EG to GRID connection - how to tell when SAS will terminate normally

[jwilson]

Hi everyone,

My organization has a fairly new GRID server where we have implemented some custom session management tools so users can restore data into a new session when an old session crashes. The basic idea behind this was that if SAS does not terminate normally, it will not delete the work folder, so a user can then take the contents of that work folder and load it into a new session (so they don't have to re-generate the datasets). 

When we were testing this functionality, killing the EG client using task manager would cause the work directory to not be deleted.  However, today I realized that if I restart my computer with EG open, the work directory does get deleted.  This is especially confusing since when I open EG, I am greeted with an auto-recovered project (indicating EG did not exit normally).

I didn't realize there would be a difference between ending a process via task manager and the restart process ending EG, but now I need to figure out what to do about it.  Is there some sort of a cheat sheet as to what causes SAS on the server side to terminate normally and what doesn't?  Additionally, how can I get SAS to terminate abnormally when the user doesn't hit "exit" on the EG client, but instead EG closes because, for example, a scheduled restart while the user is AFK?

Hoping I am making some sense...

[SASKiwi]

There's no way you can tell in advance what's going to happen in a server-side SAS session using EG as this is mostly driven by EG user behaviour. By that I mean do they always close EG cleanly when finished using it, or are they like me and just leave it open? EG is designed to be able to reconnect to your SAS server, in a new session, while keeping all of your current projects open. I bet a lot of EG users work this way.

I take the approach that SAS users are responsible for managing their own SAS data and if they want to keep it between SAS sessions then they had better remember to store it in a permanent library. Leaving data in the WORK library is at their own risk.  

[Reeza]

Agree with SASkiwi and if they want to keep those temporary session data, look into the USER library and maybe consider leveraging that with some processes to clean it out manually instead.

[jwilson]

That is definitely our approach, but we also provide extra tools to help them not lose data if they keep a session open that is killed/crashes.  Users understand that when they exit EG normally, their data will be cleaned up immediately.  I guess this is just a corner situation where I wasn't expecting the user's data to be cleaned up immediately since they didn't exit EG normally. 

[Sajid01]

Hello @jwilson 
Whenever there is an abnormal termination of an EG session the work folder is indeed not deleted.
When you are restarting your local machine wit EG open, the OS would send a terminate signal to your application. The EG session is having a forced termination. That is why your session is terminated.
Did you check the metadata server / object spawner logs?

You are greeted for recovering auto saved session because this is saved locally.
You can reproduce abnormal termination by powering off the machine.