Jeff,
How about writing applications that use the OMPI plugins as-is? Suppose
I want to write an application that makes use of generic byte-movement
operations. Is it feasible to write my applicaiton to use a btl plugin?
- my apologies in advance if this is well covered in the docs you
mention - just slap me down ;-).
thanks,
/jr
---
Jeff Squyres (jsquyres) wrote:
Open MPI is based on a component architecture, where plugins are used
for various types of back-end functionality.
For MPI point-to-point communication, there are three types of plugins
that are used:
- pml: Point to Point Messaging Layer (what is directly invoked behind
MPI_SEND and friends). This layer understands MPI semantics.
- btl: Byte Transfer Layer (lowest layer "network driver" for
communicating across specific networks). This layer is completely
MPI-agnostic; it just pushes bytes between endpoints (usually
processes).
- bml: BTL Management Layer (for loading, unloading, and generally
run-time managing multiple BTL plugins).
Note that previous generations of Open MPI used "ptl" plugins instead of
"btl" plugins.
I would suggest reading the "Open MPI: A Flexible High Performance MPI"
paper on the Open MPI web site (see the "Publications" section) to get
an overview of the OB1 pml plugin. It describes the basis and top-level
design of how the pml, bml, and btls interact at run-time. Also read
"InfiniBand Scalability in Open MPI" (also in the publications section).
It is much more recent and, although somewhat IB-specific, also gives a
good overview of how things work. Finally, look at the MPI Developer's
Workshop slides. They probably provide the best description of what is
happening for point-to-point messaging (there's whole sections devoted
to this).
If you simply want to implement a new network driver (e.g., raw
ethernet), you will want to write a new BTL plugin. If you want to play
with various scheduling policies, you probably want to modify / write a
new PML plugin. This code is not well documented other than comments in
the code and the description of the plugin interfaces; your best bet is
to ask questions here on the mailing list.
I strongly recommend working with a Subversion checkout -- things have
changed since the 1.0 release. See http://www.open-mpi.org/svn/ for
details on getting a subversion checkout.
Within the code base, you'll be working within the ompi/ tree (the MPI
layer). You'll find the MPI C API bindings in ompi/mpi/c/*.c (e.g.,
MPI_SEND is in ompi/mpi/c/send.c). Also in ompi/ is the mca/ directory
which, in turn, has subdirectories for each kind of plugin (a.k.a.
"frameworks"), so you'll see subdirectories for pml/ and bml/ and btl/.
In each framework's directory are subdirectories for each plugin (a.k.a.
"components"). So you'll see ompi/mca/pml/ob1 (code for the ob1 PML
plugin), ompi/mca/bml/r2 (code for the r2 BML plugin), ompi/mca/btl/tcp
(code for the tcp BTL plugin), etc.
This is probably enough to get you started. Let us know what your next
questions are.
-----Original Message-----
From: users-boun...@open-mpi.org
[mailto:users-boun...@open-mpi.org] On Behalf Of Mahesh Barve
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 1:24 AM
To: us...@open-mpi.org
Subject: [OMPI users] Help regarding send/recv code
Hi,
I am a novice to openmpi. Just managed to get openmpi
running on my system.
I would like to modify the code for send and recv.
The target lower level device will be ethernet and
infiniband. I would like to know the files/functions
to look for. Could you please guide me in this.
thanks,
-Mahesh
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