GET_HTCONDOR(1)

📦
version 25.14.1 · 12 versions
, in fedora 43

💖 GET_HTCONDOR(1) 💖

okay bestie, so this is the get_htcondor page from the HTCondor Manual — the manual is literally right there in the title, iconic — and it's about installing and configuring HTCondor on Linux machines. that's the whole vibe. let's go ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

get_htcondor — HTCondor Manual

Install and configure HTCondor on Linux machines. yes that's it, that's the job 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

get_htcondor <-h | --help>

get_htcondor [--[no-]dry-run] [--channel name] [--minicondor |
[--central-manager | --submit | --execute] central-manager-name]
[--shared-filesystem-domain filesystem-domain-name]

get_htcondor --dist

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

this tool installs and configures HTCondor on Linux machines, no cap. for the full detailed instructions go peek at https://htcondor.readthedocs.io/en/latest/getting-htcondor 💜

but this page? this page is the quick reference, bestie — just the options, right to the point. it also has a whole section about why it installs the configurations it installs, because the reasonings are lowkey the interesting part.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -help — prints a lil usage reminder, so you remember what you were doing 💅
  • --dry-run — does NOT actually issue any commands, it just prints them out so you can see them. [default] — yes babe, it's shy by default 🙈
  • --no-dry-run — okay NOW we're doing it: issues all the commands needed to actually install HTCondor. committing to the bit ✨
  • --channel name — specify the channel name to install from. name can be current, which is the most recent release with new features [default], or stable, which is the most recent release with only bug-fixes 🐛
  • --dist — display the detected operating system and then dip. bye 👋
  • --minicondor — configure this as a single-machine ("mini") HTCondor. [default] — just you, your machine, no network drama 🫶
  • --central-manager central-manager-name —
  • --submit central-manager-name —
  • --execute central-manager-name — configure this installation with the central manager, submit, or execute role. pick your main character arc 👑
  • --shared-filesystem-domain filesystem-domain-name — configure this installation to assume that machines specifying the same filesystem-domain-name share a filesystem. they're all besties, they share 🍓

💀 EXIT STATUS 💀

  • on success, it exits with code 0 — slay ✨
  • failures detected by get_htcondor will result in exit code 1 — not slay 😭
  • other failures may have other exit codes. sometimes things just happen, and it's not this tool's fault, fr fr

👑 INSTALLED CONFIGURATION 👑

so this tool may install four different configurations 🌈 we're gonna talk about the single-machine one first, and then the three parts of the multi-machine configuration all together as a group, because they're a package deal.

our goal here is to document the reasoning behind all the little details — because (a) the details can totally obscure that reasoning, and (b) the details are gonna change as we keep improving HTCondor. so like, don't get too attached to specifics, bestie.

as a general note: the configurations this tool installs make extensive use of metaknobs — these are lines in HTCondor configuration files that look like use x : y. to determine exactly what configuration a metaknob sets, run condor_config_val use x:y. iykyk 💅

🧚 Single-Machine Installation 🧚

the single-machine installation performed by get_htcondor uses the minicondor package. (a "mini" HTCondor is a single-machine HTCondor system installed with administrative privileges, okay? that's what mini means here.)

because the different roles in the HTCondor system are all on the same machine, we configure all network communications to occur over the loopback device, where we don't have to worry about eavesdropping or requiring encryption. nobody's peeking, nobody's snooping 💖

we use the FS method, which depends on the local filesytem, to identify which user is attempting to connect, and we restrict access correspondingly.

the get_htcondor tool installs the standard minicondor package from the HTCondor repositories. see the file it creates, /etc/condor/config.d/00-minicondor, for details. literally go read it 🌸

🌈 Multi-Machine Installation 🌈

because the three roles must communicate over the network to form a complete pool in this case,, security is a much bigger concern 😭 so we therefore require authentication and encryption on every single connection. no exceptions, periodt.

thankfully, almost all of the network communication is daemon-to-daemon, so we don't have to burden individual users with that aspect of security. instead, users submit jobs on the submit-role machine, using FS to authenticate. users may also need to contact the central manager (when running condor_status, for example), but they never need to write anything to it — so we've configured authentication for read-only commands to be optional. letting the girlies look 👀

daemon-to-daemon communication is authenticated with the IDTOKENS method. (if a user needs to submit jobs remotely, they can also use the IDTOKENS method, it's just more work; see condor_token_fetch.) each role installed by this tool has a copy of the password, which is used to generate an IDTOKEN, which is used for all daemon-to-daemon authentication. both the password and the IDTOKEN can only be read by privileged processes. an IDTOKEN can only be validated by the holder of the corresponding password, so each daemon in the pool has to have both. it takes two, bestie 💜

this tool installs the role-specific configuration in the files:

  • /etc/condor/config.d/01-central-manager.config
  • /etc/condor/config.d/01-submit.config
  • /etc/condor/config.d/01-execute.config

consult them for details! 📖

💜 AUTHOR 💜

HTCondor Team

1990-2026, Center for High Throughput Computing, Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, US. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

okay so that's the whole page fr fr 🫶 and bestie, before you go — this one was HTCondor Manual source, version Oct 16, 2026. that's the date on the tin, so if you're citing it, that's your girl 💅✨ ily, go install something 🎀🦋

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