the i386 execution domain. This means that the exec_shield functionality (if available) will be turned off and the shared segment layout will default to Red Hat 9 style. There is no need to do the above instructions concerning setarch if the executables are being submitted directly into Condor via condor_ submit.