RELEASE_NOTES

RELEASE NOTES FOR SLURM VERSION 21.08

IMPORTANT NOTES:
If using the slurmdbd (Slurm DataBase Daemon) you must update this first.

NOTE: If using a backup DBD you must start the primary first to do any
database conversion, the backup will not start until this has happened.

The 21.08 slurmdbd will work with Slurm daemons of version 20.02 and above.
You will not need to update all clusters at the same time, but it is very
important to update slurmdbd first and having it running before updating
any other clusters making use of it.

Slurm can be upgraded from version 20.02 or 20.11 to version 21.08 without loss
of jobs or other state information. Upgrading directly from an earlier version
of Slurm will result in loss of state information.

If using SPANK plugins that use the Slurm APIs, they should be recompiled when
upgrading Slurm to a new major release.

HIGHLIGHTS
==========
 -- Removed gres/mic plugin used to support Xeon Phi coprocessors.
 -- Add LimitFactor to the QOS. A float that is factored into an associations
    GrpTRES limits.  For example, if the LimitFactor is 2, then an association
    with a GrpTRES of 30 CPUs, would be allowed to allocate 60 CPUs when
    running under this QOS.
 -- A job's next_step_id counter now resets to 0 after being requeued.
    Previously, the step id's would continue from the job's last run.
 -- API change: Removed slurm_kill_job_msg and modified the function signature
    for slurm_kill_job2. slurm_kill_job2 should be used instead of
    slurm_kill_job_msg.

CONFIGURATION FILE CHANGES (see man appropriate man page for details)
=====================================================================
 -- Errors detected in the parser handlers due to invalid configurations are now
    propagated and can lead to fatal (and thus exit) the calling process.
 -- Enforce a valid configuration for AccountingStorageEnforce in slurm.conf.
    If the configuration is invalid, then an error message will be printed and
    the command or daemon (including slurmctld) will not run.

COMMAND CHANGES (see man pages for details)
===========================================
 -- Changed the --format handling for negative field widths (left justified)
    to apply to the column headers as well as the printed fields.
 -- Invalidate multiple partition requests when using partition based
    associations.

API CHANGES
===========