[slurm-users] slurmctld/slurmdbd (code=exited, status=217/USER)

[Miriam Olmi]

Hi all,

I am having some issue with the new version of slurm 23.11.0-1.

I had already installed and configured slurm 23.02.3-1 on my cluster and
all the services were active and running properly.

After I install with the same procedure the new version of slurm I have that
the slurmctld and slurmdbd daemons fail to start all with the same error:

(code=exited, status=217/USER)

And investigating the problem with the command journalctl -xe I find:

slurmctld.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
slurmctld.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/sbin/slurmctld: No
such process


I had a look at the slurmctld.service file for both the slurm versions and
I found the following differences in the [Service] section.

From the slurmctld.service file of slurm 23.02.3-1:

[Service]
Type=simple
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/sysconfig/slurmctld
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/slurmctld
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/slurmctld -D -s $SLURMCTLD_OPTIONS
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
LimitNOFILE=65536
TasksMax=infinity


From the slurmctld.service file of slurm 23.11.0-1:

[Service]
Type=notify
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/sysconfig/slurmctld
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/slurmctld
User=slurm
Group=slurm
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/slurmctld --systemd $SLURMCTLD_OPTIONS
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
LimitNOFILE=65536
TasksMax=infinity


I think the presence of the new lines regarding the slurm user might be
the problem
but I am not sure and I have no idea how to solve it.

Can anyone halp me?

Thanks in advance,
Miriam

[Ümit Seren]

Looks like the slurm user does not exist on the system. 
Did you run the slurmctld and slurmdbd before as root ? 
If you remove the two lines (User, Group), the services will start.
But is is recommended to create a dedicated slurm user for that: https://slurm.schedmd.com/quickstart_admin.html#daemons