Unexpected behavior with MPI_Ssend and MPI_Recv - c++

I have found some unexpected behavior in MPI (using C++) in this small code example:
int rank, size;
MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &size);
if(rank == 1) {
int *sendDone = (int*)malloc(sizeof(int));
*sendDone = 1;
MPI_Ssend(sendDone,1,MPI_INT, 0, 1,MPI_COMM_WORLD);
foo();
} else {
int *rcvDone = (int*)malloc(sizeof(int));
bar();
while(*rcvDone != 1) {
MPI_Recv(rcvDone,1,MPI_INT, MPI_ANY_SOURCE, 1, MPI_COMM_WORLD, MPI_STATUS_IGNORE);
}
cout << *rcvDone << endl;
}
MPI_Finalize();
It is compiled and run with the following commands:
mpic++ sim.cc -o sim
mpirun -n 2 ./sim
The Code should be executed in the following order:
bar();
foo();
Because the Process #0 is starting to receive after the execution of bar(). But in reality, foo() is sometimes starting before bar() is finished. Can somebody explain that to me and give a solution to the problem?

You haven't said how you do the check which function is called first. Cout'ing something on screen doesn't guarantee proper order of displaying messages (at least while using MPI).
You don't need to put MPI_Recv in loop since it is a blocking function. Its not even recommended while you didn't assign starting value to *rcvDone.
Its not safe to use malloc together with some MPI functions. Read "thread and interrupt safety" section on http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/projects/mpi/www/www3/MPI_Ssend.html

Related

Time efficient design model for sending to and receiving from all mpi processes: MPI all 2 all communication

I am trying to send message to all MPI processes from a process and also receive message from all those processes in a process. It is basically an all to all communication where every process sends message to every other process (except itself) and receives message from every other process.
The following example code snippet shows what I am trying to achieve. Now, the problem with MPI_Send is its behavior where for small message size it acts as non-blocking but for the larger message (in my machine BUFFER_SIZE 16400) it blocks. I am aware of this is how MPI_Send behaves. As a workaround, I replaced the code below with blocking (send+recv) which is MPI_Sendrecv. Example code is like this MPI_Sendrecv(intSendPack, BUFFER_SIZE, MPI_INT, processId, MPI_TAG, intReceivePack, BUFFER_SIZE, MPI_INT, processId, MPI_TAG, MPI_COMM_WORLD, MPI_STATUSES_IGNORE) . I am making the above call for all the processes of MPI_COMM_WORLD inside a loop for every rank and this approach gives me what I am trying to achieve (all to all communication). However, this call takes a lot of time which I want to cut-down with some time-efficient approach. I have tried with mpi scatter and gather to perform all to all communication but here one issue is the buffer size (16400) may differ in actual implementation in different iteration for MPI_all_to_all function calling. Here, I am using MPI_TAG to differentiate the call in different iteration which I cannot use in scatter and gather functions.
#define BUFFER_SIZE 16400
void MPI_all_to_all(int MPI_TAG)
{
int size;
int rank;
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &size);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);
int* intSendPack = new int[BUFFER_SIZE]();
int* intReceivePack = new int[BUFFER_SIZE]();
for (int prId = 0; prId < size; prId++) {
if (prId != rank) {
MPI_Send(intSendPack, BUFFER_SIZE, MPI_INT, prId, MPI_TAG,
MPI_COMM_WORLD);
}
}
for (int sId = 0; sId < size; sId++) {
if (sId != rank) {
MPI_Recv(intReceivePack, BUFFER_SIZE, MPI_INT, sId, MPI_TAG,
MPI_COMM_WORLD, MPI_STATUSES_IGNORE);
}
}
}
I want to know if there is a way I can perform all to all communication using any efficient communication model. I am not sticking to MPI_Send, if there is some other way which provides me what I am trying to achieve, I am happy with that. Any help or suggestion is much appreciated.
This is a benchmark that allows to compare performance of collective vs. point-to-point communication in an all-to-all communication,
#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>
#include <mpi.h>
#define BUFFER_SIZE 16384
void point2point(int*, int*, int, int);
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
int rank_id = 0, com_sz = 0;
double t0 = 0.0, tf = 0.0;
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &com_sz);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank_id);
int* intSendPack = new int[BUFFER_SIZE]();
int* result = new int[BUFFER_SIZE*com_sz]();
std::fill(intSendPack, intSendPack + BUFFER_SIZE, rank_id);
std::fill(result + BUFFER_SIZE*rank_id, result + BUFFER_SIZE*(rank_id+1), rank_id);
// Send-Receive
t0 = MPI_Wtime();
point2point(intSendPack, result, rank_id, com_sz);
MPI_Barrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
tf = MPI_Wtime();
if (!rank_id)
std::cout << "Send-receive time: " << tf - t0 << std::endl;
// Collective
std::fill(result, result + BUFFER_SIZE*com_sz, 0);
std::fill(result + BUFFER_SIZE*rank_id, result + BUFFER_SIZE*(rank_id+1), rank_id);
t0 = MPI_Wtime();
MPI_Allgather(intSendPack, BUFFER_SIZE, MPI_INT, result, BUFFER_SIZE, MPI_INT, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
MPI_Barrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
tf = MPI_Wtime();
if (!rank_id)
std::cout << "Allgather time: " << tf - t0 << std::endl;
MPI_Finalize();
delete[] intSendPack;
delete[] result;
return 0;
}
// Send/receive communication
void point2point(int* send_buf, int* result, int rank_id, int com_sz)
{
MPI_Status status;
// Exchange and store the data
for (int i=0; i<com_sz; i++){
if (i != rank_id){
MPI_Sendrecv(send_buf, BUFFER_SIZE, MPI_INT, i, 0,
result + i*BUFFER_SIZE, BUFFER_SIZE, MPI_INT, i, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
}
}
}
Here every rank contributes its own array intSendPack to the array result on all other ranks that should end up the same on all the ranks. result is flat, each rank takes BUFFER_SIZE entries starting with its rank_id*BUFFER_SIZE. After the point-to-point communication, the array is reset to its original shape.
Time is measured by setting up an MPI_Barrier which will give you the maximum time out of all ranks.
I ran the benchmark on 1 node of Nersc Cori KNL using slurm. I ran it a few times each case just to make sure the values are consistent and I'm not looking at an outlier, but you should run it maybe 10 or so times to collect more proper statistics.
Here are some thoughts:
For small number of processes (5) and a large buffer size (16384) collective communication is about twice faster than point-to-point, but it becomes about 4-5 times faster when moving to larger number of ranks (64).
In this benchmark there is not much difference between performance with recommended slurm settings on that specific machine and default settings but in real, larger programs with more communication there is a very significant one (job that runs for less than a minute with recommended will run for 20-30 min and more with default). Point of this is check your settings, it may make a difference.
What you were seeing with Send/Receive for larger messages was actually a deadlock. I saw it too for the message size shown in this benchmark. In case you missed those, there are two worth it SO posts on it: buffering explanation and a word on deadlocking.
In summary, adjust this benchmark to represent your code more closely and run it on your system, but collective communication in an all-to-all or one-to-all situations should be faster because of dedicated optimizations such as superior algorithms used for communication arrangement. A 2-5 times speedup is considerable, since communication often contributes to the overall time the most.

Why does MPI_Recv fail when there is an accumulation of MPI_Send calls

I have an MPI program in which worker ranks (rank != 0) make a bunch of MPI_Send calls, and the master rank (rank == 0) receives all these messages. However, I run into a Fatal error in MPI_Recv - MPI_Recv(...) failed, Out of memory.
Here is the code that I am compiling in Visual Studio 2010.
I run the executable like so:
mpiexec -n 3 MPIHelloWorld.exe
int main(int argc, char* argv[]){
int numprocs, rank, namelen, num_threads, thread_id;
char processor_name[MPI_MAX_PROCESSOR_NAME];
MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &numprocs);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);
MPI_Get_processor_name(processor_name, &namelen);
if(rank == 0){
for(int k=1; k<numprocs; k++){
for(int i=0; i<1000000; i++){
double x;
MPI_Recv(&x, 1, MPI_DOUBLE, k, i, MPI_COMM_WORLD, MPI_STATUS_IGNORE);
}
}
}
else{
for(int i=0; i<1000000; i++){
double x = 5;
MPI_Send(&x, 1, MPI_DOUBLE, 0, i, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
}
}
}
If I run with only 2 processes, the program does not crash. So it seems like the problem is when there is an accumulation of the MPI_Send calls from a third rank (aka a second worker node).
If I decrease the number of iterations to 100,000 then I can run with 3 processes without crashing. However, the amount of data being sent with one million iterations is ~ 8 MB (8 bytes for double * 1000000 iterations), so I don't think the "Out of Memory" is referring to any physical memory like RAM.
Any insight is appreciated, thanks!
The MPI_send operation stores the data on the system buffer ready to send. The size of this buffer and where it is stored is implementation specific (I remember hearing that this can even be in the interconnects). In my case (linux with mpich) I don't get a memory error. One way to explicitly change this buffer is to use MPI_buffer_attach with MPI_Bsend. There may also be a way to change the system buffer size (e.g. MP_BUFFER_MEM system variable on IBM systems).
However that this situation of unrequited messages should probably not occur in practice. In your example above, the order of the k and i loops could be swapped to prevent this build up of messages.

Simple MPI_Gather test with memcpy error

I am learning MPI, and trying to create examples of some of the functions. I've gotten several to work, but I am having issues with MPI_Gather. I had a much more complex fitting test, but I trimmed it down to the most simple code. I am still, however, getting the following error:
root#master:/home/sgeadmin# mpirun ./expfitTest5
Assertion failed in file src/mpid/ch3/src/ch3u_request.c at line 584: FALSE
memcpy argument memory ranges overlap, dst_=0x1187e30 src_=0x1187e40 len_=400
internal ABORT - process 0
I am running one master instance and two node instances through AWS EC2. I have all the appropriate libraries installed, as I've gotten other MPI examples to work. My program is:
int main()
{
int world_size, world_rank;
int nFits = 100;
double arrCount[100];
double *rBuf = NULL;
MPI_Init(NULL,NULL);
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &world_size);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &world_rank);
assert(world_size!=1);
int nElements = nFits/(world_size-1);
if(world_rank>0){
for(int k = 0; k < nElements; k++)
{
arrCount[k] = k;
}}
MPI_Barrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
if(world_rank==0)
{
rBuf = (double*) malloc( nFits*sizeof(double));
}
MPI_Gather(arrCount, nElements, MPI_DOUBLE, rBuf, nElements, MPI_DOUBLE, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
if(world_rank==0){
for(int i = 0; i < nFits; i++)
{
cout<<rBuf[i]<<"\n";
}}
MPI_Finalize();
exit(0);
}
Is there something I am not understanding in malloc or MPI_Gather? I've compared my code to other samples, and can't find any differences.
The root process in a gather operation does participate in the operation. I.e. it sends data to it's own receive buffer. That also means you must allocate memory for it's part in the receive buffer.
Now you could use MPI_Gatherv and specify a recvcounts[0]/sendcount at root of 0 to follow your example closely. But usually you would prefer to write an MPI application in a way that the root participates equally in the operation, i.e. int nElements = nFits/world_size.

MPI: How to start three functions which will be executed in different threads

I have 3 function and 4 cores. I want execute each function in new thread using MPI and C++
I write this
int rank, size;
MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD,&rank);
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD,&size);
size--;
if (rank == 0)
{
Thread1();
}
else
{
if(rank == 1)
{
Thread2();
}
else
{
Thread3();
}
}
MPI_Finalize();
But it execute just Thread1(). How i must change code?
Thanks!
Print to screen the current value of variable size (possibly without decrementing it) and you will find 1. That is: "there is 1 process running".
You are likely running your compiled code the wrong way. Consider to use mpirun (or mpiexec, depending on your MPI implementation) to execute it, i.e.
mpirun -np 4 ./MyCompiledCode
the -np parameter specifies the number of processes you will start (doing so, your MPI_Comm_size will be 4 as you expect).
Currently, though, you are not using anything explicitly owing to C++. You can consider some C++ binding of MPI such as Boost.MPI.
I worked a little bit on the code you provided. I changed it a little bit producing this working mpi code (I provided some needed correction in capital letters).
FYI:
compilation (under gcc, mpich):
$ mpicxx -c mpi1.cpp
$ mpicxx -o mpi1 mpi1.o
execution
$ mpirun -np 4 ./mpi1
output
size is 4
size is 4
size is 4
2 function started.
thread2
3 function started.
thread3
3 function ended.
2 function ended.
size is 4
1 function started.
thread1
1 function ended.
be aware that stdout is likely messed out.
Are you sure you are compiling your code the right way?
You problem is that MPI provides no way to feed console input into many processes but only into process with rank 0. Because of the first three lines in main:
int main(int argc, char *argv[]){
int oper;
std::cout << "Enter Size:";
std::cin >> oper; // <------- The problem is right here
Operations* operations = new Operations(oper);
int rank, size;
MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
int tid;
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &tid);
switch(tid)
{
all processes but rank 0 block waiting for console input which they cannot get. You should rewrite the beginning of your main function as follows:
int main(int argc, char *argv[]){
int oper;
MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
int tid;
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &tid);
if (tid == 0) {
std::cout << "Enter Size:";
std::cin >> oper;
}
MPI_Bcast(&oper, 1, MPI_INT, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
Operations* operations = new Operations(oper);
switch(tid)
{
It works as follows: only rank 0 displays the prompt and then reads the console input into oper. Then a broadcast of the value of oper from rank 0 is performed so all other processes obtain the correct value, create the Operations object and then branch to the appropriate function.

Multi-Threaded MPI Process Suddenly Terminating

I'm writing an MPI program (Visual Studio 2k8 + MSMPI) that uses Boost::thread to spawn two threads per MPI process, and have run into a problem I'm having trouble tracking down.
When I run the program with: mpiexec -n 2 program.exe, one of the processes suddenly terminates:
job aborted:
[ranks] message
[0] terminated
[1] process exited without calling finalize
---- error analysis -----
[1] on winblows
program.exe ended prematurely and may have crashed. exit code 0xc0000005
---- error analysis -----
I have no idea why the first process is suddenly terminating, and can't figure out how to track down the reason. This happens even if I put the rank zero process into an infinite loop at the end of all of it's operations... it just suddenly dies. My main function looks like this:
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
/* Initialize the MPI execution environment. */
MPI_Init(0, NULL);
/* Create the worker threads. */
boost::thread masterThread(&Master);
boost::thread slaveThread(&Slave);
/* Wait for the local test thread to end. */
masterThread.join();
slaveThread.join();
/* Shutdown. */
MPI_Finalize();
return 0;
}
Where the master and slave functions do some arbitrary work before ending. I can confirm that the master thread, at the very least, is reaching the end of it's operations. The slave thread is always the one that isn't done before the execution gets aborted. Using print statements, it seems like the slave thread isn't actually hitting any errors... it's happily moving along and just get's taken out in the crash.
So, does anyone have any ideas for:
a) What could be causing this?
b) How should I go about debugging it?
Thanks so much!
Edit:
Posting minimal versions of the Master/Slave functions. Note that the goal of this program is purely for demonstration purposes... so it isn't doing anything useful. Essentially, the master threads send a dummy payload to the slave thread of the other MPI process.
void Master()
{
int myRank;
int numProcs;
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &numProcs);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &myRank);
/* Create a message with numbers 0 through 39 as the payload, addressed
* to this thread. */
int *payload= new int[40];
for(int n = 0; n < 40; n++) {
payload[n] = n;
}
if(myRank == 0) {
MPI_Send(payload, 40, MPI_INT, 1, MPI_ANY_TAG, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
} else {
MPI_Send(payload, 40, MPI_INT, 0, MPI_ANY_TAG, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
}
/* Free memory. */
delete(payload);
}
void Slave()
{
MPI_Status status;
int *payload= new int[40];
MPI_Recv(payload, 40, MPI_INT, MPI_ANY_SOURCE, MPI_ANY_TAG, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
/* Free memory. */
delete(payload);
}
you have to use thread safe version of mpi runtime.
read up on MPI_Init_thread.