slurm-eff-tool - Slurm Efficiency Tool
2026 D. Feichtinger
WORK IN PROGRESS
A tool to produce statistics about Slurm jobs over a given time period.
Job data are retrieved through sacct and can be saved in a compressed
cache file that can be re-used for different queries and output options.
The tool offers a number of useful ways to aggregate jobs. Most of the displayed values then are averages over the aggregations (except columns marked with _min/_max)
Usage information:
usage: slurm-eff-tool.py [-h] [-S START] [-E END] [-u USER] [--state STATE]
[-O OUTPUT_RAW] [-F FROM_RAW] [-B WRITE_BINARY_CACHE]
[-L LOAD_BINARY_CACHE] [-i INFO] [-U]
[-R AGGR_REGEXP] [--deflt-mpcpu DEFLT_MPCPU] [--sdev]
[--json] [-s SORT] [-o FORMAT] [--expr EXPR]
[-p PRESET]
Display seff-style CPU, memory and walltime efficiency values from sacct data.
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-S, --start START sacct start time, passed to sacct -S
-E, --end END sacct end time, passed to sacct -E
-u, --user USER restrict to one user; passed as sacct -u unless
reading from cache
--state, --job-state STATE
sacct state filter, e.g. COMPLETED,FAILED,TIMEOUT
-O, --output-raw OUTPUT_RAW
write raw sacct output cache to this file
-F, --from-raw FROM_RAW
read raw sacct output cache from this file instead of
running sacct
-B, --write-binary-cache WRITE_BINARY_CACHE
write a binary cache file in msgpack format
-L, --load-binary-cache LOAD_BINARY_CACHE
load a binary cache file in msgpack format
-i, --info INFO show information for the given binary cache file
-U, --aggr-user aggregate jobs by user, CPUs, nodes, ReqMem, and
timelimit
-R, --aggr-regexp AGGR_REGEXP
aggregate jobs matching regexp by regexp, CPUs, nodes,
ReqMem, and timelimit; may be repeated
--deflt-mpcpu DEFLT_MPCPU
Default memory to CPU ratio of cluster (2.0 GB/cpu)
--sdev after each efficiency average, add sdev, max, and min
columns
--json emit JSON instead of an ASCII table
-s, --sort SORT comma-separated numeric sort columns or aliases;
prefix with - for descending
-o, --format FORMAT String of comma separated column names or short names
defining the output format: u:username, i:JobID,
c:CPUs, N:Nodes, m:ReqMem, n:UsedMem, p:MemPerCPU,
l:ReqWalltime, C:Count, e:CPU_Eff, M:Mem_Eff,
t:Time_Eff, j:jobname, X:waste_CPU, Y:waste_Mem
--expr EXPR arithmetic expression using column names
-p, --preset PRESET use one of several preset output column formats
(default,all,eff)
-S/-E are ignored when reading data from a cached file.
Examples:
# first get an overview (-U/--aggr-user) and write a cachefile
slurm-eff-tool -B sacct.cache -U
slurm-eff-tool.py -B sacct.cache --start 2026-05-01 --end 2026-05-22 -U
slurm-eff-tool.py -B sacct.cache --start 2026-05-01 --end now -U
# now you can read the cachefile for later runs and e.g. sort based on waste_Mem
slurm-eff-tool -L sacct.cache -U -s=-waste_mem
# only list a specific user's summary lines
slurm-eff-tool.py -L sacct.cache -U -u dfeich
# list that user's single jobs
slurm-eff-tool.py -L sacct.cache -u dfeich
# supports multiple sort keys
slurm-eff-tool.py -L sacct.cache --aggr-user --sdev -s cpu,-mem,time
# you can cluster jobs by Regexps applying to the job names
slurm-eff-tool.py -L sacct.cache -u dfeich -R '^vasp','^gromacs'
# supports flexibel output formatting
slurm-eff-tool.py -L sacct.cache -o username,Y
# only print rows that evaluate to true based on arithmetic expressions
slurm-eff-tool.py -L sacct.cache -U --expr "(waste_Mem > 2000 and Mem_Eff < 20) and MaxRSS_max/AllocMem < 0.5"