[HTCondor-users] Limit Maximum Running Jobs per User

[Steven Clark <s.clark@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello HTCondor Users,

I am wondering if there is a way to control the maximum number of running jobs as a user. Ideally, I would like to be able to submit large numbers of jobs but only allow a certain number of jobs to run at a given time, the rest are held idle until other jobs finish. I understand that DAG can be used to set parent jobs, but this may be overkill for me as the jobs are independent. I simply want to ensure that there are always a certain number of nodes open to other users so that I can submit more jobs than there are total nodes but never be using every node as a single user. I know the priority system will let other users' submissions run as jobs finish, but I've had the problem of submitting jobs that take a long time to finish and thus lock other users out for many hours until they finish running.

I have searched the forum and found a little info about the MAX_JOBS_PER_OWNER tool, but it is not clear to me how to use this and looks like it may only be used at the level of administrator? Is there a way to do this as a user?

Thanks in advance for any help, please let me know if I can clarify in any way.

-Steven Clark