Backburner Monitor in a web browser

To control all jobs on the Backburner network, log on to the server with administrator privileges. Generally, the name used to log in to the workstation is associated with all jobs submitted to Backburner from that workstation. To launch the Backburner Web Monitor:

1. In a web browser load http://<hostname>/Backburner where <hostname> is the name of the workstation running the web server or its IP address. Enter a user name and password and click OK.
2. From the Manager drop-down list, select the Backburner Manager.
3. The display can be updated manually by clicking the Jobs tab Refresh button, or a refresh rate can be set from the Auto Refresh menu.

Job completion handling

On completion of a job, the job can be archived, deleted, or left in the queue. A delay can be set. Job handling can be set:

• Per application. By default, applications start jobs with the following settings. Jobs are set to be deleted after completion as follows:
  • Export and publish jobs: delete one day after completion.
  • Burn and Wire: two days.
  • Cache and Proxy: three days.
• Per manager, in the Manager tab, if the environment variable is set to default. See below.
• Per job, in the Jobs tab by double clicking on a job.

The job handling can be set with environment variables. There is a pair of variables for each application:

• DL_BURN_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING / DL_BURN_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY
• DL_CACHE_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING / DL_CACHE_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY
• DL_PROXIES_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING / DL_PROXIES_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY
• DL_WIRE_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING / DL_WIRE_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY
• DL_EXPORT_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING / DL_EXPORT_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY
• DL_PUBLISH_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING / DL_PUBLISH_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY

The JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY variable takes one of four parameters:

• default: the settings in the Backburner Manager tab are used.
• leave: the job is left in the queue
• archive: the job is moved to the archive
• delete

The DELAY variable takes one parameter, the number of days. For example, on Linux with the default tcsh shell, to delete Burn jobs after two days the syntax is:

setenv DL_BURN_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING delete
setenv DL_BURN_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY 2

On OS X with the default bash shell the syntax is:

export DL_BURN_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING="delete"
export DL_BURN_JOB_COMPLETION_HANDLING_DELAY="2"

These can be added to the user's shell configuration file (e.g. .cshrc or .bash_profile).

Email notification

Per-job email notifications can be set by double clicking on a job or via Action menu > Settings.

To set email notifications for a job:

1. On the Jobs tab, double-click the job of interest, or select a job and choose Settings from the Action menu. The Job Details page appears. The Server field is for where the SMTP mailer daemon is running. It left blank the Backburner Manager’s default setting is used.

Managing and modifying jobs

The Jobs tab presents all jobs associated with the selected Backburner Manager. All users can activate, suspend, and restart all jobs. Users can archive/restore, modify settings and delete their own jobs, while admin users can perform all actions on all users' jobs. From the Action menu a selected job can be:

• Restarted: the job is restarted from the beginning. If another job is already being processed, the selected job becomes pending. While the most common workflow is to suspend a job, change its settings, and then re-activate the job, restarting a job is another possibility. Re-activating a suspended job picks up processing from where it left off. That is, tasks already completed are not re-done. In contrast, restarting a job halts all processing for the job, clears the server of all job-related temporary files (including completed tasks), and restarts the job from its first task. It is identical to resubmitting the job from the creative application, without the need for that application to be running.
• Suspended: If the selected job is completed, the Suspend command has no effect. To reactivate a suspended rendering job: from the Action menu, choose Activate. The selected job is reactivated. If another job is already being processed, the selected job becomes pending.
• Deleted: completely removes it from the queue and Backburner system but does not destroy source material or rendered results. Deleting cannot be undone. If the job may need to be rerun, consider archiving it instead.
• Activated
• Archived

Double-click a job in the list to view more details, or choose Action menu > Settings. Notes on the job details:

• The job priority is from 0 to 100, with zero is the highest priority.
• If the job has not yet started, the Started field is blank.
• In the Server Assignment tab:
  • The Filter on Job Type switch and the Assigned to column can be used to add a new server to the job. Changes are applied by clicking Save.
  • The Perf. Index is a value in the range 0–1 indicating the performance level of the server, relative to other servers on the same job.
  • Server adapters are listed, e.g.:
    • Burn: The Burn renderer.
    • Command Line Tool: The Backburner cmdjob command-line plug-in allows you to submit batch, executable, or script files to Backburner as “custom” jobs. See Submitting Jobs from a Command Line or Script.
    • mio: The MIO adapter engine is responsible for transcoding some streaming media formats (such as R3D and OpenEXR).
    • Wire: Installed with Stone and Wire. Can be used to import/export media, perform Wire transfers, etc. Used internally by Autodesk Visual Effects and Finishing applications.

Server assignment

The server assignment for a job can be changed via the Server Assignment tab in the Job Details window. The following can be set:

• Assigned Server Group: Name of the server group, if any, to which the job was assigned. A server group is a named collection of servers. Only servers in the specified group will work on the job.
• Max Server Count: The maximum number of render nodes made available for the job, as specified when the job was submitted. Set to 0 (zero) to assign the job to all servers.
• Assigned Servers: a list of servers currently assigned to the job. To change the assignment, select servers in the Assigned to Job column, then click Save.
• Filter on Job Type: when enabled, only servers are displayed which have the required adapter for the job is installed.
• Status
  • absent: is no longer seen by the manager, possibly down.
  • active: working on a job.
  • suspended
  • idle
  • error
• Perf. Index: A value in the range [0–1] indicating the performance level of the server, relative to other servers on the same job. A score of 1 indicates this is the best-performing server.
• Adapters: The adapters installed on the server, for example:
  • Burn: The Burn renderer.
  • Command Line Tool: The Backburner cmdjob command-line plug-in allows you to submit batch, executable, or script files to Backburner as “custom” jobs.
  • mio: The MIO adapter engine is responsible for transcoding some streaming media formats (such as R3D and OpenEXR).
  • Wire: Installed with Stone and Wire. Can be used to import/export media, perform Wire transfers, etc. Used internally by Autodesk Visual Effects and Finishing applications.

Managing servers (render nodes)

The Servers tab provides an overview of each render node. An Admin user can do the following:

• Delete a server: Only nodes marked by the system as absent can be deleted. Before deleting a node, consider archiving jobs that made use of it, to preserve job details, including the nodes to which tasks were sent. On the Servers tab, select the node of interest, and click Delete. Deleting a render node removes its entry from the database maintained by the Backburner Manager. It does not delete any software from the node itself.
• Set server availability schedule: double click on a server and choose the Weekly Schedule tab. Green means the node is available. By default, nodes are always available. Toggle render node availability as desired: Toggle a single hour by clicking the hour of interest. Toggle the same hour for each day with one click using the hour buttons. Click and drag to toggle a number of hours at once. Toggle a whole day using the days-of-the-week buttons.
• Create server groups and manage server group settings. A server group is a named collection of render nodes that is treated like a single node. Some applications can be configured to submit jobs to a server group. It might be useful to create groups according to hardware capabilities like whether they are GPU-enabled. Server groups do not restrict the ability to assign render nodes to particular jobs.
  • To create a server group: on the Server Groups tab, click Create.
  • To assign a server group to a job: On the Jobs tab, select the job of interest and choose Settings from the Action menu, or double-click the job. In the Job Details page, click on the Server Assignment tab and choose a server group from the Assigned Server Group menu.
  • To delete a server group: On the Server Groups tab, select the server group of interest and click Delete.

Manager

Use the Manager tab to set options related to the Backburner network, such as logs, server assignments criteria, job retries, and the tasks performed when a job finishes, such as archiving.

• Logging Level
  • Error: fatal errors that halt the processing of a job.
  • Warning: operations that complete with non-fatal errors.
  • Info: successful operations, possibly with minor faults or caveats.
  • Debug and Extended Debug: detailed state information, including TCP/IP packet information. Helpful in tracking down bugs.
• Default Mail Server: the SMTP server through which email notifications are sent. Can be overridden for individual jobs.
• Job completion handling.

Archive

Archiving removes a completed job from the job queue and reduces clutter. Its advantage over deleting completed jobs is in preserving all the information needed to re-submit a job. The job archive contains metadata (job details) only. It does not contain source material or rendered frames, so archiving a job has no effect upon the associated media. Jobs can be archived automatically on completion.

To archive a job from the job queue, select it, optionally change its status, and choose Action > Archive. By default, archived jobs are saved to the Network\Archive folder where the Backburner Manager is installed. From the Archive tab, jobs can be:

• Reactivated. This moves a from the archive to the job queue, with the settings it had when archived. From the job queue its settings or status can be changed.
• Deleted.