Q: 12
You need to do maintenance on a node. What should you do first?
Options
Discussion
A . Draining with scontrol update is the safe move so jobs aren't cut off. B and C look like trick options since taking a node down too soon can kill running tasks.
A . The official guide and hands-on labs both emphasize draining with scontrol first so you don’t disrupt running jobs. B and C get chosen a lot, but only right for immediate shutdown cases I think. Anyone disagree?
Feels like A, draining with scontrol is the correct first step for standard maintenance. B and C are tempting but setting to down too soon would just kill any running processes, which usually isn't what you want unless it's an emergency. Pretty sure that's what Slurm docs recommend too, but correct me if I'm missing a recent change.
I'd pick B here.
Option A draining with scontrol update, is the safe call in normal maintenance. That lets current jobs finish before you take the node down, so no running stuff gets lost. B and C jump straight to DOWN and might kill jobs, which is a common mistake folks make here. Pretty sure it's A unless they want urgent shutdown?
I keep seeing B in some practice sets and the official guide, so I went with B.
A for sure here. Draining the node lets jobs finish before you do anything else, so nothing important gets interrupted.
C tbh, since both B and C say set to down before maintenance. If you need jobs to stop immediately, setting to down ends them right away, which can be necessary for urgent patching. But I might be missing a nuance with scontrol drain vs down.
Why are B and C both listed if they say the same thing? Looks like a distractor.
Need to prevent new jobs hitting the node first, so A. That way existing jobs finish and Slurm handles it smoothly.
Be respectful. No spam.