Configuring AWS ParallelCluster - AWS ParallelCluster

Configuring AWS ParallelCluster

After you install AWS ParallelCluster, complete the following configuration steps.

Verify that your AWS Account has a role that includes the permissions needed to run the pcluster CLI. For more information, see AWS ParallelCluster example instance and user policies.

Set up your AWS credentials. For more information, see Configuring the AWS CLI in the AWS CLI user guide.

$ aws configure
  AWS Access Key ID [None]: AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY
Default AWS Region name [us-east-1]: us-east-1
Default output format [None]:

The AWS Region where the cluster is launched must have at least one Amazon EC2 key pair. For more information, see Amazon EC2 key pairs in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

$ pcluster configure

The configure wizard prompts you for all of the information that's needed to create your cluster. The details of the sequence differ when using AWS Batch as the scheduler compared to using Slurm. For more information about a cluster configuration, see Configuration.

Note

Starting with version 2.11.5, AWS ParallelCluster doesn't support the use of SGE or Torque schedulers. You can continue using them in versions up to and including 2.11.4, but they aren't eligible for future updates or troubleshooting support from the AWS service and AWS Support teams.

Slurm

From the list of valid AWS Region identifiers, choose the AWS Region where you want your cluster to run.

Note

The list of AWS Regions shown is based on the partition of your account, and only includes AWS Regions that are enabled for your account. For more information about enabling AWS Regions for your account, see Managing AWS Regions in the AWS General Reference. The example shown is from the AWS Global partition. If your account is in the AWS GovCloud (US) partition, only AWS Regions in that partition are listed (gov-us-east-1 and gov-us-west-1). Similarly, if your account is in the AWS China partition, only cn-north-1 and cn-northwest-1 are shown. For the complete list of AWS Regions supported by AWS ParallelCluster, see Supported Regions.

Allowed values for the AWS Region ID:
1. af-south-1
2. ap-east-1
3. ap-northeast-1
4. ap-northeast-2
5. ap-south-1
6. ap-southeast-1
7. ap-southeast-2
8. ca-central-1
9. eu-central-1
10. eu-north-1
11. eu-south-1
12. eu-west-1
13. eu-west-2
14. eu-west-3
15. me-south-1
16. sa-east-1
17. us-east-1
18. us-east-2
19. us-west-1
20. us-west-2
AWS Region ID [ap-northeast-1]:

Choose the scheduler to use with your cluster.

Allowed values for Scheduler:
1. slurm
2. awsbatch
Scheduler [slurm]:

Choose the operating system.

Allowed values for Operating System:
1. alinux2
2. centos7
3. ubuntu1804
4. ubuntu2004
Operating System [alinux2]:
Note

Support for alinux2 was added in AWS ParallelCluster version 2.6.0.

The minimum and maximum size of the cluster of compute nodes is entered. This is measured in number of instances.

Minimum cluster size (instances) [0]:
Maximum cluster size (instances) [10]:

The head and compute nodes instance types are entered. For instance types, your account instance limits are large enough to meet your requirements. For more information, see On-Demand Instance limits in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Master instance type [t2.micro]: 
Compute instance type [t2.micro]:

The key pair is selected from the key pairs registered with Amazon EC2 in the selected AWS Region.

Allowed values for EC2 Key Pair Name:
1. prod-uswest1-key
2. test-uswest1-key
EC2 Key Pair Name [prod-uswest1-key]:

After the previous steps are completed, decide whether to use an existing VPC or let AWS ParallelCluster create a VPC for you. If you don't have a properly configured VPC, AWS ParallelCluster can create a new one. It either uses both the head and compute nodes in the same public subnet, or only the head node in a public subnet with all nodes in a private subnet. It's possible to reach your limit on number of VPCs in a AWS Region. The default limit is five VPCs for each AWS Region. For more information about this limit and how to request an increase, see VPC and subnets in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

If you let AWS ParallelCluster create a VPC, you must decide if all nodes should be in a public subnet.

Important

VPCs created by AWS ParallelCluster do not enable VPC Flow Logs by default. VPC Flow Logs enable you to capture information about the IP traffic going to and from network interfaces in your VPCs. For more information, see VPC Flow Logs in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Note

If you choose 1. Master in a public subnet and compute fleet in a private subnet, AWS ParallelCluster creates a NAT gateway that results in additional cost, even if you specify free tier resources.

Automate VPC creation? (y/n) [n]: y
Allowed values for Network Configuration:
1. Master in a public subnet and compute fleet in a private subnet
2. Master and compute fleet in the same public subnet
Network Configuration [Master in a public subnet and compute fleet in a private subnet]: 1
Beginning VPC creation. Please do not leave the terminal until the creation is finalized

If you don't create a new VPC, you must select an existing VPC.

If you choose to have AWS ParallelCluster create the VPC, make a note of the VPC ID so you can use the AWS CLI to delete it later.

Automate VPC creation? (y/n) [n]: n
Allowed values for VPC ID:
  #  id                     name                                 number_of_subnets
---  ---------------------  ---------------------------------  -------------------
  1  vpc-0b4ad9c4678d3c7ad  ParallelClusterVPC-20200118031893                    2
  2  vpc-0e87c753286f37eef  ParallelClusterVPC-20191118233938                    5
VPC ID [vpc-0b4ad9c4678d3c7ad]: 1

After the VPC has been selected, you need to decide whether to use existing subnets or create new ones.

Automate Subnet creation? (y/n) [y]: y
Creating CloudFormation stack...
Do not leave the terminal until the process has finished
AWS Batch

From the list of valid AWS Region identifiers, choose the AWS Region where you want your cluster to run.

Allowed values for AWS Region ID:
1. ap-northeast-1
2. ap-northeast-2
3. ap-south-1
4. ap-southeast-1
5. ap-southeast-2
6. ca-central-1
7. eu-central-1
8. eu-north-1
9. eu-west-1
10. eu-west-2
11. eu-west-3
12. sa-east-1
13. us-east-1
14. us-east-2
15. us-west-1
16. us-west-2
AWS Region ID [ap-northeast-1]:

Choose the scheduler to use with your cluster.

Allowed values for Scheduler:
1. slurm
2. awsbatch
Scheduler [awsbatch]:

When awsbatch is selected as the scheduler, alinux2 is used as the operating system.

The minimum and maximum size of the cluster of compute nodes is entered. This is measured in vCPUs.

Minimum cluster size (vcpus) [0]:
Maximum cluster size (vcpus) [10]:

The head node instance type is entered. When using the awsbatch scheduler, the compute nodes use an instance type of optimal.

Master instance type [t2.micro]:

The Amazon EC2 key pair is selected from the key pairs registered with Amazon EC2 in the selected AWS Region.

Allowed values for EC2 Key Pair Name:
1. prod-uswest1-key
2. test-uswest1-key
EC2 Key Pair Name [prod-uswest1-key]:

Decide whether to use existing VPCs or let AWS ParallelCluster create VPCs for you. If you don't have a properly configured VPC, AWS ParallelCluster can create a new one. It either uses both the head and compute nodes in the same public subnet, or only the head node in a public subnet with all nodes in a private subnet. It's possible to reach your limit on number of VPCs in a AWS Region. The default number of VPCs is five. For more information about this limit and how to request an increase, see VPC and subnets in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Important

VPCs created by AWS ParallelCluster do not enable VPC Flow Logs by default. VPC Flow Logs enable you to capture information about the IP traffic going to and from network interfaces in your VPCs. For more information, see VPC Flow Logs in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

If you let AWS ParallelCluster create a VPC, decide if all nodes should be in a public subnet.

Note

If you choose 1. Master in a public subnet and compute fleet in a private subnet, AWS ParallelCluster creates a NAT gateway that results in additional cost, even if you specify free tier resources.

Automate VPC creation? (y/n) [n]: y
Allowed values for Network Configuration:
1. Master in a public subnet and compute fleet in a private subnet
2. Master and compute fleet in the same public subnet
Network Configuration [Master in a public subnet and compute fleet in a private subnet]: 1
Beginning VPC creation. Please do not leave the terminal until the creation is finalized

If you don't create a new VPC, you must select an existing VPC.

If you choose to have AWS ParallelCluster create the VPC, make a note of the VPC ID so you can use the AWS CLI to delete it later.

Automate VPC creation? (y/n) [n]: n
Allowed values for VPC ID:
  #  id                     name                                 number_of_subnets
---  ---------------------  ---------------------------------  -------------------
  1  vpc-0b4ad9c4678d3c7ad  ParallelClusterVPC-20200118031893                    2
  2  vpc-0e87c753286f37eef  ParallelClusterVPC-20191118233938                    5
VPC ID [vpc-0b4ad9c4678d3c7ad]: 1

After the VPC has been selected, decide whether to use existing subnets or create new ones.

Automate Subnet creation? (y/n) [y]: y
Creating CloudFormation stack...
Do not leave the terminal until the process has finished

When you have completed the preceding steps, a simple cluster launches into a VPC. The VPC uses an existing subnet that supports public IP addresses. The route table for the subnet is 0.0.0.0/0 => igw-xxxxxx. Note the following conditions:

  • The VPC must have DNS Resolution = yes and DNS Hostnames = yes.

  • The VPC should also have DHCP options with the correct domain-name for the AWS Region. The default DHCP Option Set already specifies the required AmazonProvidedDNS. If specifying more than one domain name server, see DHCP options sets in the Amazon VPC User Guide. When using private subnets, use a NAT gateway or an internal proxy to enable web access for compute nodes. For more information, see Network configurations.

When all settings contain valid values, you can launch the cluster by running the create command.

$ pcluster create mycluster

After the cluster reaches the "CREATE_COMPLETE" status, you can connect to it by using your normal SSH client settings. For more information about connecting to Amazon EC2 instances, see the EC2 User Guide in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

To delete the cluster, run the following command.

$ pcluster delete --region us-east-1 mycluster

To delete the network resources in the VPC, you can delete the CloudFormation networking stack. The stack name starts with "parallelclusternetworking-" and contains the creation time in "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" format. You can list the stacks using the list-stacks command.

$ aws --region us-east-1 cloudformation list-stacks \
   --stack-status-filter "CREATE_COMPLETE" \
   --query "StackSummaries[].StackName" | \
   grep -e "parallelclusternetworking-"
    "parallelclusternetworking-pubpriv-20191029205804"

The stack can be deleted using the delete-stack command.

$ aws --region us-east-1 cloudformation delete-stack \
   --stack-name parallelclusternetworking-pubpriv-20191029205804

The VPC that pcluster configure creates for you is not created in the CloudFormation networking stack. You can delete that VPC manually in the console or by using the AWS CLI.

$ aws --region us-east-1 ec2 delete-vpc --vpc-id vpc-0b4ad9c4678d3c7ad