qdel(1B)

💅 qdel(1B) — delete pbs batch job ✨

okay so you're in the qdel(1B) club now, bestie — this is the PBS page, and it's literally your delete button for batch jobs. welcome 🫶

qdel [-a] [-c] [-m message] [-p] [-t array_range] [-W delay] [-b secs]
job_identifier...

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🌸 NAME 🌸

qdel — delete pbs batch job. that's it, that's the whole vibe. poof, gone 💨

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

qdel [-a] [-c] [-m message] [-p] [-t array_range] [-W delay] [-b secs]
job_identifier...

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the way qdel works: it deletes jobs in the order you hand it their job identifiers. no shuffling, no reordering — first come, first deleted, periodt. a job gets deleted by sending a Delete Job batch request to the batch server that owns the job. and once a job has been deleted? it is no longer subject to management by batch services. like it's moved out, changed its number, blocked you. 💀

so who's allowed to delete a batch job? your options are: its owner, the batch operator, or the batch administrator. that's the guest list, no plus-ones 🙈

and here's the part you actually need to know: when a server deletes a batch job, the job gets sent a SIGTERM signal, followed by a SIGKILL signal. the time delay between those two signals is an attribute of the execution queue the job was run from — and yeah, the administrator can set that. but you can override that delay with the -W option. main character move honestly 👑

if you want the deep lore, see the PBS ERS section 3.1.3.3, "Delete Job Request". iykyk 📖

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -W delay — sets the delay between sending the SIGTERM and the SIGKILL signals. delay is an unsigned integer number of seconds. no negatives, bestie, it's unsigned for a reason ⏱️
• -a — delete the job(s) asynchronously. and for a Running job that means the reply comes back before the MOM is even asked to delete the job. lowkey impatient, we respect it 🏃‍♀️
• -b seconds — how many seconds max qsub will block while trying to contact pbs_server. and okay yes the page says qsub, that's not a typo on my end, that's literally what the original says 🙈 so: if pbs_server is down, or for a variety of communication failures, qsub will continually retry connecting to pbs_server for job submission. this value overrides the CLIENTRETRY parameter in torque.cfg. heads up: this is a non-portable TORQUE extension — portability-minded users can use the PBS_CLIENTRETRY environmental variable instead. a negative value gets interpreted as infinity. and the default is 0. 🫶
• -c — clean up unreported jobs from the server. ⚠️ this should only be used if the scheduler is unable to purge unreported jobs. and ngl, it's gatekept: this option is only available to a batch operator or the batch administrator 🔐
• -p — forcibly purge the job from the server. ⚠️ again, this should only be used if a running job won't exit because its allocated nodes are unreachable. the admin should make every attempt at resolving the problem on the nodes first, fr fr. and important: if a job's mother superior recovers after purging the job, any epilogue scripts may still run. 👀 this option is only available to a batch operator or the batch administrator too 🔐
• -m message — specify a comment to be included in the email. message is the comment you send. and yep, gatekept again: this option is only available to a batch operator or the batch administrator ✉️
• -t array_range — array_range is an integer id or a range of integers. you can combine multiple ids or id ranges in a comma delimted list — examples: -t 1-100 or -t 1,10,50-100. the command acts on the array (or the specified range of the array) just as it would on an individual job. slay 🌈

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🦋 OPERANDS 🦋

qdel accepts one or more job_identifier operands of the form:

sequence_number[.server_name][@server]
  or
'all'

yes, 'all' is a real operand and yes it's quoted in the original, so keep those quotes, bestie 💅

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⭐ STANDARD ERROR ⭐

qdel will write a diagnostic messages to standard error for each error occurrence. (that grammar is the original's, not mine — i'm just the messenger 😭)

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🌈 EXIT STATUS 🌈

• upon successful processing of all the operands presented to the qdel command, the exit status will be a value of zero. we love a clean 0 🎉
• if qdel fails to process any operand, the command exits with a value greater than zero. not the vibe, but at least it tells you 💀

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

qsub(1B), qsig(1B), and pbs_deljob(3B) — go read those next, bestie, they're all in the friend group 🫶

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okay that's the whole page!! mwah 💋 this one's from Local, and it's the qdel(1B) page — go forth and delete responsibly, icon 🎀✨🔥