Command Runner

The Robbie command runner enables users to run arbitrary UNIX/Linux shell commands on a remote high-performance computing machine, including those with GPUs. For example, the command runner can run Python scripts (e.g., python file.py), fine-tune large language models (LLMs), or perform hyper-parameter turning with tools like Weights and Biases.

We will start with a simple example to show the power of the Robbie job runner. (You can download the example here)

First open a command prompt on your local Mac, Windows, or Linux machine and type:

pip install robbie
robbie login

The first command installs the Robbie Python package on your computer.

The second command prompts you for your username and password to authenticate you with the Robbie service. Your Robbie API key will be installed on your local machine.

Next, open a text editor, paste the following code, and save as main.py

vi main.py

This is a common computer vision program

robbie run "pip install torch && python main.py" -–y --tail

This command starts a “run” on the Robbie to execute the following commands (in order):

• pip install torch

• python main.py

You should see a banner when you execute the Robbie run command.

So, what did Robbie do?

1. Selected a default GPU compute instance (NERC Small) in the Robbie cloud

2. Set billing for the job to your `Personal` funds (including free trial)

3. Create a new ‘run’ called `future_pigeon`

4. Copied the local workspace file, including main.py (and other files) to the remote machine

5. Vended a deep link so you can track the progress of the run in the Robbie portal

6. Launched the run in the Robbie cloud

7. Tails the standard output from the remote machine to your local machine, including the results of the pip install torch && python main.py commands.

8. Printed out the duration and cost of the job once it was complete

In this example, we showed you how to run a simple python command, but you can explore more advanced examples here.

To learn how to run your Python programs on Robbie, see here.

For a detailed guide on using the features of the “Robbie” command line, see here.