MPI and UPC Users Guide
MPI use depends upon the type of MPI being used. There are three fundamentally different modes of operation used by these various MPI implementations.
- SLURM directly launches the tasks and performs initialization of communications (UPC, Quadrics MPI, MPICH2, MPICH-GM, MPICH-MX, MVAPICH, MVAPICH2, some MPICH1 modes, and OpenMPI version 1.5 or higher).
- SLURM creates a resource allocation for the job and then mpirun launches tasks using SLURM's infrastructure (LAM/MPI and HP-MPI).
- SLURM creates a resource allocation for the job and then mpirun launches tasks using some mechanism other than SLURM, such as SSH or RSH (BlueGene MPI and some MPICH1 modes). These tasks initiated outside of SLURM's monitoring or control. SLURM's epilog should be configured to purge these tasks when the job's allocation is relinquished.
Two SLURM parameters control which MPI implementation will be supported. Proper configuration is essential for SLURM to establish the proper environment for the MPI job, such as setting the appropriate environment variables. The MpiDefault configuration parameter in slurm.conf establishes the system default MPI to be supported. The srun option --mpi= (or the equivalent environment variable SLURM_MPI_TYPE can be used to specify when a different MPI implementation is to be supported for an individual job.
Links to instructions for using several varieties of MPI with SLURM are provided below.
- BlueGene MPI
- HP-MPI
- Intel-MPI
- LAM/MPI
- MPICH1
- MPICH2
- MPICH-GM
- MPICH-MX
- MVAPICH
- MVAPICH2
- Open MPI
- Quadrics MPI
- UPC
Open MPI
The current versions of SLURM and Open MPI support task launch using the
srun command.
It relies upon SLURM version 2.0 (or higher) managing reservations of
communication ports for use by the Open MPI version 1.5 (or higher).
The system administrator must specify the range of ports to be reserved
in the slurm.conf file using the MpiParams parameter.
For example:
MpiParams=ports=12000-12999
Launch tasks using the srun command
plus the option --resv-ports.
The ports reserved on every allocated node will be identified in an
environment variable available to the tasks as shown here:
SLURM_STEP_RESV_PORTS=12000-12015
If the ports reserved for a job step are found by the Open MPI library
to be in use, a message of this form will be printed and the job step
will be re-launched:
srun: error: sun000: task 0 unble to claim reserved port, retrying
After three failed attempts, the job step will be aborted.
Repeated failures should be reported to your system administrator in
order to rectify the problem by cancelling the processes holding those
ports.
Version 1.4 or earlier
Older versions of Open MPI and SLURM rely upon SLURM to allocate resources for the job and then mpirun to initiate the tasks. For example:
$ salloc -n4 sh # allocates 4 processors # and spawns shell for job > mpirun a.out > exit # exits shell spawned by # initial salloc command
Intel MPI
Intel® MPI Library for Linux OS supports the following methods of launching the MPI jobs under the control of the SLURM job manager:
This description provides detailed information on all of these methods.
The mpirun Command over the MPD Process Manager
SLURM is supported by the mpirun command of the Intel® MPI Library 3.1 Build 029 for Linux OS and later releases.
When launched within a session allocated using the SLURM commands sbatch or salloc, the mpirun command automatically detects and queries certain SLURM environment variables to obtain the list of the allocated cluster nodes.
Use the following commands to start an MPI job within an existing SLURM session over the MPD PM:
export I_MPI_PROCESS_MANAGER=mpd mpirun -n <num_procs> a.out
The mpirun Command over the Hydra Process Manager
SLURM is supported by the mpirun command of the Intel® MPI Library 4.0 Update 3 through the Hydra PM by default. The behavior of this command is analogous to the MPD case described above.
Use the one of the following commands to start an MPI job within an existing SLURM session over the Hydra PM:
mpirun -n <num_procs> a.out
or
mpirun -bootstrap slurm -n <num_procs> a.out
We recommend that you use the second command. It uses the srun command rather than the default ssh based method to launch the remote Hydra PM service processes.
The mpiexec.hydra Command (Hydra Process Manager)
SLURM is supported by the Intel® MPI Library 4.0 Update 3 directly through the Hydra PM.
Use the following command to start an MPI job within an existing SLURM session:
mpiexec.hydra -bootstrap slurm -n <num_procs> a.out
The srun Command (SLURM)
This advanced method is supported by the Intel® MPI Library 4.0 Update 3 Use the following commands to allocate a SLURM session and start an MPI job in it, or to start an MPI job within a SLURM session already created using the sbatch or salloc commands:
- Set the I_MPI_PMI_LIBRARY environment variable to point to the SLURM Process Management Interface (PMI) library:
export I_MPI_PMI_LIBRARY=/path/to/slurm/pmi/library/libpmi.so
srun -n <num_procs> a.out
Above information used by permission from Intel. For more information see Intel MPI Library.
LAM/MPI
LAM/MPI relies upon the SLURM salloc or sbatch command to allocate. In either case, specify the maximum number of tasks required for the job. Then execute the lamboot command to start lamd daemons. lamboot utilizes SLURM's srun command to launch these daemons. Do not directly execute the srun command to launch LAM/MPI tasks. For example:
$ salloc -n16 sh # allocates 16 processors # and spawns shell for job > lamboot > mpirun -np 16 foo args 1234 foo running on adev0 (o) 2345 foo running on adev1 etc. > lamclean > lamhalt > exit # exits shell spawned by # initial srun command
Note that any direct use of srun will only launch one task per node when the LAM/MPI plugin is configured as the default plugin. To launch more than one task per node using the srun command, the --mpi=none option would be required to explicitly disable the LAM/MPI plugin if that is the system default.
HP-MPI
HP-MPI uses the mpirun command with the -srun option to launch jobs. For example:
$MPI_ROOT/bin/mpirun -TCP -srun -N8 ./a.out
MPICH2
MPICH2 jobs are launched using the srun command. Just link your program with SLURM's implementation of the PMI library so that tasks can communicate host and port information at startup. (The system administrator can add these option to the mpicc and mpif77 commands directly, so the user will not need to bother). For example:
$ mpicc -L<path_to_slurm_lib> -lpmi ... $ srun -n20 a.outNOTES:
- Some MPICH2 functions are not currently supported by the PMI library integrated with SLURM
- Set the environment variable PMI_DEBUG to a numeric value of 1 or higher for the PMI library to print debugging information
- Set the environment variable SLURM_PMI_KVS_NO_DUP_KEYS for improved performance with MPICH2 by eliminating a test for duplicate keys.
- The environment variables can be used to tune performance depending upon network performance: PMI_FANOUT, PMI_FANOUT_OFF_HOST, and PMI_TIME. See the srun man pages in the INPUT ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section for a more information.
- Information about building MPICH2 for use with SLURM is described on the MPICH2 FAQ web page
MPICH-GM
MPICH-GM jobs can be launched directly by srun command. SLURM's mpichgm MPI plugin must be used to establish communications between the launched tasks. This can be accomplished either using the SLURM configuration parameter MpiDefault=mpichgm in slurm.conf or srun's --mpi=mpichgm option.
$ mpicc ... $ srun -n16 --mpi=mpichgm a.out
MPICH-MX
MPICH-MX jobs can be launched directly by srun command. SLURM's mpichmx MPI plugin must be used to establish communications between the launched tasks. This can be accomplished either using the SLURM configuration parameter MpiDefault=mpichmx in slurm.conf or srun's --mpi=mpichmx option.
$ mpicc ... $ srun -n16 --mpi=mpichmx a.out
MVAPICH
MVAPICH jobs can be launched directly by srun command. SLURM's mvapich MPI plugin must be used to establish communications between the launched tasks. This can be accomplished either using the SLURM configuration parameter MpiDefault=mvapich in slurm.conf or srun's --mpi=mvapich option.
$ mpicc ... $ srun -n16 --mpi=mvapich a.outNOTE: If MVAPICH is used in the shared memory model, with all tasks running on a single node, then use the mpich1_shmem MPI plugin instead.
NOTE (for system administrators): Configure PropagateResourceLimitsExcept=MEMLOCK in slurm.conf and start the slurmd daemons with an unlimited locked memory limit. For more details, see MVAPICH documentation for "CQ or QP Creation failure".
MVAPICH2
MVAPICH2 jobs can be launched directly by srun command. SLURM's none MPI plugin must be used to establish communications between the launched tasks. This can be accomplished either using the SLURM configuration parameter MpiDefault=none in slurm.conf or srun's --mpi=none option. The program must also be linked with SLURM's implementation of the PMI library so that tasks can communicate host and port information at startup. (The system administrator can add these option to the mpicc and mpif77 commands directly, so the user will not need to bother). Do not use SLURM's MVAPICH plugin for MVAPICH2.
$ mpicc -L<path_to_slurm_lib> -lpmi ... $ srun -n16 --mpi=none a.out
BlueGene MPI
All IBM BlueGene Systems rely upon SLURM to create a job's resource allocation, but the task launch mechanism differs by system type.
BlueGene/Q
The BlueGene/Q systems support the ability to allocate different portions of a BlueGene block to different users and different jobs, so SLURM must be directly involved in each task launch request. The following is subject to change in order to support debugging. In order to accomplish this, SLURM's srun command is executed to launch tasks. The srun command creates a job step allocation then invokes IBM's runjob command to launch tasks within the allocated resources.
BlueGene/L and BlueGene/P
BlueGene/L and P MPI relies upon the native mpirun command to launch tasks. Build a job script containing one or more invocations of the mpirun command. Then submit the script to SLURM using sbatch. For example:
$ sbatch -N512 my.script
Note that the node count specified with the -N option indicates the base partition count. See BlueGene User and Administrator Guide for more information.
MPICH1
MPICH1 development ceased in 2005. It is recommended that you convert to MPICH2 or some other MPI implementation. If you still want to use MPICH1, note that it has several different programming models. If you are using the shared memory model (DEFAULT_DEVICE=ch_shmem in the mpirun script), then initiate the tasks using the srun command with the --mpi=mpich1_shmem option.
$ srun -n16 --mpi=mpich1_shmem a.out
NOTE: Using a configuration of MpiDefault=mpich1_shmem will result in one task being launched per node with the expectation that the MPI library will launch the remaining tasks based upon environment variables set by SLURM. Non-MPI jobs started in this configuration will lack the mechanism to launch more than one task per node unless srun's --mpi=none option is used.
If you are using MPICH P4 (DEFAULT_DEVICE=ch_p4 in the mpirun script) and SLURM version 1.2.11 or newer, then it is recommended that you apply the patch in the SLURM distribution's file contribs/mpich1.slurm.patch. Follow directions within the file to rebuild MPICH. Applications must be relinked with the new library. Initiate tasks using the srun command with the --mpi=mpich1_p4 option.
$ srun -n16 --mpi=mpich1_p4 a.out
Note that SLURM launches one task per node and the MPICH library linked within your applications launches the other tasks with shared memory used for communications between them. The only real anomaly is that all output from all spawned tasks on a node appear to SLURM as coming from the one task that it launched. If the srun --label option is used, the task ID labels will be misleading.
Other MPICH1 programming models current rely upon the SLURM salloc or sbatch command to allocate resources. In either case, specify the maximum number of tasks required for the job. You may then need to build a list of hosts to be used and use that as an argument to the mpirun command. For example:
$ cat mpich.sh #!/bin/bash srun hostname -s | sort -u >slurm.hosts mpirun [options] -machinefile slurm.hosts a.out rm -f slurm.hosts $ sbatch -n16 mpich.sh sbatch: Submitted batch job 1234
Note that in this example, mpirun uses the rsh command to launch tasks. These tasks are not managed by SLURM since they are launched outside of its control.
Quadrics MPI
Quadrics MPI relies upon SLURM to allocate resources for the job and srun to initiate the tasks. One would build the MPI program in the normal manner then initiate it using a command line of this sort:
$ srun [options] <program> [program args]
UPC (Unified Parallel C)
Berkeley UPC (and likely other UPC implementations) rely upon SLURM to allocate resources and launch the application's tasks. The UPC library then reads SLURM environment variables in order to determine how the job's task count and location. One would build the UPC program in the normal manner then initiate it using a command line of this sort:
$ srun -N4 -n16 a.out
Last modified 9 April 2012