LAM-HELPFILE(5) 						 LAM FILE FORMATS						   LAM-HELPFILE(5)

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
       mpicc (hcc)
       mpiCC (hcp)
       mpif77 (hf77)
       mpirun
       recon
       tkill
       tping
       wipe

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  spe-
       cific 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):

       $LAMHELPFILE
       $HOME/lam-helpfile
       $HOME/lam-6.5.8-helpfile
       $HOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $HOME/etc/lam-6.5.8-helpfile
       $LAMHELPDIR/lam-helpfile
       $LAMHELPDIR/lam-6.5.8-helpfile
       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $LAMHOME/etc/lam-6.5.8-helpfile
       $TROLLIUSHOME/etc/lam-helpfile
       $TROLLIUSHOME/etc/lam-6.5.8-helpfile
       $SYSCONFDIR/lam-helpfile
       $SYSCONFDIR/lam-6.5.8-helpfile

       Note  the  two  variables $LAMHELPFILE and $LAMHELPDIR; these variables can be set according to platform, for example, to provide operating
       system-specific information, or information specific to particular groups of machines, etc.

       $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-6.5.8, by default).  However, note that the value of $SYSCONFDIR can be overridden when LAM is con-
       figured 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-6.5.8-helpfile
	   default LAM help file

SEE ALSO

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

LAM 6.5.8							  November, 2002						   LAM-HELPFILE(5)