What does SGE mean by "positive submission priority requires operator privileges"?

Question

I am relatively new to SGE and am encountering this error when I try to run jobs:

"System error message: Unable to run job: job rejected: positive submission priority requires operator privileges."

I have added several users, created an access list (users) and added them to it, then set user_lists = users in my main queue.

Do the users each need to be added to the operators list as well? Why is this?

Answer 1

As the error message implies, what is the priority of the jobs you are submitting, and is this value illegal? Priority of jobs for regular users cannot be positive:

-p priority
              Available for qsub, qsh, qrsh, qlogin and qalter only.

              Defines  or redefines the priority of the job relative to other jobs.  Prior-
              ity is an integer in the range -1023 to 1024.  The default priority value for
              jobs is 0.

              Users may only decrease the priority of their jobs.  Grid Engine managers and
              administrators may also increase the priority  associated  with  jobs.  If  a
              pending  job has higher priority, it is earlier eligible for being dispatched
              by the Grid Engine scheduler.

In general, all users should not be operators. Operator is like admin user. So, I suspect you are submitting job with illegal default priority. Maybe you set this to invalid value in sge_request config file?

Example sge_request file in $SGE_ROOT/default/common/sge_request:

#
#
# This file contains cell wide default submit options which are
# automatically applied to all job submission requests. Users can get rid of
# these defaults by using the -clear option.
#
# See sge_request(5) for a detailed description of the file format.
#
#___INFO__MARK_BEGIN__
##########################################################################
#
#  The Contents of this file are made available subject to the terms of
#  the Sun Industry Standards Source License Version 1.2
#
#  Sun Microsystems Inc., March, 2001
#
#
#  Sun Industry Standards Source License Version 1.2
#  =================================================
#  The contents of this file are subject to the Sun Industry Standards
#  Source License Version 1.2 (the "License"); You may not use this file
#  except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the
#  License at http://gridengine.sunsource.net/Gridengine_SISSL_license.html
#
#  Software provided under this License is provided on an "AS IS" basis,
#  WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,
#  WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES THAT THE SOFTWARE IS FREE OF DEFECTS,
#  MERCHANTABLE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGING.
#  See the License for the specific provisions governing your rights and
#  obligations concerning the Software.
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#
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##########################################################################
#___INFO__MARK_END__

#
# Sample #1 prevents job submissions of jobs which can
# never be scheduled.
#
# -w e
#

#
# Sample #2 causes the jobs standard error stream to be merged
# into the standard outout stream.
#
# -j y
#

#
# Sample #3 assigns a low default submit priority. For higher
# prior jobs the priority can be increased at jobs submission
# time by uing "-p <higher_priority>". The value of
# <higher_priority> may not exeed 0 because priorities above
# this value can only be set by managers.
#
# Please notice that in GRD submission priorities have a
# different meaning.
#
-q short.q -l h_vmem=3g