FAS Research Computing - Notice history

Experiencing minor outage

Status page for the Harvard FAS Research Computing cluster and other resources.

Cluster Utilization (VPN and FASRC login required): Cannon | FASSE


Please scroll down to see details on any Incidents or maintenance notices.
Monthly maintenance occurs on the first Monday of the month (except holidays).

GETTING HELP
Documentation: https://docs.rc.fas.harvard.edu | Account Portal https://portal.rc.fas.harvard.edu
Email: rchelp@rc.fas.harvard.edu | Support Hours

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Operational

SLURM Scheduler - Cannon - Operational

Cannon Compute Cluster (Holyoke) - Operational

Boston Compute Nodes - Operational

GPU nodes (Holyoke) - Operational

seas_compute - Operational

Operational

SLURM Scheduler - FASSE - Operational

FASSE Compute Cluster (Holyoke) - Operational

Operational

Kempner Cluster CPU - Operational

Kempner Cluster GPU - Operational

Operational

FASSE login nodes - Operational

Partial outage

Cannon Open OnDemand - Partial outage

FASSE Open OnDemand - Partial outage

Operational

Netscratch (Global Scratch) - Operational

Home Directory Storage - Boston - Operational

Tape - (Tier 3) - Operational

Holylabs - Operational

Isilon Storage Holyoke (Tier 1) - Operational

Holystore01 (Tier 0) - Operational

HolyLFS04 (Tier 0) - Operational

HolyLFS05 (Tier 0) - Operational

HolyLFS06 (Tier 0) - Operational

Holyoke Tier 2 NFS - Operational

Holyoke Specialty Storage - Operational

holECS - Operational

Isilon Storage Boston (Tier 1) - Operational

BosLFS02 (Tier 0) - Operational

Boston Tier 2 NFS - Operational

CEPH Storage Boston (Tier 2) - Operational

Boston Specialty Storage - Operational

bosECS - Operational

Samba Cluster - Operational

Globus Data Transfer - Operational

Notice history

View current status

Aug 2023

holylabs inaccessible - cluster paused
Resolved22 hours 2 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    We have reverted the routing systems involved in causing this issue to their previous version/state. We will continue to investigate why this issue occurred and what will allow us to upgrade these systems at a later date.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    The issue with holylabs (and potentially other lustre filesystems) has recurred. This may have effects on jobs and any process using this and potentially other lustre filesystems.

    No ETA at this time.

  • ResolvedUTC

    We have restored access to holylabs and the cluster/jobs are no longer paused.

    We have identified a root cause which we will be working to remediate to prevent this issue in future.

  • IdentifiedUTC

    The scheduler and all jobs have been paused in order to reduce the load on holylabs.

    We are continuing to work on a fix for this incident.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    The holylabs filesystem is currently down due to high load.

    OOD, software, and modules are all functional but if your workflow uses holylabs for storage, scripts, or jobs it may hang or fail. Our engineers are investigating this issue further.

Ceph instability - Affects Boston VMs (Virtual Machines) and Tier2 Ceph shares
ResolvedDegraded performance11 hours 57 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    The Ceph instability has been resolved. Caeph Tier2 shares, VDI, and VMs should be back to their normal state.

    If your VM, /net/fs-[labname] share, or VDI session is still impacted, please contact rchelp@rc.fas.harvard.edu

  • IdentifiedUTC

    The infrastructure behind Tier2 Ceph shares and VMs is unstable.
    This also affects VDI/OOD which relies on virtual machines.

    /net/fs-[labname] shares, new OOD/VDI sessions, and VMs are affected and may will be inaccessible until this is resolved.

    Thanks for your patience.

holyscratch01 performance
Resolved71 hours 8 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    This incident has been resolved.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    holyscratch01 is in a degraded state currently. A group of improperly architected jobs are hammering the filesystem which is impeding access for other users. We are in the process of identifying and stopping these jobs.

    Until then, we recommend starting an interactive session and working from there as those will have the lowest impact. However, performance will still be slow until we are able to stop the problematic jobs.

AUG7
FASRC Monthly maintenance August 7, 2023 7am-1pm *NOTE EXTENDED TIME*
CompletedMaintenance2 hours 42 minutes
  • CompletedAugust 07, 2023 at 1:42 PMUTC

    Due to a vendor error we were unable to complete holyscratch01 disk shelf replacement. We will work with the vendor to reschedule.

    All other maintenance tasks have completed.

  • In progressAugust 07, 2023 at 11:00 AMUTC

    Maintenance is now in progress

  • PlannedAugust 07, 2023 at 11:00 AMUTC

    August maintenance will run August 7, 2023 from 7am-1pm.

    Please note the extended timeframe.
    See tasks section below for explanation.

    NOTICES

    • CentOS 7 Support EOL: We will be dropping support for CentOS 7 support in September. If your machine or VM is CentOS 7 and connects with Slurm please contact FASRC to discuss options.

    • Test Partition Changes: We are changing test partitions based on changing needs and increasing max time to 12hrs instead of 8 hrs. A reminder that this partition is not for running jobs.

    MAINTENANCE TASKS

    • holyscratch01 Disk Shelf Replacement  All Jobs Will Be Paused
      -- Audience : All cluster and scratch users - Cannon and FASSE
      -- Impact:  Hardware issues with holyscratch01 necessitate the replacement of one of the disk shelves. As a result all jobs and scratch will need to be paused for the duration.
      -- ETA: This swap is expected to take 3-4 hours, but pausing the cluster, vendor interactions, and allowing a margin for over-run requires that we extend maintenance by 2 hours  (7am-1pm)

    • Login node and OOD/VDI reboots
      -- Audience: Anyone logged into a a login node or VDI/OOD node
      -- Impact: Login and VDI/OOD nodes will rebooted during this maintenance window  

    • Scratch cleanup ( https://docs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/kb/policy-scratch/ )
      -- Audience: Cluster users
      -- Impact: Files older than 90 days will be removed.

    Thanks,
    FAS Research Computing
    Department and Service Catalog: https://www.rc.fas.harvard.edu/
    Documentation: https://docs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/
    Status Page: https://status.rc.fas.harvard.edu/

Ceph instability - Affects Boston VMs (Virtual Machines) and Tier2 Ceph shares
ResolvedDegraded performance48 hours 9 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    The Ceph instability has been resolved. Caeph Tier2 shares, VDI, and VMs should be back to their normal state.

    If your VM, /net/fs-[labname] share, or VDI session is still impacted, please contact rchelp@rc.fas.harvard.edu

  • IdentifiedUTC

    The infrastructure behind Tier2 Ceph shares and VMs is unstable.
    This also affects VDI/OOD which relies on virtual machines.

    /net/fs-[labname] shares, new OOD/VDI sessions, and VMs are affected and may will be inaccessible until this is resolved.

    Thanks for your patience.

Jul 2023

Numerous nodes in bad state
Resolved1 hour 17 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    The affected partitions are back up within acceptable operating percentages.

  • IdentifiedUTC

    Numerous nodes are in a bad state (marked 'drng', but not those marked 'drain'). We are aware and are working to re-open these nodes as quickly as possible.

    This includes but is not limited to nodes in: argelles-delgado, kozinsky, seas_compute, kempner, and other partitions.

Software modules not available
ResolvedPartial outage35 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    Modules should be available again across Cannon and FASSE. If you have an open session, please log out and log in again to use modules.

    This incident has been resolved.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    An unexpected bug has broken software module availability at this time. Module commands such as module load, module spider, etc may not work.

    We are currently investigating this incident.

Access Issues with holylabs storage server
Resolved23 hours 50 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    This incident has been resolved.

  • UpdateUTC

    We have brought the server back online in a "workaround" state and will be continuing to investigate the root cause. Access should be normal.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    Lab Storage on holylabs file server is currently inaccessible. We are currently investigating this incident.

boslfs02 down
ResolvedMajor outage12 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    This incident has been resolved.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    boslfs02 is currently inaccessible. We are investigating this incident.

A100 GPU issue
Resolved986 hours 51 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    Firmware updates have resolved this issue.

  • UpdateUTC

    The proscribed driver update did not fix this issue.

    We are working with Nvidia to find a fix. As a stop-gap nodes which get stuck/flagged will be marked in Slurm for reboot and rebooted once empty of jobs.

    If a A100 GPU host your lab owns is stuck in a bad state, please let us know and we will mark and reboot it.

  • IdentifiedUTC

    A100s are open but still experiencing some instability. Infrequently, you may hit the issue we noted earlier.

    We are continuing to work on a solution.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    An NVIDIA bug may be causing failures in A100 GPUs. nvidia-smi command is slow, or outputs "ERR!" or "No GPUs are found".

    Jobs on affected nodes may fail.

    We are investigating this issue.

Jun 2023

Mounting storage from campus network
ResolvedDegraded performance6 hours 50 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    This incident has been resolved.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    Due to a HUIT networking issue, mounting storage from wired campus connections may not work.

    We are working with HUIT to resolve this.

    In the meantime, you should still be able to mount storage while connected to the RC VPN.

JUN20
Emergency maintenance 6/20/23 - Cannon Slurm Scheduler
CompletedMaintenance
  • PlannedJune 20, 2023 at 11:00 AMUTC

    WHAT
    Emergency Cannon cluster scheduler maintenance Tuesday June 20th from 7am - 11am (actual end time estimated). Running jobs will be paused during maintenance.

    Note: FASSE is unaffected by this.

    WHY
    As most of you know, there are on-going issues with the Cannon scheduler after the downtime and OS upgrades. This behavior did not show up in our earlier testing and only manifested once we were under load from user jobs again.

    After investigation we found that the scheduler is oscillating between two states every hour. During even hours the scheduler would enter a high thread state where all the traffic would pile up, causing any queries to either take a long time or time out. During odd hours the scheduler would enter a low thread state and operate normally. During periods where the scheduler is responding, jobs can be submitted and should then run normally.

    Unfortunately the root cause is still not known, and we are working closely with the vendor, SchedMD, to find a solution to return the cluster to stability. The version of slurm that we are running is 22.05.7, which while very stable — we have been running on it for the past 5 months with no problems — appears to be having issues at scale on Rocky 8.

    There is a newer version of the scheduler available, 23.02.3. This new version has a host of improvements. While the specific issue described above is not listed as one of the items fixed in this version, we anticipate that the upgrade may fix this issue owing to the various code improvements contained therein.

    Barring any solutions found over the long weekend, we intend to hold an emergency maintenance period on Tuesday June 20th starting at 7am. Running jobs will be paused. We will return Cannon to service as soon as we've completed work. Status of this maintenance will be tracked here on our status page.

    We thank you for your patience and understanding. Our team is hard at work answering your tickets and making sure that the cluster is back to full health. Also as a reminder that we hold additional Office Hours each week in June. See: https://www.rc.fas.harvard.edu/training/office-hours/

    FAS Research Computing
    https://www.rc.fas.harvard.edu/
    https://docs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/
    https://status.rc.fas.harvard.edu/

  • CompletedJune 20, 2023 at 1:16 AMUTC

    CANCELLED

    Emergency maintenance has has been cancelled. A solution to the scheduler issue has been found and Slurm is once again operating normally.

    We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Slurm scheduler slowness/delays
Resolved155 hours 8 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    This incident has been resolved.

    A solution to the Slurm scheduler issue has been found and implemented. The scheduler is now operating normally.

    Thank you for your patience and understanding.

  • UpdateUTC

    PLEASE SEE EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE NOTICE BELOW
    Emergency maintenance Tuesday June 20th 7am-11am. Running jobs will be paused.

    We are still working on finding the root cause of the scheduler slowness and timeouts. We are working with SchedMD and have sent diagnostic information for analysis.

    At this time the scheduler is up but may become unresponsive to your commands at times. You can wait and retry them.

    Jobs, once launched, should run as expected.

    OOD/VDI are working, but job submission may also be affected.

    If you receive salloc: error: Job submit/allocate failed: Invalid account or account/partition combination specified, waiting a moment and re-submitting your job again should result in a successful submission.

    Addendum: It was determined that the issue is cyclical and you will have the best luck during odd hours (e.g. - after 1pm, before 2pm) and less success interfacing with the scheduler during even hours (e.g. - after 2pm, before 3pm).

    We regret the impact this is having on your work. Updates will follow as we have them.

  • UpdateUTC

    We are still working on finding the root cause of the slowness and are working with the vendor to troubleshoot.

    At this time the scheduler is up but may become responsive to your commands at times. Jobs, once launched, should run as expected.

  • UpdateUTC

    Slurm is still being overwhelmed with large numbers of requests. VDI timeouts/502 errors, interactive job connections, job submissions, are all impacted.

    We are in contact with the Slurm developers to find a better resolution.

  • MonitoringUTC

    We have implemented updates and the scheduler appears stable and responsive.
    We will continue to monitor and update this incident.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    We are currently investigating performance issues with the scheduler. This manifests in slowness when submitting jobs, job submission fails some percentage of the time, and timeout errors (including OOD/VDI).

    Also, some jobs may not exit cleanly putting nodes into drain status.

    We are working to resolve this issue. Updates to follow.

Cannon and FASSE OOD (VDI) issues
Resolved24 hours 35 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    This incident has been resolved. FASSE and Cannon OOD are both available.

  • MonitoringUTC

    Cannon and FASSE OOD are not fully operational due to slurm being slow. With slurm slow, the apps wait too long to be launched and it can throw 502 errors

  • IdentifiedUTC

    Cannon OOD is operational.

    FASSE OOD is still experiencing issues and showing errors for new connections. Existing connections are working.
    WIP

  • InvestigatingUTC

    We are currently investigating issues with OOD (OpenOnDemand aka VDI).

fasselogin nodes
Resolved59 minutes
  • ResolvedUTC

    Login to fasselogin is working. Additional login nodes are not in the rotation and will be added back once they are healthy again. But normal login is working.

  • InvestigatingUTC

    We are currently investigating an issue with fasse login nodes (fasselogin) timing out or not connectring.

Previous

Jun 2023 to Aug 2023

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For issues not shown here, please contact FASRC via
https://portal.rc.fas.harvard.edu or email rchelp@rc.fas.harvard.edu