Hi Gus and List,

1st of all Gus, I want to say thanks.. you have been a huge help, and when I
get this fixed, I owe you big time!

However, the problems continue...

I formatted the HD, reinstalled OS to make sure that I was working from
scratch.  I did your step A, which seemed to go fine:

macmanes@macmanes:~$ which mpicc
/home/macmanes/apps/openmpi1.4/bin/mpicc
macmanes@macmanes:~$ which mpirun
/home/macmanes/apps/openmpi1.4/bin/mpirun

Good stuff there...

I then compiled the example files:

macmanes@macmanes:~/Downloads/openmpi-1.4/examples$
/home/macmanes/apps/openmpi1.4/bin/mpirun -np 8 ring_c
Process 0 sending 10 to 1, tag 201 (8 processes in ring)
Process 0 sent to 1
Process 0 decremented value: 9
Process 0 decremented value: 8
Process 0 decremented value: 7
Process 0 decremented value: 6
Process 0 decremented value: 5
Process 0 decremented value: 4
Process 0 decremented value: 3
Process 0 decremented value: 2
Process 0 decremented value: 1
Process 0 decremented value: 0
Process 0 exiting
Process 1 exiting
Process 2 exiting
Process 3 exiting
Process 4 exiting
Process 5 exiting
Process 6 exiting
Process 7 exiting
macmanes@macmanes:~/Downloads/openmpi-1.4/examples$
/home/macmanes/apps/openmpi1.4/bin/mpirun -np 8 connectivity_c
Connectivity test on 8 processes PASSED.
macmanes@macmanes:~/Downloads/openmpi-1.4/examples$
/home/macmanes/apps/openmpi1.4/bin/mpirun -np 8 connectivity_c
..HANGS..NO OUTPUT

this is maddening because ring_c works.. and connectivity_c worked the 1st
time, but not the second... I did it 10 times, and it worked twice.. here is
the TOP screenshot:

http://picasaweb.google.com/macmanes/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCLKokNOVqo7BYw#5413382182027669394

What is the difference between connectivity_c and ring_c? Under what
circumstances should one fail and not the other...

I'm off to the Linux forums to see about the Nehalem kernel issues..

Matt



On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 13:25, Gus Correa <g...@ldeo.columbia.edu> wrote:

> Hi Matthew
>
> There is no point in trying to troubleshoot MrBayes and ABySS
> if not even the OpenMPI test programs run properly.
> You must straighten them out first.
>
> **
>
> Suggestions:
>
> **
>
> A) While you are at OpenMPI, do yourself a favor,
> and install it from source on a separate directory.
> Who knows if the OpenMPI package distributed with Ubuntu
> works right on Nehalem?
> Better install OpenMPI yourself from source code.
> It is not a big deal, and may save you further trouble.
>
> Recipe:
>
> 1) Install gfortran and g++ if you don't have them using apt-get.
> 2) Put the OpenMPI tarball in, say /home/matt/downolads/openmpi
> 3) Make another install directory *not in the system directory tree*.
> Something like "mkdir /home/matt/apps/openmpi-X.Y.Z/" (X.Y.Z=version)
> will work
> 4) cd /home/matt/downolads/openmpi
> 5) ./configure CC=gcc CXX=g++ F77=gfortran FC=gfortran  \
> --prefix=/home/matt/apps/openmpi-X.Y.Z
> (Use the prefix flag to install in the directory of item 3.)
> 6) make
> 7) make install
> 8) At the bottom of your /home/matt/.bashrc or .profile file
> put these lines:
>
> export PATH=/home/matt/apps/openmpi-X.Y.Z/bin:${PATH}
> export MANPATH=/home/matt/apps/openmpi-X.Y.Z/share/man:`man -w`
> export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=home/matt/apps/openmpi-X.Y.Z/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
>
> (If you use csh/tcsh use instead:
> setenv PATH /home/matt/apps/openmpi-X.Y.Z/bin:${PATH}
> etc)
>
> 9) Logout and login again to freshen um the environment variables.
> 10) Do "which mpicc"  to check that it is pointing to your newly
> installed OpenMPI.
> 11) Recompile and rerun the OpenMPI test programs
> with 2, 4, 8, 16, .... processors.
> Use full path names to mpicc and to mpirun,
> if the change of PATH above doesn't work right.
>
> ********
>
> B) Nehalem is quite new hardware.
> I don't know if the Ubuntu kernel 2.6.31-16 fully supports all
> of Nehalem features, particularly hyperthreading, and NUMA,
> which are used by MPI programs.
> I am not the right person to give you advice about this.
> I googled out but couldn't find a clear information about
> minimal kernel age/requirements to have Nehalem fully supported.
> Some Nehalem owner in the list could come forward and tell.
>
> **
>
> C) On the top screenshot you sent me, please try it again
> (after you do item A) but type "f" and "j" to show the processors
> that are running each process.
>
> **
>
> D) Also, the screeshot shows 20GB of memory.
> This sounds not as a optimal memory for Nehalem,
> which tend to be 6GB, 12GB, 24GB, 48GB.
> Did you put together the system, or upgraded the memory yourself,
> of did you buy the computer as is?
> However, this should not break MPI anyway.
>
> **
>
> E) Answering your question:
> It is true that different flavors of MPI
> used to compile (mpicc) and run (mpiexec) a program would probably
> break right away, regardless of the number of processes.
> However, when it comes to different versions of the
> same MPI flavor (say OpenMPI 1.3.4 and OpenMPI 1.3.3)
> I am not sure it will break.
> I would guess it may run but not in a reliable way.
> Problems may appear as you stress the system with more cores, etc.
> But this is just a guess.
>
> **
>
> I hope this helps,
>
> Gus Correa
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Gustavo Correa
> Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory - Columbia University
> Palisades, NY, 10964-8000 - USA
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Matthew MacManes wrote:
>
>> Hi Gus,
>>
>> Interestingly the results for the connectivity_c test... works fine with
>> -np <8. For -np >8 it works some of the time, other times it HANGS. I have
>> got to believe that this is a big clue!! Also, when it hangs, sometimes I
>> get the message "mpirun was unable to cleanly terminate the daemons on the
>> nodes shown below" Note that NO nodes are shown below.   Once, I got -np 250
>> to pass the connectivity test, but I was not able to replicate this
>> reliable, so I'm not sure if it was a fluke, or what.  Here is a like to a
>> screenshop of TOP when connectivity_c is hung with -np 14.. I see that 2
>> processes are only at 50% CPU usage.. Hmmmm
>>
>> http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/87zVEucBNFaQ0TieNVZtdw?authkey=Gv1sRgCLKokNOVqo7BYw&feat=directlink<
>> http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/87zVEucBNFaQ0TieNVZtdw?authkey=Gv1sRgCLKokNOVqo7BYw&feat=directlink
>> >
>>
>>
>> The other tests, ring_c, hello_c, as well as the cxx versions of these
>> guys with with all values of -np.
>>
>> Using -mca mpi-paffinity_alone 1 I get the same behavior.
>> I agree that I am should worry about the mismatch between where the
>> libraries are installed versus where I am telling my programs to look for
>> them. Would this type of mismatch cause behavior like what I am seeing, i.e.
>> working with  a small number of processors, but failing with larger?  It
>> seems like a mismatch would have the same effect regardless of the number of
>> processors used. Maybe I am mistaken. Anyway, to address this, which mpirun
>> gives me /usr/local/bin/mpirun.. so to configure ./configure
>> --with-mpi=/usr/local/bin/mpirun and to run /usr/local/bin/mpirun -np X ...
>>  This should
>> uname -a gives me: Linux macmanes 2.6.31-16-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec
>> 3 22:07:16 UTC 2006 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>>
>> Matt
>>
>> On Dec 8, 2009, at 8:50 PM, Gus Correa wrote:
>>
>>  Hi Matthew
>>>
>>> Please see comments/answers inline below.
>>>
>>> Matthew MacManes wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Gus, Thanks for your ideas.. I have a few questions, and will try to
>>>> answer yours in hopes of solving this!!
>>>>
>>>
>>> A simple way to test OpenMPI on your system is to run the
>>> test programs that come with the OpenMPI source code,
>>> hello_c.c, connectivity_c.c, and ring_c.c:
>>> http://www.open-mpi.org/
>>>
>>> Get the tarball from the OpenMPI site, gzip and untar it,
>>> and look for it in the "examples" directory.
>>> Compile it with /your/path/to/openmpi/bin/mpicc hello_c.c
>>> Run it with /your/path/to/openmpi/bin/mpiexec -np X a.out
>>> using X = 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, ...
>>>
>>> This will tell if your OpenMPI is functional,
>>> and if you can run on many Nehalem cores,
>>> even with oversubscription perhaps.
>>> It will also set the stage for further investigation of your
>>> actual programs.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Should I worry about setting things like --num-cores --bind-to-cores?
>>>>  This, I think, gets at your questions about processor affinity.. Am I
>>>> right? I could not exactly figure out the -mca mpi-paffinity_alone stuff...
>>>>
>>>
>>> I use the simple minded -mca mpi-paffinity_alone 1.
>>> This is probably the easiest way to assign a process to a core.
>>> There more complex  ways in OpenMPI, but I haven't tried.
>>> Indeed, -mca mpi-paffinity_alone 1 does improve performance of
>>> our programs here.
>>> There is a chance that without it the 16 virtual cores of
>>> your Nehalem get confused with more than 3 processes
>>> (you reported that -np > 3 breaks).
>>>
>>> Did you try adding just -mca mpi-paffinity_alone 1  to
>>> your mpiexec command line?
>>>
>>>
>>>  1. Additional load: nope. nothing else, most of the time not even
>>>> firefox.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Good.
>>> Turn off firefox, etc, to make it even better.
>>> Ideally, use runlevel 3, no X, like a computer cluster node,
>>> but this may not be required.
>>>
>>>  2. RAM: no problems apparent when monitoring through TOP. Interesting, I
>>>> did wonder about oversubscription, so I tried the option
>>>> --nooversubscription, but this gave me an error mssage.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Oversubscription from your program would only happen if
>>> you asked for more processes than available cores, i.e.,
>>> -np > 8 (or "virtual" cores, in case of Nehalem hyperthreading,
>>> -np > 16).
>>> Since you have -np=4 there is no oversubscription,
>>> unless you have other external load (e.g. Matlab, etc),
>>> but you said you don't.
>>>
>>> Yet another possibility would be if your program is threaded
>>> (e.g. using OpenMP along with MPI), but considering what you
>>> said about OpenMP I would guess the programs don't use it.
>>> For instance, you launch the program with 4 MPI processes,
>>> and each process decides to start, say, 8 OpenMP threads.
>>> You end up with 32 threads and 8 (real) cores (or 16 hyperthreaded
>>> ones on Nehalem).
>>>
>>>
>>> What else does top say?
>>> Any hog processes (memory- or CPU-wise)
>>> besides your program processes?
>>>
>>>  3. I have not tried other MPI flavors.. Ive been speaking to the authors
>>>> of the programs, and they are both using openMPI.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I was not trying to convince you to use another MPI.
>>> I use MPICH2 also, but OpenMPI reigns here.
>>> The idea or trying it with MPICH2 was just to check whether OpenMPI
>>> is causing the problem, but I don't think it is.
>>>
>>>  4. I don't think that this is a problem, as I'm specifying
>>>> --with-mpi=/usr/bin/...  when I compile the programs. Is there any other 
>>>> way
>>>> to be sure that this is not a problem?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Hmmm ....
>>> I don't know about your Ubuntu (we have CentOS and Fedora on various
>>> machines).
>>> However, most Linux distributions come with their MPI flavors,
>>> and so do compilers, etc.
>>> Often times they install these goodies in unexpected places,
>>> and this has caused a lot of frustration.
>>> There are tons of postings on this list that eventually
>>> boiled down to mismatched versions of MPI in unexpected places.
>>>
>>>
>>> The easy way is to use full path names to compile and to run.
>>> Something like this:
>>> /my/openmpi/bin/mpicc on your program configuration script),
>>>
>>> and something like this
>>> /my/openmpi/bin/mpiexec -np  ... bla, bla ...
>>> when you submit the job.
>>>
>>> You can check your version with "which mpicc", "which mpiexec",
>>> and (perhaps using full path names) with
>>> "ompi_info", "mpicc --showme", "mpiexec --help".
>>>
>>>
>>>  5. I had not been, and you could see some shuffling when monitoring the
>>>> load on specific processors. I have tried to use --bind-to-cores to deal
>>>> with this. I don't understand how to use the -mca options you asked about.
>>>> 6. I am using Ubuntu 9.10. gcc 4.4.1 and g++  4.4.1
>>>>
>>>
>>> I am afraid I won't be of help, because I don't have Nehalem.
>>> However, I read about Nehalem requiring quite recent kernels
>>> to get all of its features working right.
>>>
>>> What is the output of "uname -a"?
>>> This will tell the kernel version, etc.
>>> Other list subscribers may give you a suggestion if you post the
>>> information.
>>>
>>>  MyBayes is a for bayesian phylogenetics:
>>>> http://mrbayes.csit.fsu.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ABySS: is a
>>>> program for assembly of DNA sequence data:
>>>> http://www.bcgsc.ca/platform/bioinfo/software/abyss
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks for the links!
>>> I had found the MrBayes link.
>>> I eventually found what your ABySS was about, but no links.
>>> Amazing that it is about DNA/gene sequencing.
>>> Our abyss here is the deep ocean ... :)
>>> Abysmal difference!
>>>
>>>  Do the programs mix MPI (message passing) with OpenMP (threads)?
>>>>>
>>>> Im honestly not sure what this means..
>>>>
>>>
>>> Some programs mix the two.
>>> OpenMP only works in a shared memory environment (e.g. a single
>>> computer like yours), whereas MPI can use both shared memory
>>> and work across a network (e.g. in a cluster).
>>> There are other differences too.
>>>
>>> Unlikely that you have this hybrid type of parallel program,
>>> otherwise there would be some reference to OpenMP
>>> on the very program configuration files, program documentation, etc.
>>> Also, in general the configuration scripts of these hybrid
>>> programs can turn on MPI only, or OpenMP only, or both,
>>> depending on how you configure.
>>>
>>> Even to compile with OpenMP you would need a proper compiler
>>> flag, but that one might be hidden in a Makefile too, making
>>> a bit hard to find. "grep -n mp Makefile" may give a clue.
>>> Anything on the documentation that mentions threads or OpenMP?
>>>
>>> FYI, here is OpenMP:
>>> http://openmp.org/wp/
>>>
>>>  Thanks for all your help!
>>>>
>>> > Matt
>>>
>>> Well, so far it didn't really help. :(
>>>
>>> But let's hope to find a clue,
>>> maybe with a little help of
>>> our list subscriber friends.
>>>
>>> Gus Correa
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Gustavo Correa
>>> Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory - Columbia University
>>> Palisades, NY, 10964-8000 - USA
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>  Hi Matthew
>>>>>
>>>>> More guesses/questions than anything else:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) Is there any additional load on this machine?
>>>>> We had problems like that (on different machines) when
>>>>> users start listening to streaming video, doing Matlab calculations,
>>>>> etc, while the MPI programs are running.
>>>>> This tends to oversubscribe the cores, and may lead to crashes.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2) RAM:
>>>>> Can you monitor the RAM usage through "top"?
>>>>> (I presume you are on Linux.)
>>>>> It may show unexpected memory leaks, if they exist.
>>>>>
>>>>> On "top", type "1" (one) see all cores, type "f" then "j"
>>>>> to see the core number associated to each process.
>>>>>
>>>>> 3) Do the programs work right with other MPI flavors (e.g. MPICH2)?
>>>>> If not, then it is not OpenMPI's fault.
>>>>>
>>>>> 4) Any possibility that the MPI versions/flavors of mpicc and
>>>>> mpirun that you are using to compile and launch the program are not the
>>>>> same?
>>>>>
>>>>> 5) Are you setting processor affinity on mpiexec?
>>>>>
>>>>> mpiexec -mca mpi_paffinity_alone 1 -np ... bla, bla ...
>>>>>
>>>>> Context switching across the cores may also cause trouble, I suppose.
>>>>>
>>>>> 6) Which Linux are you using (uname -a)?
>>>>>
>>>>> On other mailing lists I read reports that only quite recent kernels
>>>>> support all the Intel Nehalem processor features well.
>>>>> I don't have Nehalem, I can't help here,
>>>>> but the information may be useful
>>>>> for other list subscribers to help you.
>>>>>
>>>>> ***
>>>>>
>>>>> As for the programs, some programs require specific setup,
>>>>> (and even specific compilation) when the number of MPI processes
>>>>> vary.
>>>>> It may help if you tell us a link to the program sites.
>>>>>
>>>>> Baysian statistics is not totally out of our business,
>>>>> but phylogenetic genetic trees is not really my league,
>>>>> hence forgive me any bad guesses, please,
>>>>> but would it need specific compilation or a different
>>>>> set of input parameters to run correctly on a different
>>>>> number of processors?
>>>>> Do the programs mix MPI (message passing) with OpenMP (threads)?
>>>>>
>>>>> I found this MrBayes, which seems to do the above:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://mrbayes.csit.fsu.edu/
>>>>> http://mrbayes.csit.fsu.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>>>>>
>>>>> As for the ABySS, what is it, where can it be found?
>>>>> Doesn't look like a deep ocean circulation model, as the name suggest.
>>>>>
>>>>> My $0.02
>>>>> Gus Correa
>>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> users mailing list
>>>> us...@open-mpi.org
>>>> http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/users
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> users mailing list
>>> us...@open-mpi.org
>>> http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/users
>>>
>>
>> _________________________________
>> Matthew MacManes
>> PhD Candidate
>> University of California- Berkeley
>> Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
>> Phone: 510-495-5833
>> Lab Website: http://ib.berkeley.edu/labs/lacey
>> Personal Website: http://macmanes.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> users mailing list
>> us...@open-mpi.org
>> http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/users
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> users mailing list
> us...@open-mpi.org
> http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/users
>

Reply via email to