scancel: Cancel a Slurm Job

scancel is your go-to command for terminating Slurm jobs from the command line. It can target a single job by ID or clear out all jobs owned by a user.

Quick start

  • Cancel a single job by its ID:
scancel 123456
  • Cancel all jobs for a specific user:
scancel -u alice

Tip: Slurm also supports the long form of the user option:

scancel --user alice

Common use cases

  • You started a job by mistake and want to stop it quickly.
  • A user left a long-running job that blocks the queue and needs manual cleanup.
  • You have permission to manage a subset of jobs on a shared cluster.

Practical examples

  • Cancel several specific jobs (by ID):
scancel 123456 123457 123458
  • Cancel all of one user’s jobs except those in a certain partition (requires filtering or manual review, not a single flag):
scancel -u bob
  • Cancel a job and ensure it prints a confirmation (exit status 0 on success):
scancel 987654 && echo Job canceled

Common pitfalls

  • Mistakenly canceling the wrong job or user. Double-check the ID or username before executing.
  • On some systems, you may need elevated permissions to cancel others’ jobs. If you don’t have permission, scancel will fail with an error.
  • If the job already completed or is in a state that can’t be canceled, scancel will report an error or no-op depending on the situation.

Troubleshooting tips

  • List current jobs to verify target:
squeue -u <your-username>
  • If scancel returns a permission error, contact your cluster administrator or check your account rights.
  • For batch systems with multiple partitions or farms, double-check the scope (job vs user) to avoid unintended cancellations.

Quick reference

  • Cancel a single job: scancel <job_id>
  • Cancel all jobs for a user: scancel -u <username> or scancel --user <username>
  • Cancel multiple specific jobs: scancel <job_id1> <job_id2> ...

See Also