StarCluster Support

The StarCluster project has several ways to get support: the user mailing list, the StarCluster github issue tracker, and the #starcluster IRC channel on freenode.

Submitting Bug Reports

If you’ve found a bug in StarCluster’s code, please submit a bug report to the github issue tracker. In the case of an unrecoverable error, or crash, StarCluster will create a crash file containing debugging logs useful for diagnosing the issue. Below is an example of a crash due to a bug in the code:

% starcluster start -s 2 -v mycluster
StarCluster - (http://star.mit.edu/cluster)
Software Tools for Academics and Researchers (STAR)
Please submit bug reports to starcluster@mit.edu

>>> Using default cluster template: smallcluster
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/workspace/starcluster/starcluster/cli.py", line 155, in main
    sc.execute(args)
  File "/workspace/starcluster/starcluster/commands/start.py", line 180, in execute
    scluster = self.cm.get_cluster_template(template, tag)
  File "/workspace/starcluster/starcluster/cluster.py", line 82, in get_cluster_template
    ec2_conn=self.ec2)
  File "/workspace/starcluster/starcluster/config.py", line 589, in get_cluster_template
    clust = Cluster(ec2_conn, **kwargs)
  File "/workspace/starcluster/starcluster/cluster.py", line 315, in __init__
    blah = blah
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'blah' referenced before assignment

!!! ERROR - Oops! Looks like you've found a bug in StarCluster
!!! ERROR - Crash report written to: /home/myuser/.starcluster/logs/crash-report-6029.txt
!!! ERROR - Please remove any sensitive data from the crash report
!!! ERROR - and submit it to starcluster@mit.edu

Each time StarCluster encounters a crash, as in the example above, a new crash report will be written to $HOME/.starcluster/logs/crash-report-$PID.txt where $PID is the process id of the buggy StarCluster session. When a crash report is generated users should first check the crash report for any sensitive data that might need to be removed and then submit a bug report with the crash report attached.

Issues and Questions

For all other issues, questions, feature requests, etc. you can either:

Note

It’s highly preferred that bug reports are submitted to the github issue tracker if possible.

1. Submit a new issue to the StarCluster github issue tracker (recommended)
2. Send a report via email to the user mailing list (please join the list!)
3. Join the #starcluster IRC channel on freenode and ask your questions/issues there. If no one’s around please post to the mailing list instead.