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Adding Configuration File Parameters to HTCondor

The method by which condor_configurations file parameters are to be added into HTCondor has changed.

There is a file called src/condor_c++_util/param_info.in and in it are definitions like this:

[SCHEDD]
aliases=
default=$(SBIN)/condor_schedd
version=0.0.0
range=.*
state=default
type=string
is_macro=false
reconfig=true
customization=seldom
friendly_name=Schedd
usage=Where are the binaries for these daemons?
url=http://research.cs.wisc.edu/htcondor/manual/current/3_3Configuration.html
tags=master,master
id=552

It is strongly recommended to copy the above and use it as a template.

Required fields

The parameter name in square brackets marks the beginning of an entry.

Strongly recommended fields

The attributes that you really need to care about are default, type, usage, friendly_name, url, and tags.

Optional fields

Further discussion

The machinery which uses the above information is not yet complete, this is why things like the id field can be left as it is among the other things.

No extraneous whitespace. You've been warned.

Be aware that the default is internally implemented as a string, so if you enter double numbers or what not for those types of params that are, you may lose precision when it passed through the strtod() function. Also, there are no interpolations or substitutions in the default. What you see is exactly what you get. This includes trailing spaces.

You may NOT add variables that:

  1. requires a runtime, or nonimmediate, default, like NUM_CPUS. You CAN however, make a default which is an expression based upon another configuration file parameter.
  2. follow a pattern like *_FOOBAR that you cannot specify all cases to. (You'd write A_FOOBAR, B_FOOBAR, C_FOOBAR as individual cases of the above snippet). (<- TODO: Does this work at all?)

Currently, the param() system does not EXCEPT when an entry is not in the default table. It is our hope and dream that one day all of our entries will be in the default table and EXCEPT will be the default case. Of course, there is an interface into param() which doesn't except no matter what, to implement those features which param() things at runtime picked out of another config file entry.

Things to Note!

  1. For entries in the default table, the hard coded defaults in the source code are ignored. If the variable is not in the table, the in code defaults are utilized.