Hi Cristobal

Please, read my answer (way down the message) below.

Cristobal Navarro wrote:


On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 3:28 PM, Gus Correa <g...@ldeo.columbia.edu <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu>> wrote:

    Hi Cristobal

    Cristobal Navarro wrote:



        On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Gus Correa
        <g...@ldeo.columbia.edu <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu>
        <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu>>>
        wrote:

           Hi Cristobal

           In case you are not using full path name for mpiexec/mpirun,
           what does "which mpirun" say?


        --> $which mpirun
             /opt/openmpi-1.4.2


           Often times this is a source of confusion, old versions may
           be first on the PATH.

           Gus


        openMPI version problem is now gone, i can confirm that the
        version is consistent now :), thanks.


    This is good news.


        however, i keep getting this kernel crash randomnly when i
        execute with -np higher than 5
        these are Xeons, with Hyperthreading On, is that a problem??


    The problem may be with Hyperthreading, maybe not.
    Which Xeons?


--> they are not so old, not so new either
fcluster@agua:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | more
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 26
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           E5520  @ 2.27GHz
stepping : 5
cpu MHz : 1596.000
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 11
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss h t tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_ cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm ida tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips : 4522.21
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
...same for cpu1, 2, 3, ..., 15.


AHA! Nehalems!

Here they are E5540, just a different clock speed, I suppose.

information on how the cpu is distributed
fcluster@agua:~$ lstopo
System(7992MB)
  Socket#0 + L3(8192KB)
    L2(256KB) + L1(32KB) + Core#0
      P#0
      P#8
    L2(256KB) + L1(32KB) + Core#1
      P#2
      P#10
    L2(256KB) + L1(32KB) + Core#2
      P#4
      P#12
    L2(256KB) + L1(32KB) + Core#3
      P#6
      P#14
  Socket#1 + L3(8192KB)
    L2(256KB) + L1(32KB) + Core#0
      P#1
      P#9
    L2(256KB) + L1(32KB) + Core#1
      P#3
      P#11
    L2(256KB) + L1(32KB) + Core#2
      P#5
      P#13
    L2(256KB) + L1(32KB) + Core#3
      P#7
      P#15



    If I remember right, the old hyperthreading on old Xeons was
    problematic.

    OTOH, about 1-2 months ago I had trouble with OpenMPI on a
    relatively new Xeon Nehalem machine with (the new) Hyperthreading
    turned on,
    and Fedora Core 13.
    The machine would hang with the OpenMPI connectivity example.
    I reported this to the list, you may find in the archives.


--i foudn the archives recently about an hour ago, was not sure if it was the same problem but i removed HT for testing with setting the online flag to 0 on the extra cpus showed with lstopo, unfortenately i also crashes, so HT may not be the problem.

It didn't fix the problem in our Nehalem machine here either,
although it was FC13, and I don't know what OS and kernel you're using.

    Apparently other people got everything (OpenMPI with HT on Nehalem)
    working in more stable distributions (CentOS, RHEL, etc).

    That problem was likely to be in the FC13 kernel,
    because even turning off HT I still had the machine hanging.
    Nothing worked with shared memory turned on,
    so I had to switch OpenMPI to use tcp instead,
    which is kind of ridiculous in a standalone machine.


--> very interesting, sm can be the problem



        im trying to locate the kernel error on logs, but after
        rebooting a crash, the error is not in the kern.log (neither
        kern.log.1).
        all i remember is that it starts with "Kernel BUG..."
        and somepart it mentions a certain CPU X, where that cpu can be
        any from 0 to 15 (im testing only in main node).  Someone knows
        where the log of kernel error could be?


    Have you tried to turn off hyperthreading?


--> yes, tried, same crashes.
    In any case, depending on the application, it may not help much
    performance to have HT on.

    A more radical alternative is to try
    -mca btl tcp,self
    in the mpirun command line.
    That is what worked in the case I mentioned above.


wow!, this worked really :), you pointed out the problem, it was shared memory.

Great news!
That's exactly the problem we had here.
Glad that the same solution worked for you.

Over a year ago another fellow reported the same problem on Nehalem,
on the very early days of Nehalem.
The thread should be in the archives.
Somebody back then (Ralph, or Jeff, or other?)
suggested that turning off "sm" might work.
So, I take no credit for this.

i have 4 nodes, so anyways there will be node comunication, do you think i can rely on working with -mca btl tcp,self?? i dont mind small lag.


Well, this may be it, short from reinstalling the OS.

Some people reported everything works with OpenMPI+HT+sm in CentOS and RHEL, see the thread I mentioned in the archives from 1-2 months ago. I don't administer that machine, and didn't have the time to do OS reinstall either.
So I left it with -mca btl tcp,self, and the user/machine owner
is happy that he can run his programs right,
and with a performance that he considers good.

i just have one more question, is this a problem of the ubuntu server kernel?? from the Nehalem Cpus?? from openMPI (i dont think) ??

I don't have any idea.
It may be a problem with some kernels, not sure.
Which kernel do you have?

Ours was FC-13, maybe FC-12, I don't remember exactly.
Currently that machine has kernel 2.6.33.6-147.fc13.x86_64 #1 SMP.
However, it may have been a slightly older kernel when I installed
OpenMPI there.
It may have been 2.6.33.5-124.fc13.x86_64 or 2.6.32.14-127.fc12.x86_64.
My colleague here updates the machines with yum,
so it may have gotten a new kernel since then.

Our workhorse machines in the clusters that I take care
of are AMD Opteron, never had this problem there.
Maybe the kernels have yet to catch up with Nehalem,
now Westmere, soon another one.

and on what depends that in the future, sm could be possible on the same configuration i have?? kernel update?.


You may want to try CentOS or RHEL, but I can't guarantee the results.
Somebody else in the list may have had the direct experience,
and may speak out.

It may be worth the effort anyway.
After all, intra-node communication should be
running on shared memory.
Having to turn it off is outrageous.

If you try another OS distribution,
and if it works, please report the results back to the list:
OS/distro, kernel, OpenMPI version, HT on or off,
mca btl sm/tcp/self/etc choices, compilers, etc.
This type of information is a real time saving for everybody.


Thanks very much Gus, really!
Cristobal



My pleasure.
Glad that there was a solution, even though not the best.
Enjoy your cluster with vocano-named nodes!
Have fun with OpenMPI and PETSc!

Gus Correa
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Gustavo Correa
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory - Columbia University
Palisades, NY, 10964-8000 - USA
---------------------------------------------------------------------


    My $0.02
    Gus Correa


           Cristobal Navarro wrote:


               On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 7:29 PM, Gus Correa
               <g...@ldeo.columbia.edu <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu>
        <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu>>
               <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu
        <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu> <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu
        <mailto:g...@ldeo.columbia.edu>>>>

               wrote:

                  Hi Cristobal

                  Does it run only on the head node alone?
                  (Fuego? Agua? Acatenango?)
                  Try to put only the head node on the hostfile and execute
               with mpiexec.

               --> i will try only with the head node, and post results back
                  This may help sort out what is going on.
                  Hopefully it will run on the head node.

                  Also, do you have Infinband connecting the nodes?
                  The error messages refer to the openib btl (i.e.
        Infiniband),
                  and complains of


               no we are just using normal network 100MBit/s , since i
        am just
               testing yet.


                  "perhaps a missing symbol, or compiled for a different
                  version of Open MPI?".
                  It sounds as a mixup of versions/builds.


               --> i agree, somewhere there must be the remains of the older
               version

                  Did you configure/build OpenMPI from source, or did
        you install
                  it with apt-get?
                  It may be easier/less confusing to install from source.
                  If you did, what configure options did you use?


               -->i installed from source, ./configure
               --prefix=/opt/openmpi-1.4.2 --with-sge --without-xgid
               --disable--static

                  Also, as for the OpenMPI runtime environment,
                  it is not enough to set it on
                  the command line, because it will be effective only on the
               head node.
                  You need to either add them to the PATH and
        LD_LIBRARY_PATH
                  on your .bashrc/.cshrc files (assuming these files and
        your home
                  directory are *also* shared with the nodes via NFS),
                  or use the --prefix option of mpiexec to point to the
        OpenMPI
               main
                  directory.


               yes, all nodes have their PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH set up
               properly inside the login scripts ( .bashrc in my case  )

                  Needless to say, you need to check and ensure that the
        OpenMPI
                  directory (and maybe your home directory, and your work
               directory)
                  is (are)
                  really mounted on the nodes.


               --> yes, doublechecked that they are

                  I hope this helps,


               --> thanks really!

                  Gus Correa

                  Update: i just reinstalled openMPI, with the same
        parameters,
               and it
                  seems that the problem has gone, i couldnt test
        entirely but
               when i
                  get back to lab ill confirm.

               best regards! Cristobal


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