idev

Purpose

Idev creates an Interactive DEVelopment environment on a compute node from the user's login window.

Overview

In an idev window the user is connected directly to a compute node. The environment is the same one the user would have in normal batch job, with that added benefit of interactive access. This allows the user exclusive access to compute nodes for development, debugging, and benchmarking. The MPI launchers (ibrun, mpiexec.hydra, etc.) can be used on the command line to launch MPI-compiled executables.

Accessing a single compute node is accomplished by simply executing "idev" on any of the TACC systems. Standard resource options are available on the command line for requesting multiple nodes and specify queues, tasks etc. (e.g. idev -N 2 -n 96 -p normal).

Impact

Idev is the simplest way to access a node interactively through a single window or multiple windows (by simply ssh'ing to a node of the original idev session). For training and beginners, idev removes the barriers to getting started. Idev also has many options for advanced users (idev -help).

Links

https://portal.tacc.utexas.edu/software/idev

Funding Source

NSF Award 1134872: Enabling, Enhancing, and Extending Petascale Computing for Science and Engineering