Command Reference Guide

Platform LSF Command Reference 85
blaunch
launches parallel tasks on a set of hosts
Synopsis
blaunch [-n] [-u host_file | -z host_name ... | host_name]
command [argument ...]
blaunch [-h | -V]
Description
IMPORTANT: You cannot run blaunch directly from the command line.
RESTRICTION: The command blaunch does not work with user account mapping. Do not run
blaunch on a user account mapping host.
Most MPI implementations and many distributed applications use rsh and ssh as
their task launching mechanism. The
blaunch command provides a drop-in
replacement for
rsh and ssh as a transparent method for launching parallel
applications within LSF.
blaunch supports the following core command line options as rsh and ssh:
◆ rsh host_name command
◆ ssh host_name command
All other
rsh and ssh options are silently ignored.
blaunch transparently connects directly to the RES/SBD on the remote host, and
subsequently creates and tracks the remote tasks, and provides the connection back
to LSF. You do not need to insert
pam, taskstarter or any other wrapper.
blaunch only works under LSF. It can only be used to launch tasks on remote hosts
that are part of a job allocation. It cannot be used as a standalone command.
blaunch is not supported on Windows.
When no host names are specified, LSF allocates all hosts listed in the environment
variable LSB_MCPU_HOSTS.
Options
-n Standard input is taken from /dev/null.
-u host_file Executes the task on all hosts listed in the host_file.
Specify the path to a file that contains a list of host names. Each host name must
listed on a separator line in the host list file.
This option is exclusive of the
-z option.
host_name The name of the host where remote tasks are to be launched.
-z host_name ... Executes the task on all specified hosts.