% drone -h
background - Drone runs in the background if this parameter is set to 1. Use it instead of putting Drone in the background with bg or &. If background is 1, the user can log out while Drone is running. The default is 1.
cacheIPAddresses - If this flag is 1, the numeric Internet (IP) addresses of the remote hosts are cached and used instead of the host names when opening ftp and telnet connections. This may make Drone more robust if a name server goes down while an experiment is running. The default is 0.
compressExperiment - If this flag is 1, the results are tared and compressed to produce a single archive file, after all runs have completed. The default is 0.
compressFiles - If this flag is 1, any files in the experiment directory that match the glob pattern specified by compressPattern are compressed after the end of each run. This is useful if the target program produces some very large output files, such as population dumps. This option is only available if useLocalHost is 1 or if useTmp is 1. The default is 0.
compressFlags - The flags for the compression program specified by compressProgram. The default is -f, which overwrites any existing compressed files with the same name, if compressProgram is set to gzip.
compressPattern - The glob pattern of files that are to be compressed. This is only used if compressFiles is 1. The default is the empty string.
compressProgram - The compression program used by Drone. The default is gzip, the GNU compression program.
compressTimeout - This is the length of time, in seconds, that Drone will wait for the compression program to complete on a remote host before timing out. The default value is 300 (5 minutes). Timeouts are disabled entirely during compression if this is set to -1.
debugInternal - If this is 1, Expect prints diagnostics describing some of its internal operations, especially pattern matching. This is equivalent to the Expect command exp_internal 1. The default is 0.
defaultTimeout - This is the length of time, in seconds, that Drone will wait by default for a command to complete on a remote host before timing out. Other parameters set the timeouts for ftp and compression commands. The default value is 60 (1 minute). Timeouts are disabled entirely if this parameter is set to -1.
emailAddr - This is the user's email address. If this is set to the empty string in the control file, it is set to the user's login ID on the computer that is running Drone. The default is the empty string.
experimentDir - The absolute path of the directory that holds
results for all experiments. The results from the current experiment
will be stored at the path
experimentDir/experimentName
This parameter must be specified in the control file.
experimentName - The name of the current experiment. This is
only used if
useExperimentNumber is 0. If
experimentName is set to the empty string in the control file,
the name is set to experiment. If useExperimentNumber
is 1, the value of experimentName in the control file is
ignored, and the name is set to
experiment-experimentNumber, where
experimentNumber is the current experiment's number.
experimentSeed - This is the seed used to initialize the internal random number generator, which in turn generates the run seeds for each run in this experiment. If this is set to an empty string in the control file, the experiment seed is set from multiplying the current timestamp from the system clock times Drone's process ID. Otherwise the value from the control file is used. It should be a 32-bit integer. Note that the internal random number generator Ran3 only uses 32-bit signed integers for seeds; if the seed is negative, the absolute value is used. The default is the empty string.
ftpTimeout - This is the length of time, in seconds, that Drone will wait for an ftp command to complete before timing out. The default value is 300 (5 minutes). Timeouts are disabled entirely during ftp if this parameter is set to -1.
getProgramVersion - If this flag is 1, the target program's version is recorded and checked against the value of the parameter programVersion. The default is 1.
hostDir - The absolute path of the directory containing the host file. This parameter must be specified in the control file.
hostFile - The filename of the host file. This file should have the full name of each host on a separate line. This parameter must be specified in the control file.
inputFileOption - This is the target program's command-line option that specifies the path of the input file. The default is -I. If a space or an equal sign is required between this option and its arguments, it must be specified as part of inputFileOption. This is only used if makeInputFile is 1.
ipLookupMethod - The method used to look up and cache Internet (IP) addresses of the remote hosts. Currently, nslookup and host are supported. This option is only used if cacheIPAddresses is 1. The default is nslookup.
mailUser - If this parameter is 1, Drone sends email to the address specified by emailAddr when all runs have completed, or if an error occurs. The default is 1.
makeInputFile - If this flag is 1, Drone creates an input file and gives the target program its path on the command line, using the option specified by inputFileOption. The default is 1.
miscOptions - Additional command-line options that are passed to the target program. The default is the empty string.
niceness - The niceness value used if useNice is 1. A high value of niceness gives higher priority to other programs. The default is 10.
numRuns - The number of runs of the target program that are executed for each case in the experiment. The default is 10.
outputControlDir - The path of the directory where the output control file should be placed. This parameter must be specified in the control file.
outputControlFile - The filename of the output control file. If this is set to the empty string in the control file, it is set to experimentName.ctrl.
outputLog - If this parameter is 1, all output gets copied to the file specified by the parameters outputLogFile and outputLogDir, regardless of whether Drone is running in the background or not. This is equivalent to the Expect command log_file -noappend outputLogDir/outputLogFile. The default is 0.
outputLogDir - The path of the directory where debugging output is sent, if outputLog is 1. This parameter must be specified in the control file.
outputLogFile - The name of the file where debugging output is sent, if outputLog is 1. If this is set to the empty string in the control file, it is set to experimentName.log.
programDir - The absolute path of the directory containing the target program. This parameter must be specified in the control file.
programName - The filename of the target program. This parameter must be specified in the control file.
programVersion - The version of the target program that should be used for this experiment. If this is set in the control file, it must match the version of the target program that is used in the experiment. If it does not match exactly, an error is generated. If this is set to the empty string in the control file, the version of the target program is simply recorded and included in the output control file. This is only used if getProgramVersion is 1.
removeExperiment - If this flag is 1, the uncompressed copy of the experiment results is deleted after all runs have completed and an compressed copy has been made. This option is only available if compressExperiment is set to 1. If this parameter is 0 and compressExperiment is 1, both the compressed and uncompressed copies are kept. The default is 0.
rootDir - This is the full path of the experiment's root directory. You can then use the string $rootDir in any paths in the control file, and $rootDir will be replaced by the value of rootDir. Using $rootDir in path names is optional; absolute paths can be used instead.
runNumOption - This is the target program command-line option that specifies the number of the current run (along with the optional prefix specified by runNumPrefix). The default is -N. If a space or an equal sign is required between this option and its arguments, it must be specified as part of runNumOption.
runNumPrefix - This is an optional prefix that is prepended to the run number when giving the current run number to the target program. The default is the empty string.
runSeedGenerator - The method used to choose a random seed for each run. Currently, only the following option is supported:
Ran3: Knuth's subtractive method IRN55 [2], adapted from Numerical Recipes in C [8].Warning: Whichever method you choose should not be correlated with the target program's random number generator! The default is Ran3.
runSeedOption - This is the target program command-line option that gives the random seed for the current run to the target program. The default is -S. If a space or an equal sign is required between this option and its arguments, it must be specified as part of runSeedOption.
saveStdout - If this flag is 1, the target program's stdout stream is redirected to a log file named stdoutlog.runNumber in the output directory, where runNumber is the number of the current run. Otherwise stdout is sent to /dev/null. The default is 0.
seriesLogDir - The absolute path of the directory containing the series log file. This parameter must be specified in the control file.
seriesLogFile - The filename of the series log file. This parameter must be specified in the control file.
setParamOption - This is the target program command-line option that sets a program parameter to a given value. The option's argument is parameter=value. If a space or an equal sign is required between this option and its arguments, it must be specified as part of setParamOption. The default is -D.
sleepInterval - This is the sleep interval (in seconds) between checks to see if the target program is still running on a remote host. The default is 10. This is only used if useLocalHost is 0.
stackTrace - If this flag is 1, Drone will output the Tcl stack trace if an error occurs (this is taken from Tcl's errorInfo variable). Otherwise, only the error message itself is output. The default is 0.
terminalType - This is the terminal type that is used when logging into a remote host, if the tset TERM prompt is received. The default is vt100.
tmpPath - This is the path on each host's local disk that contains the output directory during the experiment, if useTmp is 1. It is normally set to /tmp.
useExperimentNumber - If this is 1, the experiment number is taken from the last experiment in the series log file and incremented by 1. experimentName is then set to experiment-experimentNumber, and the value of experimentName in the control file is ignored. If the series log file is empty, experimentNumber is set to 1. The default is 1.
useLocalHost - If this parameter is 1, the computer that is running Drone is used for all runs of the target program; otherwise, a list of potential hosts is taken from the host file, and the processes are run on these hosts over the Internet. The default is 1.
useNice - If this is 1, the target program is run under the
Unix command
nice -niceness, where the
niceness parameter is set in the control file. A high value of
niceness gives higher priority to other programs. The default
is 1.
useTmp - If useTmp is 0, it is assumed that the file paths specified in the control file are located on some shared disk or remote file system such as AFS. If it is 1, the output directory for each run is stored on a local disk on each host, at the path
tmpPath/experimentName-processID/caseNamewhere processID is Drone's process ID, caseName is the name of the current case directory, and tmpPath and experimentName are parameters set in the control file. This may speed up execution. The results are then collated in the experiment directory on the computer that is running Drone, after all runs are completed. Note that if Drone exits for some reason before the experiment has completed, the results will have to be collated using the command
drone -c controlFile experimentName processIDThe default is 1.
versionOptions - The target program command-line options that are used by Drone to get the program's version. The default is -v. This is only used if getProgramVersion is 1.