NAME

       lam-helpfile - LAM help message file

DESCRIPTION

       The lam-helpfile provides detailed error messages and suggestions for help on how to fix common problems.
       In many places in LAM, when an error occurs, this help file is consulted to display a detailed message of
       what the error was and, when possible, suggestions on how to fix the problem.  It consists of much of the
       information from the LAM FAQ (particularly in dealing with getting LAM up and running)

       At  present,  the  following LAM tools use this help file (it is expected that more will use it in future
       releases.  If you have suggestions for locations where more detailed error  messages  would  be  helpful,
       please let us know):

       hboot
       lamboot
       lamexec
       lamhalt
       lamnodes
       lamwipe
       mpicc (hcc)
       mpiCC (hcp)
       mpif77 (hf77)
       mpirun
       recon
       tkill
       tping

STRUCTURE AND SYNTAX

       The  help  file is multiple blocks of help text separated by single line delimiters.  The delimiter lines
       are of the format:

       -*-programname:topicname-*-

       Where programname is the general name of the program (or  group  of  programs)  that  this  help  message
       applies to, and topicname is the specific topic that this message applies two.

       The  special  keyword  ALL can be used for either the programname or the topicname in some cases; this is
       usually a "wildcard" value where  little specific information is available.

       Within the block of the message, lines that begin with a "#"  are  treated  as  comments;  they  are  not
       printed out.

       Three special escape sequences can be used within the help message:

       %N     Where  N is a number from 1 to the number of arguments that the help message is invoked with.  The
              "%N" string is replaced with the value of the Nth argument from the argument list.  The  arguments
              are  passed  from the LAM binaries themselves; they cannot be edited.  The comments in the default
              LAM help file explain how many arguments each message is invoked with, and what each argument is.

       %perror
              Shows the result of the Unix perror(3) function.

       %terror
              Shows the result of the LAM terror() function, which is essentially  a  wrapper  around  the  Unix
              perror(3) function.

LOCATION OF HELP FILE

       The  exact  location of the help file is configurable.  This allows system administrators and/or users to
       customize the help file for their particular environment.

       When LAM attempts to print an error message from the help file,  it  looks  for  the  help  file  in  the
       following locations (in order):

       $HOME/lam-helpfile
       $HOME/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $HOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $HOME/etc/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $LAMHELPDIR/lam-helpfile
       $LAMHELPDIR/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $TROLLIUSHOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $TROLLIUSHOME/etc/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
       $SYSCONFDIR/lam-helpfile
       $SYSCONFDIR/lam-7.1.4-helpfile

       Note  the  variable  $LAMHELPDIR; this variable can be set according to platform, for example, to provide
       operating system-specific information, or information specific to particular groups of machines, etc.  It
       can also be set to provide help messages in different languages.

       $SYSCONFIDIR is typically $prefix/etc, where $prefix is the location to where LAM was installed;  it  was
       the  option  supplied  to ./configure when LAM was built (or /usr/local/lam-7.1.4, by default).  However,
       note that the value of $SYSCONFDIR can be overridden when LAM is configured with the --sysconfdir switch.

EXAMPLES

       The following is an example customization of the help for the hboot and lamboot programs, when  the  user
       supplies a host file name that is not found.

       -*-boot:open-hostfile-*-
       %1 could not open the hostfile "%2" for the following reason:

                   %perror
       Things to check:

                   - ensure that the file exists
                     try "ls -l %2"
                   - ensure that you have read permissions on the file
                     try "cat %2"

       You may not need to specify a host file at all; the system
       administrators have defined the all of Beowulf cluster host names in
       the LAM default host name list.  If you wish to use all of the Beowulf
       nodes, simply execute:

                   %1 -v

       If you have any problems with LAM, please send mail to:

                   lam-admin@your.domain.com

FILES

       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-7.1.4-helpfile
           default LAM help file

SEE ALSO

       hboot(1),  lamboot(1),  lamexec(1),  lamhalt(1),  lamnodes(1), lamwipe(1), mpicc(1), mpiCC(1), mpif77(1),
       mpirun(1), recon(1), tkill(1), tping(1), perror(3)

LAM 7.1.4                                          July, 2007                                    LAM-HELPFILE(5)