Dear Matt, thank you for your answer.

I am using PCFIELDSPLIT as PC in BCGSL, and my setup is using quite much memory 
(it seems). I have found a setup which is fast, but uses so much memory that I 
would like to avoid doubling it by using two KSP objects. If I remember 
correctly, using one instead of two KSPs in this case saves about 20-30% of 
memory (in my specific problem, which includes other undisclosed parts as well).

That is the underlying "memory reason" that eventually has led me to the 
conclusion that I need to access the vector red->x in PCApply_Redistribute().

Best regards,
Jonas Lundgren

________________________________
Från: Matthew Knepley <[email protected]>
Skickat: den 21 augusti 2023 17:47
Till: Jonas Lundgren <[email protected]>
Kopia: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Ämne: Re: [petsc-users] (Sub) KSP initial guess with PCREDISTRIBUTE

On Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 4:06 AM Jonas Lundgren via petsc-users 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Dear PETSc users,



I have a problem regarding the setting of initial guess to KSP when using 
PCREDISTRIBUTE as the preconditioner. (The reason to why I use PCREDISTRIBUTE 
is because I have a lot of fixed DOF in my problem, and PCREDISTRIBUTE 
successfully reduces the problem size and therefore speeds up the solving).



First, some details:

-          I use a version of PETSc 3.19.1

-          The KSP I use is KSPPREONLY, as suggested in the manual pages of 
PCREDISTRIBUTE: https://petsc.org/release/manualpages/PC/PCREDISTRIBUTE/

-          I use KSPBCGSL as sub-KSP. I can perfectly well solve my problem 
using this as my main KSP, but the performance is much worse than when using it 
as my sub-KSP (under KSPPREONLY+PCREDISTRIBUTE) due to the amount of fixed DOF

-          I am first solving a state problem, then an adjoint problem using 
the same linear operator.

-          The adjoint vector is used as sensitivity information to update a 
design. After the design update, the state+adjoint problems are solved again 
with a slightly updated linear operator. This is done for hundreds of (design) 
iteration steps

-          I want the initial guess for the state problem to be the state 
solution from the previous (design) iteration, and same for the adjoint problem

-          I am aware of the default way of setting a custom initial guess: 
KSPSetInitialGuessNonzero(ksp, PETSC_TRUE) together with providing the actual 
guess in the x vector in the call to KSPSolve(ksp, b, x)



The main problem is that PCREDISTRIBUTE internally doesn’t use the input 
solution vector (x) when calling KSPSolve() for the sub-KSP. It zeroes out the 
solution vector (x) when starting to build x = diag(A)^{-1} b in the beginning 
of PCApply_Redistribute(), and uses red->x as the solution vector/initial guess 
when calling KSPSolve(). Therefore, I cannot reach the sub-KSP with an initial 
guess.



Additionally, KSPPREONLY prohibits the use of having a nonzero initial guess 
(the error message says “it doesn’t make sense”). I guess I can remove the line 
raising this error and recompile the PETSc libraries, but it still won’t solve 
the previously mentioned problem, which seems to be the hard nut to crack.



So far, I have found out that if I create 2 KSP object, one each for the state 
and adjoint problems, it is enough with calling 
KSPSetInitialGuessNonzero(subksp, PETSC_TRUE) on the subksp. It seems as if the 
variable red->x in PCApply_Redistribute() is kept untouched in memory between 
calls to the main KSP and therefore is used as (non-zero) initial guess to the 
sub-KSP. This has been verified by introducing 
PetscCall(PetscObjectCompose((PetscObject)pc,"redx",(PetscObject)red->x)); in 
PCApply_Redistribute(), recompiling the PETSc library, and then inserting a 
corresponding PetscObjectQuery((PetscObject)pc, "redx", (PetscObject *)&redx); 
in my own program source file.



However, I would like to only create 1 KSP to be used with both the state and 
adjoint problems (same linear operator), for memory reasons.

I  would like to understand this better. Are you trying to save the temporary 
vector memory for another solver? For BCGSL, this is only a few vectors. It 
should be much less than the matrices.

  Thanks,

     Matt


When I do this, the initial guesses are mixed up between the two problems: the 
initial guess for the adjoint problem is the solution to the state problem in 
the current design iteration, and the initial guess for the state problem is 
the solution to the adjoint problem in the previous design iteration. These are 
very bad guesses that increases the time to convergence in each state/adjoint 
solve.



So, the core of the problem (as far as I can understand) is that I want to 
control the initial guess red->x in PCApply_Redistribute().



The only solution I can think of is to include a call to PetscObjectQuery() in 
PCApply_Redistribute() to obtain a vector with the initial guess from my main 
program. And then I need to keep track of the initial guesses for my both 
problems in my main program myself (minor problem). This is maybe not the 
neatest way, and I do not know if this approach affects the performance 
negatively? Maybe one call each to PetscObjectQuery() and PetscObjectCompose() 
per call to PCApply_Redistribute() is negligible?



Is there another (and maybe simpler) solution to this problem? Maybe I can 
SCATTER_FORWARD the input x vector in PCApply_Redistribute() before it is 
zeroed out, together with allowing for non-zero initial guess in KSPPREONLY?



Any help is welcome!





Best regards,

Jonas Lundgren




--
What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is 
infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.
-- Norbert Wiener

https://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~knepley/<http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~knepley/>

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