TIP: Centralizing Qube configs, jobtypes, logs, & customizations (large farms)

[Scot Brew]

Question: How do i centralize the Qube configuration and customizations?

Answer: There are a number of tweaks that can be done to centralize and tailor Qube for larger installations.  Here are the main ones to look at first.


Centralizing Worker Configuration:
Workers can either be configured from their local qb.conf file or a centralized qbwrk.conf on the Supervisor.  The only thing that the Worker's local qb.conf file needs to specify is the Supervisor (qb_supervisor).   To setup a qbwrk.conf on the Supervisor, see the Administration pdf for details.

Centralizing Jobtypes:
Jobtypes can be centralized by setting the worker_template_path in the qb.conf or qbwrk.conf.
http://support.pipelinefx.com/wiki/index.php/Qube_Knowledge_Base#How_do_I_set_my_own_shared_directory_for_job_types.3F

Centralizing Job Logs:
Centralizing the job logs to a network disk allows the Workers to write the stdout/stderr from jobs directly to the network and bypass sending it through the Supervisor.  Having the clients set the client_logpath directly to that same network location allows them to read the job stdout/stderr directly without going through the Supervisor as well.  This improves both Worker, Supervisor, and Client performance.
http://support.pipelinefx.com/wiki/index.php/Qube_Knowledge_Base#How_do_I_centralize_my_worker_job_logs.3F

Centralizing QubeGUI submission scripts:
The QubeGUI dynamically loads all of its submission dialogs.  These can be tailored for a studio or new ones added.   A search path can be set in the QubeGUI preferences to search for additional locations on the network for these submission scripts.  See the Forum posting at:
 http://support.pipelinefx.com/smf/index.php?topic=630.msg1633;topicseen#msg1633

Setting default submission dialog preferences:
There are two ways one can set default preferences for submission dialogs.  The first way allows one to set default preferences for the submission dialogs without modifying the scripts.  To set default preferences, launch the QubeGUI, open the particular submit dialog, set the desired values, and press the "Set Defaults" in the bottom left of the dialog.  The other way is to modify the submission scripts directly (and likely have them stored in a network location that all users refer to in their preferences).