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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-7.1.2-helpfile
       $HOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $HOME/etc/lam-7.1.2-helpfile
       $LAMHELPDIR/lam-helpfile
       $LAMHELPDIR/lam-7.1.2-helpfile
       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-7.1.2-helpfile
       $TROLLIUSHOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $TROLLIUSHOME/etc/lam-7.1.2-helpfile
       $SYSCONFDIR/lam-helpfile
       $SYSCONFDIR/lam-7.1.2-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-7.1.2, 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-7.1.2-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)