cylc-admin

Proposal - rose suite-run functionality migration to cylc

The work described in this document aims to:

• Change the way hosts for jobs are selected to improve support for clusters.
• Deprecate rose suite-run and provide a new cylc command to replace it.

This will complete cylc-flow #1885.

Work Plan

1. Implement basic platforms support. See platforms proposal.

2. Add new platforms features required to support rose suite-run functionality. See platforms proposal.

3. Define new cylc command to replace rose suite-run (and adapt rose suite-run to provide backwards compatibility). See below.

The remaining points can happen any time after 1) is complete although note that 2) and 3) are higher priority.

1. Support generation of cylc config reference documentation from the code and ensure all settings are documented. See cylc-doc #11. Alternatively, review and update the existing documentation.

2. Implement further enhancements to the platforms support. See platforms proposal. Note that these are not essential for Cylc 8.0.

3. Review all config settings and make any agreed changes. See cylc-flow #3422. Note that these are not essential for Cylc 8.0 although we should try to address any non-controversial changes.

Replacing rose suite-run

Key Functionality

1. Installation of suites on platforms and support for moving the share, work & log directories to different locations. This will be included in the platforms support.

2. Support installation of a suite from the source location (working copy) to the run location (cylc-run).
   • This functionality assumes the source location (working copy) and the run location (cylc-run) are both accessible on the host where the command is run.
   • The installation needs to create the run time directory structure which has been configured for the localhost platform.
   • Need to be able to update from the source location as part of reload.
3. On start up, archive any previous logs in a tar.gz.
   • Propose to stop supporting this since, in most cases, we will use a separate run directory each time a suite is installed.
   • Continue to support a timestamped log dir for the special occasions where we re-use an existing run directory (see the discussion in the CLI changes below).
4. On start up and reload, validate suite (using --strict).
   • Hopefully this can become a standard part of suite start-up rather than a separate step. This was difficult previously because cylc loads the suite after it has been detached?
   • Consider making all validation strict? See cylc-flow #3866.

5. Handle rose-suite.conf functionality including optional configurations. See cylc-flow #3819 and rose #2412.

6. Utility to remove installed locations (on all platforms) on demand (equivalent to rose suite-clean).

7. Use a different run directory for each installation of a suite:

   u-ab123/
     run1
     run2
   

   • This is big change in working practice but Cylc 8 is a good time to introduce it.
   • Use a symbolic link to identify the latest run which is the default name when performing operations on a suite?
8. Consider rose prune functionality.
   • Need to make sure it will continue to work correctly.
   • Longer term we should build housekeeping into Cylc, see cylc-flow #1159.
9. Record version control information when you install a suite, see cylc-flow #3849.
   • rose suite-run current supports this for Subversion only (svn info + svn status + svn diff).
   • Extend this to support equivalent information for git (and preferably make it easy to plugin support for other systems as well).

CLI changes

cylc install - new command to install workflows.

• By default, cylc install will install the workflow found in $PWD into ~/cylc-run/$(basename $PWD)/runN (where runN = run1, run2 …).
• This will create a directory in ~/cylc-run/<flow_name> with a _cylc-install diretory containing a source symlink to the source dir.
• This will fail if the specified source directory does not match the ~/cylc-run/<flow_name>/source symlink. Otherwise it would be possible for run1 to come from a different source dir to run2.
• If --run-name is not specified and run1 already exists it will install into run2 (and so on). Create a symlink runN pointing at the latest run.
• --run-name=my-run implies install into ~/cylc-run/$(basename $PWD)/my-run. If the target directory already exists then fail. Note that --run-name=_cylc-install is an error.
• --no-run-name implies install into ~/cylc-run/$(basename $PWD).
• --flow-name=my-flow implies install into ~/cylc-run/my-flow/runN.
• --directory=/path/to/flow (-C ...) implies install the workflow found in /path/to/flow (rather than $PWD).
• Installation will involved copying over the files found in the source directory.
  • This will exclude any .git or .svn directories. Everything else will be copied.
    • If needed we could make this configurable via a .cylcignore file (future enhancement).
  • The installation should fail if log, share, work or _cylc-install exist in the source directory.
  • The installation should fail if neither suite.rc nor cylc.flow exist.
  • The installation should fail if the target directory is not valid. e.g. you cannot install into ~/cylc-run/my-flow/runN if ~/cylc-run/my-flow already contains an installed suite.
• Version control information will be recorded where relevant (svn/git).
• The log, share, share/cycle and work directories will be created following whatever symlink rules are defined for localhost (over-ridable via command line options).
  • This will replace the “symlinked alternate run directories” functionality (see cylc-flow #2935).

cylc play - new command to run an installed workflow (replacing cylc run|start).

• Options will look very similar to current cylc run command but with no [START_POINT] argument (already supported as an option).
• Fail if the workflow has already completed (need to be able to detect this).
• To do: agree behaviour if the workflow is already running. Either fail or treat this as an alias to cylc release.
• Continue running the workflow if it was stopped before completion (replaces cylc restart).
• If, for some reason, you want to re-run a workflow from the beginning you will be able to use cylc clean to clean out the log directory (and whatever other directories you want removing) after which cylc play can be used. Note that this means that cylc play must be able to use the command line options from the previous run as stored in the private database. There are 2 options:
  • Require the use of a --re-run option to enable this (otherwise cylc play will fail if it finds an existing private database).
  • Do this automatically if no existing log directory is found.
• Note that cylc play will always load the latest workflow definition found in the run directory and will respect any command line options (which may alter the workflow definition). Therefore, continuing a workflow using cylc play effectively implies a reload.
  • The processed cylc.flow files will be kept so there will be a record of any changes (see also cylc-flow #3763).
• Support Rose optional configuration via the environment variable ROSE_SUITE_OPT_CONF_KEYS or the option --rose-opt-conf-key=KEY.

cylc reinstall - new command to re-install workflows.

• Very similar to the cylc install command except that this applies to a previously installed workflow (i.e. you run this command in the directory of the installed workflow, not in the source directory).
• The rsync will use --delete to ensure that any previously installed files which have been removed from the source directory also get removed from the installed workflow.
  • Note that this will have the effect of removing any files installed via rose-suite.conf. They will get recreated by a subsequent reload or play but could affect a running workflow.
• Any options specified as part of the original install will be retained unless overridden on the command line.
• Consider a --dry-run option to report what would be changed?
  • Does this replace rose suite-cmp-vc?

cylc reload - no change from existing command.

cylc validate - as per existing command with the following changes:

• If validating a workflow installed with cylc install then use any relevant command line options specified as part of the install unless overridden on the command line.
• Will work fine on source directories which include rose-suite.conf files.
• Cyclic graph validation can be quite slow and is currently included as part of --strict. Consider a new --cyclic-graph-validation option to enable this? See cylc-flow #3869.

Several combinations of the above commands will be commonly used. Propose to support these as separate commands:

• cylc install-play (cylc ip for short?)
• cylc reinstall-reload

cylc pause|release - new commands with aliases pause = hold and release = unpause = unhold.

• Note that when you use cylc stop the scheduler will be modified to unpause the workflow before stopping. This means that a stopped workflow will not be paused when it is continued via cylc play. On the other, a workflow which is continued for any other reason (e.g. the server died) will retain its paused status.

cylc register - remove: functionality no longer required.

• cylc install will now perform the task of associating the source and run directories via a symlink.
• cylc play has no need to do this since the workflow definition will now always be found in the run directory.

cylc clean - new command to replace rose suite-clean.

• This should support options which allow you to just clean subsets of the data. For example, if you clean the log directory this allows you to rerun a workflow (keeping the existing data in share if that is what you want). The default will be to remove everything including the top level directory.
• Support an option to clean all install targets other than localhost?
• We may also want an option to archive the log directory rather than remove it. This could simply imply renaming the directory, perhaps with a timestamp (similar to what rose suite-run does but without tar gzipping the directory). This would allow a workflow to be warm started without completely losing the previous log files (this is an operational requirement at present although we hope that re-flows will reduce or remove the need for this). Note that we would not provide any further support for these archived log directories (e.g. no support for accessing the logs via the UI).
• The file log/rose-suite-run.locs is currently required by rose suite-clean but cylc clean should probably get this information from the database?

For all commands which have been replaced (run, restart, register,etc) we will replace them with (hidden, not listed in CLI help) commands which simply report what commands should be used in their place.

Once the main CLI changes are in place we should do a complete review of the entire cylc command set to see whether there are further commands which should be retired or altered.

Rose commands:

• Propose to retire (i.e. no backwards compatibility support):
  • rose suite-clean
  • rose suite-cmp-vc - check whether we have a replacement for this in cylc first
  • rose suite-gcontrol
  • rose suite-hook - has been deprecated for some time now
  • rose suite-log - need to check whether it is still in use with the --update or --archive options
  • rose suite-restart
  • rose suite-run
  • rose suite-scan
  • rose suite-shutdown
• As with cylc, we will provide hidden commands which simply report what commands should be used in their place.
• Assume we will still need to support rose stem.

Related issues / notes:

• cylc-flow #1030
• Workshop notes. Note that this proposal differs in a number of ways from what was discussed at the workshop:
  • no git version control of run dir (future enhancement?)
  • “in place warm start” now effectively supported via cylc clean
  • proposing to make old commands obsolete rather than deprecated (too hard to do safely)
  • probably several other differences as well

Log file changes

Proposed contents of the log directory in the run directory.

• db - no change
• job/ - no change
• scheduler/ - replaces suite/
• conf/ - replaces suiterc/ and rose-conf/*.conf (contains Cylc + Rose confs)
  • see also cylc-flow #3763
• -install/ - installation logs
  • install/<timestamp>-install.log (replaces rose-suite-run.log)
  • install/<timestamp>-vc.log (replaces rose-conf/*.version)

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