Deadline Slave
Overview
The Deadline Slave is the application that controls the rendering applications, and should be running on any machine you want to include in the rendering process. Note that the Slave is the only Deadline application that requires a license to run, and more information on setting up licensing can be found in the Licensing Guide.
Running The Slave
To start the Slave:
- On Windows, you can start the Slave from the Start Menu, from the Deadline Launcher, or from a command prompt.
- On Linux, you can start the Slave from the Deadline Launcher or from a terminal window.
- On Mac OSX, you can start the Slave by double-clicking the Slave application in Finder, from the Deadline Launcher, or from a terminal window.
Command line info:
- When running the Slave from a command prompt or terminal window, this is the command to use:
deadlinelauncher -slave
- To run the Slave without a user interface, you can specify the -nogui command line option. If the Slave is started through a Launcher that is already in nogui mode, the Slave will automatically start in nogui mode. This is useful when running Deadline on a Linux machine that doesn't have a Desktop environment.
deadlineslave -nogui
- To start the Slave without a splash screen, you can run the following:
deadlineslave -nosplash
- To shutdown a Slave that's already running, you can run the following:
deadlineslave -shutdown
- If you have setup or are setting up multiple slaves on one machine, you can start up a slave with a specific name by running the following:
deadlineslave -name "myslave"
- To shutdown a specific slave if multiple slaves are running, you can run the following:
deadlineslave -name "myslave" -shutdown
You can also configure the Slave to launch automatically when the Deadline Launcher starts up. To enable this, just enable the Launch Slave At Startup option in the Launcher menu.
Slave Menu Options
Options Menu
- Hide When Minimized (Windows Only)
- The Slave is hidden when minimized, but can be restored using the Slave icon in the system tray.
- Minimize On Startup (Windows Only)
- Starts the Slave in the minimized state.
- Show Scheduler Thread Tab
- Show or hide the Scheduler Thread tab in the Slave user interface.
- Only Active Render Thread Tabs
- You can show all 16 render thread tabs at all times by disabling this option.
Control Menu
- Search For Jobs
- If the Slave is sitting idle, this option can be used to force the slave to search for a job immediately.
- Cancel Current Task
- If the Slave is currently rendering a task, this forces the slave to cancel it.
- Continue Running After Current Task Completion
- Check to keep the Deadline Slave application running after it finishes its current task completion.
- Stop/Restart Slave After Current Task Completion
- Check to stop or restart the Deadline Slave application after it finishes its current task.
- Shutdown/Restart Machine After Current Task Completion
- Check to shutdown or restart the machine after the Dealine Slave finishes its current task.
FAQ
- Can I run the Slave on an artist's workstation?
- It is not recommended to run the Deadline Slave on artist workstations while they are in use, but we encourage running the slave on these workstations when they will not be in use for a fair length of time (overnight, for example).
- Is it possible to automatically start the Slave when the workstation is not in use?
- Yes, on Windows or Mac OSX, you can use the Deadline Screen Saver to do this.
- Can I run the Slave as a service?
- Yes. If you're running the Deadline Launcher as a service, then it will run the Slave in the background as well.
- Can I run the Slave without a user interface?
- Yes, launching the Slave from the command line with the argument -nogui will run the slave without a user interface:
deadlineslave -nogui
- Is it possible to stop the Slave application from the command line?
- Yes, launching Slave from the command line with the argument -s will stop the slave running on the machine:
deadlineslave -shutdown
- The Slave keeps reporting errors for the same job instead of moving on to a different job. What can I do?
- You can enable Bad Slave Detection in the repository options to have a slave mark itself as bad for a job when it reports consecutive errors on it. More information can be found in the Job Failure Detection documentation.
- The Slave does not pick up any jobs and gives an UnauthorizedAccessException error message.
- This happens when the Slave doesn't have the proper permissions to access the repository. See the Repository Sharing Documentation for more information.
- What does it mean when a Slave is stalled, and is this a bad thing?
- Slaves become stalled when they don't update their status for a long period of time, and is often an indication that the slave has crashed. A stalled slave isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it's possible the slave just wasn't shutdown properly (it was killed from the Task Manager, for example). In either case, it's a good idea to check the slave machine and restart the slave application if necessary.
- On Linux, the Slave is reporting that the operating system is simply 'Linux', instead of showing the actual Linux distribution (ie CentOS or openSuse).
- In order for the Slave to report the Linux distribution properly, you need to have lsb installed, and lsb_release needs to be in the path. You can use any package management application to install lsb.
- Using Deadline 4.x on Windows, the Slave gives a Method Not Found error message when it tries to render any job.
- This is the full error message:
- Method not found: 'Void System.Reflection.Emit.DynamicMethod..ctor(System.String, System.Type, System.Type[], Boolean)'.
- This occurs if you have .NET 2.0 installed instead of .NET 2.0 SP2 (SP2 is the minimum required version). Upgrading your .NET 2.0 installation should fix this problem.
- Using Deadline 3.x on Vista or Windows 7, the Slave gives a Failed To Assign Process To Job Object error message when it tries to render a job.
- Running the Slave application from a command prompt has been known to workaround this problem. This problem has been fixed in Deadline 4.0.