i have good news.

after updating to a newer kernel on ubuntu server nodes, sm is not a problem anymore for the nehalem CPUs!!!
my older kernel, was
Linux 2.6.32-22-server #36-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 3 20:38:33 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

and i upgraded to
Linux agua 2.6.32-24-server #39-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 28 06:21:40 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

that solved everything.
Gus, maybe the problem you had with fedora can be solved in a similar way.

we should keep this for the records.

regards
Cristobal






On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 6:45 PM, Gus Correa <gus@ldeo.columbia.edu> wrote:
Cristobal Navarro wrote:
Gus
my kernel for all nodes is this one:
Linux 2.6.32-22-server #36-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 3 20:38:33 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux


Kernel is not my league.

However, it would be great if somebody clarified
for good these issues with Nehalem/Westmere, HT,
shared memory and what the kernel is doing,
or how to make the kernel do the right thing.
Maybe Intel could tell.


at least for the moment i will use this configuration, at least for deveplopment/testing  of the parallel programs.
lag is minimum :)

whenever i get another kernel update, i will test again to check if sm works, would be good to know that suddenly another distribution supports nehalem sm.

best regards and thanks again
Cristobal
ps: guess what are the names of the other 2 nodes lol

Acatenango (I said that before), and Pacaya.

Maybe: Santa Maria, Santiaguito, Atitlan, Toliman, San Pedro,
Cerro de Oro ... too many volcanoes, and some are multithreaded ...
You need to buy more nodes!

Gus




On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Gus Correa <gus@ldeo.columbia.edu <mailto:gus@ldeo.columbia.edu>> wrote:

   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
       <gus@ldeo.columbia.edu <mailto:gus@ldeo.columbia.edu>
       <mailto:gus@ldeo.columbia.edu <mailto:gus@ldeo.columbia.edu>>>
       wrote:

          Hi Cristobal

          Cristobal Navarro wrote:



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