#1248: SimFactory should not silently disable thorns -------------------------+-------------------------------------------------- Reporter: hinder | Owner: eschnett Type: defect | Status: new Priority: major | Milestone: Component: SimFactory | Version: Resolution: | Keywords: -------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Comment (by hinder):
It was hwloc on supermuc, presumably because the configuration script didn't work. I've now fixed this (see other ticket) so I can now run hwloc on that machine. I see your point, but I didn't have hwloc in my thornlist in the first place (it was not a standard ET thornlist), it was only when I added it that I ran into the problem, and a lot of head- scratching ensued! It was only when I checked the thornlist in the config directory that I saw that the thorn had been commented out. I can see someone getting very confused if they run what they think is an identical thornlist on two different machines, and get an error on one of them because a thorn is not compiled in. This would be solved by a more visible warning though, so I think now that that would be better than disabling this feature.
I'm uncomfortable about simfactory looking at the parameter file on job submission, as it breaks an abstraction (simfactory should not know much about cactus). Would it be possible/good to add the information about the machines to the thornlist rather than adding the information about the thorns to the machine definition? That keeps cactus information with the cactus file, and it would be quite obvious when looking at the thornlist that there is an issue on certain machines. People are probably more likely to look at the thornlist than the machine definition (I think). I think it doesn't matter where the warning is, or when, as long as the user notices it eventually.