*** THIS RFC INCLUDES A MINOR CHANGE TO THE MPI-RTE INTERFACE ***
Note: during the course of this work, it was necessary to completely separate the MPI and RTE progress engines. There were multiple places in the MPI layer where ORTE_WAIT_FOR_COMPLETION was being used. A new OMPI_WAIT_FOR_COMPLETION macro was created (defined in ompi/mca/rte/rte.h) that simply cycles across opal_progress until the provided flag becomes false. Places where the MPI layer blocked waiting for RTE to complete an event have been modified to use this macro.
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I am reissuing this RFC because of the time that has passed since its original release. Since its initial release and review, I have debugged it further to ensure it fully supports tests like loop_spawn. It therefore seems ready for merge back to the trunk. Given its prior review, I have set the timeout for one week.
The code is in https://bitbucket.org/rhc/ompi-oob2
WHAT: Rewrite of ORTE OOB
WHY: Support asynchronous progress and a host of other features
WHEN: Wed, August 21
SYNOPSIS:
The current OOB has served us well, but a number of limitations have been identified over the years. Specifically:
* it is only progressed when called via opal_progress, which can lead to hangs or recursive calls into libevent (which is not supported by that code)
* we've had issues when multiple NICs are available as the code doesn't "shift" messages between transports - thus, all nodes had to be available via the same TCP interface.
* the OOB "unloads" incoming opal_buffer_t objects during the transmission, thus preventing use of OBJ_RETAIN in the code when repeatedly sending the same message to multiple recipients
* there is no failover mechanism across NICs - if the selected NIC (or its attached switch) fails, we are forced to abort
* only one transport (i.e., component) can be "active"
The revised OOB resolves these problems:
* async progress is used for all application processes, with the progress thread blocking in the event library
* each available TCP NIC is supported by its own TCP module. The ability to asynchronously progress each module independently is provided, but not enabled by default (a runtime MCA parameter turns it "on")
* multi-address TCP NICs (e.g., a NIC with both an IPv4 and IPv6 address, or with virtual interfaces) are supported - reachability is determined by comparing the contact info for a peer against all addresses within the range covered by the address/mask pairs for the NIC.
* a message that arrives on one TCP NIC is automatically shifted to whatever NIC that is connected to the next "hop" if that peer cannot be reached by the incoming NIC. If no TCP module will reach the peer, then the OOB attempts to send the message via all other available components - if none can reach the peer, then an "error" is reported back to the RML, which then calls the errmgr for instructions.
* opal_buffer_t now conforms to standard object rules re OBJ_RETAIN as we no longer "unload" the incoming object
* NIC failure is reported to the TCP component, which then tries to resend the message across any other available TCP NIC. If that doesn't work, then the message is given back to the OOB base to try using other components. If all that fails, then the error is reported to the RML, which reports to the errmgr for instructions
* obviously from the above, multiple OOB components (e.g., TCP and UD) can be active in parallel
* the matching code has been moved to the RML (and out of the OOB/TCP component) so it is independent of transport
* routing is done by the individual OOB modules (as opposed to the RML). Thus, both routed and non-routed transports can simultaneously be active
* all blocking send/recv APIs have been removed. Everything operates asynchronously.
KNOWN LIMITATIONS:
* although provision is made for component failover as described above, the code for doing so has not been fully implemented yet. At the moment, if all connections for a given peer fail, the errmgr is notified of a "lost connection", which by default results in termination of the job if it was a lifeline
* the IPv6 code is present and compiles, but is not complete. Since the current IPv6 support in the OOB doesn't work anyway, I don't consider this a blocker
* routing is performed at the individual module level, yet the active routed component is selected on a global basis. We probably should update that to reflect that different transports may need/choose to route in different ways
* obviously, not every error path has been tested nor necessarily covered
* determining abnormal termination is more challenging than in the old code as we now potentially have multiple ways of connecting to a process. Ideally, we would declare "connection failed" when *all* transports can no longer reach the process, but that requires some additional (possibly complex) code. For now, the code replicates the old behavior only somewhat modified - i.e., if a module sees its connection fail, it checks to see if it is a lifeline. If so, it notifies the errmgr that the lifeline is lost - otherwise, it notifies the errmgr that a non-lifeline connection was lost.
* reachability is determined solely on the basis of a shared subnet address/mask - more sophisticated algorithms (e.g., the one used in the tcp btl) are required to handle routing via gateways
* the RML needs to assign sequence numbers to each message on a per-peer basis. The receiving RML will then deliver messages in order, thus preventing out-of-order messaging in the case where messages travel across different transports or a message needs to be redirected/resent due to failure of a NIC
This commit was SVN r29058.
Features:
- Support for an override parameter file (openmpi-mca-param-override.conf).
Variable values in this file can not be overridden by any file or environment
value.
- Support for boolean, unsigned, and unsigned long long variables.
- Support for true/false values.
- Support for enumerations on integer variables.
- Support for MPIT scope, verbosity, and binding.
- Support for command line source.
- Support for setting variable source via the environment using
OMPI_MCA_SOURCE_<var name>=source (either command or file:filename)
- Cleaner API.
- Support for variable groups (equivalent to MPIT categories).
Notes:
- Variables must be created with a backing store (char **, int *, or bool *)
that must live at least as long as the variable.
- Creating a variable with the MCA_BASE_VAR_FLAG_SETTABLE enables the use of
mca_base_var_set_value() to change the value.
- String values are duplicated when the variable is registered. It is up to
the caller to free the original value if necessary. The new value will be
freed by the mca_base_var system and must not be freed by the user.
- Variables with constant scope may not be settable.
- Variable groups (and all associated variables) are deregistered when the
component is closed or the component repository item is freed. This
prevents a segmentation fault from accessing a variable after its component
is unloaded.
- After some discussion we decided we should remove the automatic registration
of component priority variables. Few component actually made use of this
feature.
- The enumerator interface was updated to be general enough to handle
future uses of the interface.
- The code to generate ompi_info output has been moved into the MCA variable
system. See mca_base_var_dump().
opal: update core and components to mca_base_var system
orte: update core and components to mca_base_var system
ompi: update core and components to mca_base_var system
This commit also modifies the rmaps framework. The following variables were
moved from ppr and lama: rmaps_base_pernode, rmaps_base_n_pernode,
rmaps_base_n_persocket. Both lama and ppr create synonyms for these variables.
This commit was SVN r28236.
