CRAB: CMS Remote Analysis Builder

Introduction

CRAB, short for CMS Remote Analysis Builder, enables the user to process datasets and MC samples using the GRID. It hides the interaction with the GRID and provides the user with a simple and easy to use interface.

CRAB organizes the processing of data and MC samples in 4 steps:

1. Job creation
2. Job submission
3. Job status check
4. Job output retrieval

The following description introduces the setup and usage of CRAB following these formatting conventions for shell commands and file contents.

Please follow the tutorial navigation to navigate from topic to topic using the navigation bars:

Setup and usage instructions

1. Prerequisites / Installations
   1. Analysis code
   2. GRID credentials
   3. User interface
      1. Local user interface for sh family
      2. Local user interface for csh family
   4. CRAB installation
2. Setup / Initialization
   1. GRID authentication
   2. CMSSW project
   3. CRAB setup
3. CRAB configuration: crab.cfg
   1. Basics
   2. Input and Output handling
   3. Dataset discovery and job configuration
   4. Example CRAB configuration file
4. CRAB basic usage
   1. Job creation
   2. Job submission
   3. Job status check
   4. Job output retrieval
5. Special CRAB usage options
   1. Kill jobs
   2. Job resubmission
   3. Job GRID id listing
   4. Check for compatible resources
   5. Post mortem analysis for aborted jobs

Help and support

The main point for help and support related to the usage of CRAB is the

• CRAB feedback hypernews forum

The user is asked to post questions and suggestions to this forum. The developers try hard to answer all questions in a timely manner and react to requests. Questions not directly related to CRAB (GRID related problems, software related problems, etc.) are kindly referred to other hypernews fora or directly to experts.

Information Resources

Following additional resources can be useful:

• CRAB webpage: http://cmsdoc.cern.ch/cms/ccs/wm/www/Crab/
• CRAB TWiki: https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/CMS/CRAB