Linux: Cgroups Resource Limiting

This document describes the process of a basic installation of the arbiter2 tool, that can be used to apply CPU & Memory limits on logged-in Linux users, using cgroups accounting. The official documentation can be found at https://github.com/subfission/arbiter2/blob/master/INSTALL.md

Installing Python

$ sudo yum install python36 

Installing external modules

$ python3 -m ensurepip --default-pip
$ pip3 install matplotlib toml requests  # requests may not be necessary

Acquiring the Arbiter2 source files

$ sudo yum install git

# Clone arbiter2 to /etc/arbiter2(recommended)
$ git clone https://gitlab.chpc.utah.edu/arbiter2/arbiter2.git optional-destination-directory

Setting up 'arbiter' user to run the script

$ useradd -M -N -r -s /bin/false -c "System account for Arbiter2" arbiter

# Create group arbiter
$ groupadd arbiter 

# Add user arbiter to group arbiter
$ usermod -a -G arbiter arbiter

Allowing cgroup files to be edited without root via sudo

$ sudo python3 tools/make_sudoers.py -u arbiter -g arbiter > /etc/sudoers.d/arbiter2

Create logs directory

$ mkdir -p arbiter2/logs/`hostname`
$ chown arbiter arbiter2/logs/`hostname`
$ chmod 773 arbiter2/logs/`hostname`

# Make arbiter the owner of cloned arbiter2 directory
$ chown -R arbiter /etc/arbiter2

Setup arbiter2 service file

Modify /etc/arbiter2/arbiter2.service file

[Service]

# Username to run the arbiter2 service as. Recommended to run as arbiter.
User=arbiter

# Find arbiter uid with `id -u arbiter`
Slice=user-<ARBITER UID>.slice

# Set arbiter2 directory path
Environment=ARBITER_DIR=/etc/arbiter2
WorkingDirectory=/etc/arbiter2

ExecStart=<python-absolute-path>/python3.6 ${ARBITER_DIR}/arbiter/arbiter.py -g /etc/arbiter2/etc/config.toml -s  

# Copy service file to systemd dir
$ cp /etc/arbiter2/arbiter2.service /etc/systemd/system/$service