Check Availability of PBS Nodes
There are two commands that can be used to check for available nodes, which vary in what they report. We recommend reviewing both options below.
Danger — End of Life Notice
Support for Palmetto 1 has ended and the cluster will shut down permanently on October 31, 2024.
Users should migrate to Palmetto 2 immediately to avoid service disruptions.
Migration Guide
Migration Guide
Using whatsfree
On the login nodes, you can run the whatsfree command to get a count of free
nodes on each phase of the cluster.
However, note that this program only reports completely free nodes.
For example, say there is a node that has 8 CPU cores and 32 GB of memory, which
is currently running one job that requested 2 cores and 8 GB of memory. In this
case, whatsfree would report that the node is not free, but this node
still has 6 cores and 24 GB of memory available for other jobs!
Sample output of whatsfree
$ whatsfree
Wed Nov 30 2022 11:03:44
TOTAL NODES: 1786 TOTAL CORES: 36528 NODES FREE: 1188 NODES OFFLINE: 16 NODES RESERVED: 0
BIGMEM nodes
PHASE 0a TOTAL = 3 FREE = 3 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Bigmem node 24 cores and 1TB RAM
PHASE 0b TOTAL = 4 FREE = 3 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Bigmem node 32 cores and 750GB RAM
PHASE 0c TOTAL = 1 FREE = 0 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Bigmem node 40 cores and 1TB RAM
PHASE 0d TOTAL = 2 FREE = 0 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Bigmem node 36 cores and 1.5TB RAM
PHASE 0e TOTAL = 1 FREE = 1 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Bigmem node 40 cores and 1.5TB RAM
PHASE 0f TOTAL = 3 FREE = 0 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Bigmem node 80 cores and 1.5TB RAM
C1 CLUSTER (older nodes with interconnect=1g)
PHASE 1a TOTAL = 118 FREE = 110 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R610 Intel Xeon E5520, 8 cores, 31GB, 1g
PHASE 1b TOTAL = 46 FREE = 46 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R610 Intel Xeon E5645, 12 cores, 94GB, 1g
PHASE 2a TOTAL = 68 FREE = 66 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R620 Intel Xeon E5-2660 16 cores, 251GB, 1g
PHASE 2c TOTAL = 88 FREE = 83 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell PEC6220 Intel Xeon E5-2665, 16 cores, 62GB, 1g
PHASE 3 TOTAL = 149 FREE = 147 OFFLINE = 1 TYPE = Sun X2200 AMD Opteron 2356, 8 cores, 15GB, 1g
PHASE 4 TOTAL = 280 FREE = 265 OFFLINE = 9 TYPE = IBM DX340 Intel Xeon E5410, 8 cores, 15GB, 1g
PHASE 5c TOTAL = 37 FREE = 32 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R510 Intel Xeon E5460, 8 cores, 23GB, 1g
PHASE 5d TOTAL = 23 FREE = 18 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R520 Intel Xeon E5-2450 12 cores, 46GB, 1g
PHASE 6 TOTAL = 65 FREE = 44 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = HP DL165 AMD Opteron 6176, 24 cores, 46GB, 1g
C2 CLUSTER (newer nodes with interconnect=FDR)
PHASE 7a TOTAL = 42 FREE = 20 OFFLINE = 1 TYPE = HP SL230 Intel Xeon E5-2665, 16 cores, 62GB, FDR, 10ge
PHASE 7b TOTAL = 12 FREE = 1 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = HP SL250s Intel Xeon E5-2665, 16 cores, 62GB, FDR, 10ge
PHASE 8a TOTAL = 71 FREE = 65 OFFLINE = 1 TYPE = HP SL250s Intel Xeon E5-2665, 16 cores, 62GB, FDR, 10ge, K20
PHASE 8b TOTAL = 57 FREE = 46 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = HP SL250s Intel Xeon E5-2665, 16 cores, 62GB, FDR, 10ge, K20
PHASE 9 TOTAL = 72 FREE = 11 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = HP SL250s Intel Xeon E5-2665, 16 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge, K20
PHASE 10 TOTAL = 80 FREE = 38 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = HP SL250s Intel Xeon E5-2670v2, 20 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge, K20
PHASE 11a TOTAL = 40 FREE = 6 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = HP SL250s Intel Xeon E5-2670v2, 20 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge, K40
PHASE 11b TOTAL = 3 FREE = 1 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = HP SL250s Intel Xeon E5-2670v2, 20 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge
PHASE 11c TOTAL = 41 FREE = 18 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell Various Intel Xeon E5-2650v2, 16 cores, 250GB, FDR, 10ge
PHASE 12 TOTAL = 29 FREE = 8 OFFLINE = 1 TYPE = Lenovo MX360M5 Intel Xeon E5-2680v3, 24 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge, K40
PHASE 13 TOTAL = 24 FREE = 11 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell C4130 Intel Xeon E5-2680v3, 24 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge, K40
PHASE 14 TOTAL = 12 FREE = 10 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = HP XL190r Intel Xeon E5-2680v3, 24 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge, K40
PHASE 15 TOTAL = 32 FREE = 10 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell C4130 Intel Xeon E5-2680v3, 24 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge, K40
PHASE 16 TOTAL = 40 FREE = 12 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell C4130 Intel Xeon E5-2680v4, 28 cores, 125GB, FDR, 10ge, P100
PHASE 17 TOTAL = 20 FREE = 6 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell C4130 Intel Xeon E5-2680v4, 28 cores, 124GB, FDR, 10ge, P100
C2 CLUSTER (newest nodes with interconnect=HDR except for phase19b,21,22)
PHASE 18a TOTAL = 2 FREE = 0 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell C4140 Intel Xeon 6148G, 40 cores, 372GB, HDR, 10ge, V100nv
PHASE 18b TOTAL = 65 FREE = 5 OFFLINE = 1 TYPE = Dell R740 Intel Xeon 6148G, 40 cores, 372GB, HDR, 25ge, V100
PHASE 18c TOTAL = 10 FREE = 0 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R740 Intel Xeon 6148G, 40 cores, 748GB, HDR, 25ge, V100
PHASE 19a TOTAL = 28 FREE = 4 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R740 Intel Xeon 6248G, 40 cores, 372GB, HDR, 25ge, V100
PHASE 19b TOTAL = 7 FREE = 2 OFFLINE = 0 MUSC TYPE = HPE XL170 Intel Xeon 6252G, 48 cores, 372GB, 10ge
PHASE 20 TOTAL = 22 FREE = 1 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R740 Intel Xeon 6238R, 56 cores, 372GB, HDR, 25ge, V100S
PHASE 21 TOTAL = 2 FREE = 1 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R740 Intel Xeon 6248G, 40 cores, 372GB, 10ge
PHASE 22 TOTAL = 16 FREE = 16 OFFLINE = 0 UNAVAILABLE Dell C8220 Intel Xeon 6238r 20 cores, 250GB, 10ge
DGX NODES
PHASE 24a TOTAL = 2 FREE = 1 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = NVIDIA DGXA100 AMD EPYC 7742, 128 cores, 990GB, HDR, 25ge, A100
SKYLIGHT CLUSTER (Mercury Consortium)
PHASE 25a TOTAL = 22 FREE = 11 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = ACT Intel Xeon E5-2640v4, 20 cores, 125GB, 1ge
PHASE 25b TOTAL = 3 FREE = 2 OFFLINE = 1 TYPE = ACT Intel Xeon E5-2680v4, 28 cores, 503GB, 1ge
PHASE 25c TOTAL = 6 FREE = 4 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = ACT Intel Xeon E5-2640v4, 20 cores, 62GB, 1ge, GTX1080
PHASE 25d TOTAL = 2 FREE = 2 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = ACT Intel Xeon E5-2640v4, 20 cores, 125GB, 1ge, P100
PHASE 26a TOTAL = 24 FREE = 3 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R640 Intel Xeon 6230R, 52 cores, 754GB, 25ge
PHASE 26b TOTAL = 5 FREE = 0 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R640 Intel Xeon 6230R, 52 cores, 1500GB, 25ge
PHASE 26c TOTAL = 6 FREE = 5 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell DSS840 Intel Xeon 6230R, 52 cores, 380GB, 25ge, RTX6000
C2 CLUSTER nodes with A100 GPUs
PHASE 27 TOTAL = 34 FREE = 5 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R740 Intel Xeon 6258R, 56 cores, 372GB, HDR, 25ge, A100
PHASE 28 TOTAL = 26 FREE = 6 OFFLINE = 0 TYPE = Dell R750 Intel Xeon 8358, 64 cores, 250GB, HDR, 25ge, A100
PHASE 29 TOTAL = 40 FREE = 38 OFFLINE = 1 TYPE = Dell R750 Intel Xeon 8358, 64 cores, 250GB, HDR, 25ge, A100
NOTE: PBS resource requests must be LOWER CASE.
Your job will land on the oldest phase that satisfies your PBS resource requests.
Also run "checkqueuecfg" to find out the queue limits on number of running jobs permitted per user in each queue.
Using freeres
On the login nodes, you can run the freeres command to see what resources are
available on a given phase.
whatsfree phase[number]
To get a list of phases, you can review the output of whatsfree.
Sample output of freeres
$ freeres phase18c
group file = /software/caci/cluster/phase18c
CPU | GPU | Memory (GB) |
Node Avail Used Free | Avail Used Free | Avail Used Free | State
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
node0045 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0153 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0172 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0226 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0228 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0229 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node1528 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
checked 10 nodes in 0.28 Seconds
Why do I receive "not a valid phase name" if the phase exists?
When providing the phase number to freeres, you must prefix it with the word
phase. For example, phase 18c would be phase18c, not just 18c.
$ freeres 18c
group file = /software/caci/cluster/18c
18c is not a valid phase name
$ freeres phase18c
group file = /software/caci/cluster/phase18c
CPU | GPU | Memory (GB) |
Node Avail Used Free | Avail Used Free | Avail Used Free | State
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
node0045 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0153 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0172 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0226 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0228 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node0229 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
node1528 40 8 32 2 2 0 754 44 710 free
checked 10 nodes in 0.28 Seconds