Hi Ralph (all), I'm resurrecting this 2006 thread for a status check. The new 1.3.x machinefile behavior is great (thanks!) -- I can use machinefiles to manage multiple simultaneous mpiruns within a single torque allocation (where the hosts are a subset of $PBS_NODEFILE). However, this requires some careful management of machinefiles.
I'm curious if OpenMPI now directly supports the behavior I need, described in general in the quote below. Specifically, given a single PBS/Torque allocation of M*N processors, I will run a serial program that will fork M times. Each of the M forked processes calls 'mpirun -np N application.exe' and blocks until completion. This seems akin to the case you described of "mpiruns executed in separate windows/prompts." What I'd like to see is the M processes "tiled" across the available slots, so all M*N processors are used. What I see instead appears at face value to be the first N resources being oversubscribed M times. Also, when one of the forked processes returns, I'd like to be able to spawn another and have its mpirun schedule on the resources freed by the previous one that exited. Is any of this possible? I tried starting an orted (1.3.3, roughly as you suggested below), but got this error: > orted --daemonize [gy8:25871] [[INVALID],INVALID] ORTE_ERROR_LOG: Not found in file runtime/orte_init.c at line 125 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It looks like orte_init failed for some reason; your parallel process is likely to abort. There are many reasons that a parallel process can fail during orte_init; some of which are due to configuration or environment problems. This failure appears to be an internal failure; here's some additional information (which may only be relevant to an Open MPI developer): orte_ess_base_select failed --> Returned value Not found (-13) instead of ORTE_SUCCESS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [gy8:25871] [[INVALID],INVALID] ORTE_ERROR_LOG: Not found in file orted/orted_main.c at line 323 I spared the debugging info as I'm not even sure this is a correct invocation... Thanks for any suggestions you can offer! Brian ---------- Brian M. Adams, PhD (bria...@sandia.gov) Optimization and Uncertainty Quantification Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM http://www.sandia.gov/~briadam > From: Ralph Castain (rhc_at_[hidden]) > Date: 2006-12-12 00:46:59 > > Hi Chris > > > Some of this is doable with today's code....and one of these > behaviors is not. :-( > > > Open MPI/OpenRTE can be run in "persistent" mode - this > allows multiple jobs to share the same allocation. This works > much as you describe (syntax is slightly different, of > course!) - the first mpirun will map using whatever mode was > requested, then the next mpirun will map starting from where > the first one left off. > > > I *believe* you can run each mpirun in the background. > However, I don't know if this has really been tested enough > to support such a claim. All testing that I know about > to-date has executed mpirun in the foreground - thus, your > example would execute sequentially instead of in parallel. > > > I know people have tested multiple mpirun's operating in > parallel within a single allocation (i.e., persistent mode) > where the mpiruns are executed in separate windows/prompts. > So I suspect you could do something like you describe - just > haven't personally verified it. > > > Where we definitely differ is that Open MPI/RTE will *not* > block until resources are freed up from the prior mpiruns. > Instead, we will attempt to execute each mpirun immediately - > and will error out the one(s) that try to execute without > sufficient resources. I imagine we could provide the kind of > "flow control" you describe, but I'm not sure when that might happen. > > > I am (in my copious free time...haha) working on an > "orteboot" program that will startup a virtual machine to > make the persistent mode of operation a little easier. For > now, though, you can do it by: > > > 1. starting up the "server" using the following command: > orted --seed --persistent --scope public [--universe foo] > > > 2. do your mpirun commands. They will automagically find the > "server" and connect to it. If you specified a universe name > when starting the server, then you must specify the same > universe name on your mpirun commands. > > > When you are done, you will have to (unfortunately) manually > "kill" the server and remove its session directory. I have a > program called "ortehalt" > in the trunk that will do this cleanly for you, but it isn't > yet in the release distributions. You are welcome to use it, > though, if you are working with the trunk - I can't promise > it is bulletproof yet, but it seems to be working. > > > Ralph > > > On 12/11/06 8:07 PM, "Maestas, Christopher Daniel" > <cdmaest_at_[hidden]> > wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > Sometimes we have users that like to do from within a single job > > (think schedule within an job scheduler allocation): > > "mpiexec -n X myprog" > > "mpiexec -n Y myprog2" > > Does mpiexec within Open MPI keep track of the node list it > is using > > if it binds to a particular scheduler? > > For example with 4 nodes (2ppn SMP): > > "mpiexec -n 2 myprog" > > "mpiexec -n 2 myprog2" > > "mpiexec -n 1 myprog3" > > And assume this is by-slot allocation we would have the following > > allocation: > > node1 - processor1 - myprog > > - processor2 - myprog > > node2 - processor1 - myprog2 > > - processor2 - myprog2 > > And for a by-node allocation: > > node1 - processor1 - myprog > > - processor2 - myprog2 > > node2 - processor1 - myprog > > - processor2 - myprog2 > > > > I think this is possible using ssh cause it shouldn't really matter > > how many times it spawns, but with something like torque it > would get > > restricted to a max process launch of 4. We would want the third > > mpiexec to block processes and eventually be run on the first > > available node allocation that frees up from myprog or myprog2 .... > > > > For example for torque, we had to add the following to osc mpiexec: > > --- > > Finally, since only one mpiexec can be the master at a > time, if your > > code setup requires that mpiexec exit to get a result, you > can start a > > "dummy" > > mpiexec first in your batch > > job: > > > > mpiexec -server > > > > It runs no tasks itself but handles the connections of > other transient > > mpiexec clients. > > It will shut down cleanly when the batch job exits or you > may kill the > > server explicitly. > > If the server is killed with SIGTERM (or HUP or INT), it will exit > > with a status of zero if there were no clients connected at > the time. > > If there were still clients using the server, the server > will kill all > > their tasks, disconnect from the clients, and exit with status 1. > > --- > > > > So a user ran: > > mpiexec -server > > mpiexec -n 2 myprog > > mpiexec -n 2 myprog2 > > And the server kept track of the allocation ... I would > think that the > > orted could do this? > > > > Sorry if this sounds confusing ... But I'm sure it will > clear up with > > any further responses I make. :-) -cdm > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > users mailing list > > users_at_[hidden] > > http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/users > >
