Re: [Condor-users] excel on condor

["David Chung" <dchung@xxxxxxxxxx>]

We have some users who run similar Excel apps with macros.  First, get
your jobs transferring the xls file correctly as Ben suggested.  Then,
try using remote desktop to access the machine as the executing user to
make sure you can open the xls file.  If this is the first time using
Excel as that user on the machine, Excel may prompt you for the user
initials.  You'll also want to set the macro security to low.  Try
closing and opening the Excel app again to make sure it opens cleanly
without user intervention.

Then, configure your machine with USE_VISIBLE_DESKTOP = true.  That
worked for us - good luck.

-David


-----Original Message-----
From: condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tkacheff GS14
Jeffrey C
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 8:13 AM
To: Condor-Users Mail List
Subject: Re: [Condor-users] excel on condor

hi ben,

thanks for all your efforts on this. we run a couple of large scheduling
sims that use excel and vba. because of the random nature of the
application
we need to do multiple iterations of the datasets. that is why we
thought
and still think that condor could be an answer to our problems. going
through this drill I found out some interesting things about excel macro
security settings. the macro security settings are not part of the
workbook
but part of the individual machines registry settings. if you set the
workbooks macro to low, (so you will not get the "enable macro" popup),
save
it and then share across the network, the workbook will default to the
security settings of the machine that is looking at it, not what you set
in
the workbook. to get around this I had to set a new variable in the all
the
machine's registry of the cluster. when excel first starts up, it looks
at
the excel security settings that set are in the registry and sets that
for
the workbook. 

but with that said... it still did not work. I almost think it is the
way
that arguments are passed to excel. to run excel from the command line
you
would type... excel.exe "c:\sdk2.xls", the argument here "c:\sdk2.xls"
is
actually the workbook and not a simple value. when condor starts a
remote
job does it know that the excel argument is a workbook and probably has
to
be copy over to be worked upon?

I think if we put some effort into solving this problem we would open
condor
up to a whole new user community.

let me know if I can help in any way.

thx again
jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ben Burnett
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 16:19
To: 'Condor-Users Mail List'
Subject: Re: [Condor-users] excel on condor

Hi Jeff:

I've got some bad news, and some good news:  

I've apparently misled you.  A colleague of mine has informed me that
Excel
actually requires access to the current user's registry (although this
may
have changed).  The problem with this is that Condor currently does not
load
the user's profile (which includes the user's registry entries)-- even
when
you tell it to run as a particular user.  We do this for efficiency
reasons,
because some users may have huge profiles that take a long time to load.

You may be able to circumvent this problem by writing a batch file that
launches Excel using the "runas" command.  This, however, would require
that
you have a common user on all the execute machines (to run as), and that
you
supply a password to the "runas" command-- which has obvious security
implications.   

The good news, however, is that we will be adding the ability to load
user
profiles to a future version of Condor.  

-B

-----Original Message-----
From: condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tkacheff GS14
Jeffrey
C
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 1:05 PM
To: Condor-Users Mail List
Subject: Re: [Condor-users] excel on condor

hi ben,
you got me further down the road with the submit file. it seems now what
it
is doing is starting excel on the idle cpu, but it is not executing the
workbook. 

first I condor_submit the submit file, then I see what machine it
grabbed
thru condor_status. I go over to that machine and bring up task manager,
it
will show excel as one of the processes executing but it is not using
any
cpu time. it looks like excel started but it is not executing the
workbook.

we have the workbook set to start running once it is opened. I tried
running
it from the command line and it worked just fine. I used c:\Program
Files\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe "c:\sdk2.xls".

any other suggestions?

thx
jeff



-----Original Message-----
From: condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ben Burnett
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 15:38
To: 'Condor-Users Mail List'
Subject: Re: [Condor-users] excel on condor

Hi Jeff:

 

Assuming you workbook app starts running when you open it, and that
Excel is
installed on all the execute nodes, you should be able to use something
akin
to the following:

 

universe = vanilla
executable = <enter your ms office path here>\excel.exe

arguments = C:\sdk2.xls

transfer_executable = false

error = c:\sdk2.err 

queue

 

What happened with your submission is that Condor does not know how to
execute Excel data files, it only handles executables and batch files.

 

-B

 

 

 

From: condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:condor-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tkacheff GS14
Jeffrey
C
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 12:28 PM
To: condor-users@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Condor-users] excel on condor

 

et al, 

new user to condor. 

we have an excel workbook app that we would like to run multiple times
on
our condor cluster as a test. if the test is successful then we will
move
our bigger excel models over for multiple runs. 

this some things that I have tried. 

I noticed that I can start the workbook from the command prompt just by
entering the name at the command prompt. this will start the excel app
running. armed with this knowledge I built a "submit" file for the
condor_submit command that looks like this. 

universe = vanilla
executable = c:\sdk2.xls
error = c:\sdk2.err
queue 

when I run this file with condor_submit, the command runs with no
errors, a
computer in the cluster is "claimed" and nothing happens. the app should
take about 15 minutes to execute, but is over in a couple of seconds. 

does anyone have any working knowledge of launching excel apps on
condor? 

thx
jeff tkacheff 


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