Hey Bjarne,
The reason setting resources_max.nodes did not work is that the nodes resource is a string. Setting resources_max on a string will only do an exact string match. Dilip is correct that setting resources_max.nodect should work for you.
As a warning, nodect is really a chunk count now. This won’t make a difference if you use the old ‘nodes’ syntax(or -lplace=scatter). If you start using the select syntax, resources_max.nodect may not work as desired. A job requesting -lselect=4:ncpus=1 will have a nodect=4. This job will be rejected on submission due to the resources_max. The scheduler would have happily run all 4 chunks on one vnode.
Bhroam