XPN 2.3.0

Expand Ad-Hoc Parallel File System

• Homepage: https://xpn-arcos.github.io/xpn-arcos.github.io/
• Source: https://github.com/xpn-arcos/xpn
• Licence: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3
  
• Authors: Felix Garcia Carballeira, Luis Miguel Sanchez Garcia, Borja Bergua Guerra, Alejandro Calderon Mateos, Diego Camarmas Alonso, David Garcia Fernandez

1. To deploy XPN...

The Expand Parallel File System (a.k.a. XPN) can be installed on a cluster with local storage per-node (HDD, SSD or RAM Drive) and a shared home directory.

The general steps to deploy XPN are:

flowchart LR
  A[Start] --> B{Spack?}
  B -- Yes --> C[add repo]
  subgraph ide1 [1.1 With spack]
  C --> D[install software]
  D --> E[load software]
  end
  E --> I[End]
  B -- No ---> F[install prerequisites]
  subgraph ide2 [1.2 With autotools]
  F --> G[download source code]
  G --> H[build source code]
  end
  H --> I[End]

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1.1. With Spack

• To add XPN Spack repository:

  git clone https://github.com/xpn-arcos/xpn.git
  spack repo add xpn/scripts/spack
  

• To install XPN with Spack:

  spack info xpn
  spack install xpn
  

• To use XPN with Spack:

  spack load xpn
  

1.2. With autotools (configure, make, make install)

• 1.2.1. Installing prerequisites

  XPN needs two elements:

  1. The typical C development tools: gcc, make, autotools
  2. An MPI implementation installed: MPICH or OpenMPI

  The steps to install both depends on your platform (cluster with modules, Linux packages, etc.):

Steps to install ...	Cluster with modules	Linux packages
... the C development tools	module load gcc	sudo apt-get install -y autoconf automake gcc g++ make libtool build-essential
... the MPI implementation	module load "impi/2017.4"	sudo apt-get install -y libmpich-dev mpich mpich-doc

In a cluster with modules, "gcc" is the example of compiler module and "impi/2017.4" is the MPI module. You can check your available modules by using:

module avail

In order to install the MPICH implementation of MPI from source code and with Infiniband (Omni-Path) support we recommend:

wget https://www.mpich.org/static/downloads/4.1.1/mpich-4.1.1.tar.gz
tar zxf mpich-4.1.1
cd      mpich-4.1.1
./configure --prefix=<path where MPICH is going to be installed> \
            --enable-threads=multiple \
            --enable-romio \
            --with-device=ch4:ofi:psm2 \
            --with-libfabric=<path where your libfabric is installed>
make
make install

• 1.2.2. Download the source code of XPN

  You need to download the source code of XPN and minixml.

  You can download both by executing:

  mkdir $HOME/src
  cd    $HOME/src
  git clone https://github.com/michaelrsweet/mxml.git
  git clone https://github.com/xpn-arcos/xpn.git
  

  You must do both 'git clone' requests in the same directory (e.g.: $HOME/src).

• 1.2.3. Building XPN

  To build Expand you need to execute:

  cd $HOME/src
  ./xpn/build-me -m <full path to your mpicc compiler> \
                 -i <full path to where XPN and MXML are going to be installed>
  

2. Executing XPN

First, you need to get familiar with 4 special files and 5 special environment variables for XPN client:

mindmap
root((XPN))
  files
      hostfile
      xpn cfg file
      nameserver
      server file
  environment variables
      XPN_DNS
      XPN_CONF
      XPN_THREAD
      XPN_SESSION
      XPN_LOCALITY

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The 4 special files are:

• <hostfile> for MPI, it is a text file with the list of host names (one per line) where XPN servers and XPN client is going to be executed.
• <XPN configuration file> for XPN, it is a XML file with the configuration for the partition where files are stored at the XPN servers.
• <nameserver file> for XPN, it will be a text file (created at runtime) with the list of host names where XPN servers are executing.
• <server file> for XPN is a text file with the list of the servers to be stopped (one host name per line).

And the 5 special environment variables for XPN clients are:

• XPN_DNS with the full path to the nameserver file to be used (mandatory).
• XPN_CONF with the full path to the XPN configuration file to be used (mandatory).
• XPN_THREAD with value 0 for without threads, value 1 for thread-on-demand and value 2 for pool-of-threads (optional, default: 0).
• XPN_SESSION with value 0 for without session and value 1 for with session (optional, default: 0).
• XPN_LOCALITY with value 0 for without locality and value 1 for with locality (optional, default: 0).

2.1 Ad-Hoc Expand (based on MPI)

The typical executions has 3 main steps:

• First, launch the Expand MPI server (xpn_mpi_server):

  ./xpn -v -n <number of processes> -l <full path to the hostfile>  start
  

• Then, launch the program that will use Expand (XPN client):

  mpiexec -np <number of processes> \
          -hostfile <full path to the hostfile> \
          -genv XPN_DNS  <nameserver file> \
          -genv XPN_CONF <XPN configuration file> \
          -genv LD_LIBRARY_PATH <INSTALL_PATH>/mxml/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH \
          -genv LD_PRELOAD      <INSTALL_PATH>/xpn/lib/xpn_bypass.so:$LD_PRELOAD \
          <program path>
  

• At the end of your working session, you need to stop the MPI server (xpn_mpi_server):

  ./xpn -v -l <full path to the hostfile>  stop
  

Summary:

sequenceDiagram
    session        ->> xpn_mpi_server: launch the Expand MPI server
    xpn_mpi_server ->> mk_conf.sh: generate the XPN configuration file
    mk_conf.sh     ->> xpn.conf: generate the xpn.conf file
    xpn.conf      -->> xpn_mpi_server: read the XPN configuration file
    session        ->> XPN client: launch the program that will use Expand
    xpn.conf      -->> XPN client: read the XPN configuration file
    XPN client    -->> xpn_mpi_server: write and read data
    XPN client    -->> session: execution ends
    session        ->> xpn_mpi_server: stop the MPI server

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