Been thinking about this more today, and I actually find this new "feature" disturbing. It bothers me that OMPI is now dictating that it will do a parallel build without my knowledge unless I specifically tell it not to. If it were technically possible, would we next force "make -j4"?? How would the developer community feel if the authors of "make" suddenly decided that it would run 4 parallel threads under the covers unless you specifically told it not to?
What bugs me here is that I now have to remember to set something in my environment to tell OMPI "you don't get to hog all my processors". Maybe others twiddle their thumbs and leave the computer alone while OMPI builds, or maybe they rarely build - but I build frequently, and I am always multi-tasking my time (running Word, Powerpoint, etc.). So having OMPI default to running a parallel build is more than a little annoying - frankly, it pisses me off. I really feel that this "feature" should be implemented as an option passed to autogen instead of a hidden forced behavior. If someone wants to run a parallel build, then by all means let them ask for it (ala "make -j4"). But don't just -do- it. Grrrr.... Ralph On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 7:28 AM, Ralph Castain <r...@open-mpi.org> wrote: > I hope you'll understand if I don't run that test while on the road...one > battery yank per week is my limit :-) > > > On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 4:40 AM, Jeff Squyres (jsquyres) < > jsquy...@cisco.com> wrote: > >> Also to clarify: >> >> - did autogen set am-jobs to 2 in your case? (it should do that if lstopo >> is not found - it also limits itself to 4 at max) >> >> - in the same scenario, what happens if you manually set am-jobs to 1 and >> run autogen? Ie do you get the same heat/sluggishness? I have experienced >> vms causing this kind of behavior just because they are running - causing >> CPU and memory pressure. >> >> Sent from my PDA. No type good. >> >> On Sep 24, 2010, at 12:49 AM, "Ralph Castain" <r...@open-mpi.org> wrote: >> >> Sent to both for reference (see below) >> >> Just to clarify. It wasn't a deadlock situation, but rather that the >> machine was overloaded and running so hard that the response to keystrokes >> was multiple seconds. Thus, there was no way to shut it down from the >> keyboard or screen. Even a ctrl-c was just getting ignored for a very long >> time due to the overload. >> >> I was running vmware on my machine, and doing a heavy compile/build in it. >> On top of this, I had email, editor, and browsers running - and then kicked >> off a fresh build in a terminal window. With Jeff's default settings, this >> latter build thought it would be running alone on the machine, and promptly >> generated a number of threads equal to all the processors. Since they were >> already loaded, this drove the machine into the ground. >> >> My point is just that it is unwise to assume that the OMPI build can >> utilize all available processors. I'm sure it's fine for the MTT runs, >> especially on Jeff's machines as they are dedicated to that purpose - just >> not a good general assumption. >> >> >> HTH >> Ralph >> >> ==================================== >> Output of "perl -V": >> >> Summary of my perl5 (revision 5 version 8 subversion 9) configuration: >> Platform: >> osname=darwin, osvers=10.2.0, archname=darwin-2level >> uname='darwin <http://sjc-rcastain-87111.cisco.com> >> sjc-rcastain-87111.cisco.com 10.2.0 darwin kernel version 10.2.0: tue nov >> 3 10:37:10 pst 2009; root:xnu-1486.2.11~1release_i386 i386 ' >> config_args='-des -D prefix=/opt/local -D scriptdir=/opt/local/bin -D >> cppflags=-I/opt/local/include -D ccflags=-O2 -arch x86_64 -D >> ldflags=-L/opt/local/lib -D vendorprefix=/opt/local -D man1ext=1pm -D >> man3ext=3pm -D cc=/usr/bin/gcc-4.2 -D ld=/usr/bin/gcc-4.2 -D >> man1dir=/opt/local/share/man/man1p -D man3dir=/opt/local/share/man/man3p -D >> siteman1dir=/opt/local/share/man/man1 -D >> siteman3dir=/opt/local/share/man/man3 -D >> vendorman1dir=/opt/local/share/man/man1 -D >> vendorman3dir=/opt/local/share/man/man3 -D inc_version_list=5.8.8 >> 5.8.8/darwin-2level -U i_bind -U i_gdbm -U i_db' >> hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define >> usethreads=undef use5005threads=undef useithreads=undef >> usemultiplicity=undef >> useperlio=define d_sfio=undef uselargefiles=define usesocks=undef >> use64bitint=define use64bitall=define uselongdouble=undef >> usemymalloc=n, bincompat5005=undef >> Compiler: >> cc='/usr/bin/gcc-4.2', ccflags ='-O2 -arch x86_64 -fno-common >> -DPERL_DARWIN -I/opt/local/include -no-cpp-precomp -fno-strict-aliasing >> -pipe -I/usr/local/include -I/opt/local/include', >> optimize='-O3', >> cppflags='-I/opt/local/include -no-cpp-precomp -O2 -arch x86_64 >> -fno-common -DPERL_DARWIN -I/opt/local/include -no-cpp-precomp >> -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -I/usr/local/include -I/opt/local/include' >> ccversion='', gccversion='4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646) (dot 1)', >> gccosandvers='' >> intsize=4, longsize=8, ptrsize=8, doublesize=8, byteorder=12345678 >> d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=16 >> ivtype='long', ivsize=8, nvtype='double', nvsize=8, Off_t='off_t', >> lseeksize=8 >> alignbytes=8, prototype=define >> Linker and Libraries: >> ld='env MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.3 /usr/bin/gcc-4.2', ldflags >> ='-L/opt/local/lib -L/usr/local/lib' >> libpth=/usr/local/lib /opt/local/lib /usr/lib >> libs=-ldbm -ldl -lm -lutil -lc >> perllibs=-ldl -lm -lutil -lc >> libc=/usr/lib/libc.dylib, so=dylib, useshrplib=false, >> libperl=libperl.a >> gnulibc_version='' >> Dynamic Linking: >> dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=bundle, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags=' ' >> cccdlflags=' ', lddlflags='-L/opt/local/lib -bundle -undefined >> dynamic_lookup -L/usr/local/lib' >> >> >> Characteristics of this binary (from libperl): >> Compile-time options: PERL_MALLOC_WRAP USE_64_BIT_ALL USE_64_BIT_INT >> USE_FAST_STDIO USE_LARGE_FILES USE_PERLIO >> Built under darwin >> Compiled at Feb 13 2010 13:19:33 >> @INC: >> /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level >> /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9 >> /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl >> /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level >> /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.9 >> /opt/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl >> /opt/local/lib/perl5/5.8.9/darwin-2level >> /opt/local/lib/perl5/5.8.9 >> . >> >> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:26 PM, Ralf Wildenhues <<ralf.wildenh...@gmx.de> >> ralf.wildenh...@gmx.de> wrote: >> >>> Hello Ralph, >>> >>> wow, that's not good to hear. I knew the perl ithreads implementation >>> wasn't all that efficient, but causing a deadlock sounds like you have >>> more trouble than just perl; at least I hope so. For reference, can >>> you send 'perl -V' output (if you like, to the bug-automake at >>> <http://gnu.org>gnu.org >>> list). >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Ralf >>> >>> * Ralph Castain wrote on Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 03:12:16AM CEST: >>> > I found one major negative to this change - it assumes that my build is >>> > being done in exclusion of anything else on my computer. Unfortunately, >>> this >>> > is never true. >>> > >>> > So my laptop hemorrhaged itself into frozen silence, overheated to the >>> point >>> > of being burning hot, and had to have its battery yanked to stop the >>> runaway >>> > behavior. Not a really good thing. >>> > >>> > I would suggest you default this "heuristic" out, and let someone set >>> it to >>> > use multiple runs if-and-only-if they want it. Hate to cite the lowest >>> > common denominator, but this was a very nasty surprise. >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Jeff Squyres < <jsquy...@cisco.com> >>> jsquy...@cisco.com> wrote: >>> > >>> > > Some of you may be unaware that recent versions of automake can run >>> in >>> > > parallel. That is, automake will run in parallel with a degree of >>> (at most) >>> > > $AUTOMAKE_JOBS. This can speed up the execution time of autogen.plquite >>> > > a bit on some platforms. On my cluster at cisco, here's a few quick >>> timings >>> > > of the entire autogen.pl process (of which, automake is the >>> bottleneck): >>> > > >>> > > $AUTOMAKE_JOBS Total wall time >>> > > value of autogen.pl >>> > > 8 3:01.46 >>> > > 4 2:55.57 >>> > > 2 3:28.09 >>> > > 1 4:38.44 >>> > > >>> > > This is an older Xeon machine with 2 sockets, each with 2 cores. >>> > > >>> > > There's a nice performance jump from 1 to 2, and a smaller jump from >>> 2 to >>> > > 4. 4 and 8 are close enough to not matter. YMMV. >>> > > >>> > > I just committed a heuristic to autogen.pl to setenv AUTOMAKE_JOBS >>> if it >>> > > is not already set (<https://svn.open-mpi.org/trac/ompi/changeset/23788> >>> https://svn.open-mpi.org/trac/ompi/changeset/23788): >>> > > >>> > > - If lstopo is found in your $PATH, runs it and count how many PU's >>> > > (processing units) you have. It'll set AUTOMAKE_JOBS to that number, >>> or a >>> > > maximum of 4 (which is admittedly a further heuristic). >>> > > - If lstopo is not found, it just sets AUTOMAKE_JOBS to 2. >>> > > >>> > > Enjoy. >>> > > >>> > > -- >>> > > Jeff Squyres >>> > > <jsquy...@cisco.com>jsquy...@cisco.com >>> > > For corporate legal information go to: >>> > > <http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/legal/cri/> >>> http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/legal/cri/ >>> _______________________________________________ >>> devel mailing list >>> <de...@open-mpi.org>de...@open-mpi.org >>> <http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/devel> >>> http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/devel >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> devel mailing list >> de...@open-mpi.org >> http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/devel >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> devel mailing list >> de...@open-mpi.org >> http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/devel >> > >
