R has been installed in /apps/chpc/bio/R/? and is compiled using openmpi and the GNU compilers. R modules have been created so simply adding:

module add chpc/R/3.2.3-gcc5.1.0

to your scripts will set up the appropriate paths to R, the compilers (if you want to add your own R packages) and the mpi libraries. Note that there may be several versions of R installed and can be seen by running the:

module avail 2>&1 | grep "R"

command.

The Rmpi, doMPI and other packages are already installed to allow R to use MPI to distribute its work across multiple nodes of the cluster. Please submit a request to helpdesk should you need any other packages installed.

Once you've created your R script file, called myScRipt.r, you will need to create a job script file to submit to the PBSPro scheduler.

Example job script file:

my_R_job.qsub

#!/bin/bash
#PBS -l select=2:ncpus=24:mpiprocs=24
#PBS -P SHORTNAME
#PBS -q normal
#PBS -l walltime=4:00:00
#PBS -o /mnt/lustre/users/USERNAME/my_R_data/stdout.txt
#PBS -e /mnt/lustre/users/USERNAME/my_R_data/stderr.txt
#PBS -N RJob
#PBS -M myemailaddress@someplace.com
#PBS -m abe
 
# Add R module (includes appropriate openMPI and gcc modules)
module add chpc/R/3.2.3-gcc5.1.0
 
# explicitly calculate number of processes.
nproc=`cat $PBS_NODEFILE | wc -l`
 
# make sure we're in the correct working directory.
cd /mnt/lustre/users/USERNAME/my_R_data
 
mpirun -np $nproc -machinefile $PBS_NODEFILE  R --slave -f myScRipt.r

Notes:

• Replace USERNAME with your user name.
• Replace SHORTNAME with your research programme's short name.
• Replace myemailaddress@someplace.com with your email address.
• And replace my_R_data with your program's working directory (which must be under /mnt/lustre/users/USERNAME/).
• And change myScRipt.r to be your script file name.

Submit to the scheduler

qsub my_R_job.qsub

Check the list of current jobs in the queue

qstat -w

Here is a more complete example

pbdtest.qsub

#PBS -l select=2:ncpus=24:mpiprocs=24:place=excl
#PBS -l walltime=00:01:00
#PBS -q normal
#PBS -P SHORTNAME
#PBS -M YOUREMAILADDRESS
#PBS -m be
#PBS -e /mnt/luster/users/USERNAME/pbdR_test/std_err.txt
#PBS -o /mnt/lustre/users/USERNAME/pbdR_test/std_out.txt
#PBS -N PBDR_TEST
#PBS -mb
 
module add chpc/R/3.2.3-gcc5.1.0
 
NP=`cat ${PBS_NODEFILE} | wc -l`
 
cd /mnt/lustre/users/USERNAME/pbdR_test/
mpirun -np ${NP} -machinefile ${PBS_NODEFILE} Rscript test_script.R

Note: USERNAME should contain your actual user name!

test_script.R

library(pbdMPI, quiet=TRUE)
init()
my.rank <- comm.rank()
comm.print(my.rank, all.rank=TRUE)
 
finalize()

Finally submit your job using:

user@login01:~ $ qsub pbdtest.qsub