Add fake process group

test/distributed/test_fake_pg.py

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+# Owner(s): ["oncall: distributed"]
+
+import sys
+import torch
+import torch.distributed as dist
+import unittest
+from torch.testing._internal.distributed.fake_pg import FakeStore
+from torch.distributed.fsdp import FullyShardedDataParallel as FSDP
+import torch.nn as nn
+
+if not dist.is_available():
+    print("Distributed not available, skipping tests", file=sys.stderr)
+    sys.exit(0)
+
+from torch.testing._internal.common_utils import (
+    TestCase,
+    run_tests,
+)
+
+HAS_CUDA = torch.cuda.is_available()
+
+class Test(TestCase):
+    @unittest.skipIf(not HAS_CUDA, 'No CUDA')
+    def test_construct_fsdp(self):
+        store = FakeStore()
+        dist.init_process_group(
+            backend="fake", rank=0, world_size=2, store=store
+        )
+        sharded_module = FSDP(nn.Linear(2, 3, device='cuda'))
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    run_tests()

torch/distributed/distributed_c10d.py

@@ -1124,7 +1124,10 @@ def init_process_group(
         # these barriers may be unnecessary, as proved by a green CI after
         # removal. An environment variable `TORCH_DIST_INIT_BARRIER` has been
         # added which, when set to 0, will disable these barriers.
-        if backend == Backend.MPI:
+        if backend == "fake":
+            # Fake process group doesn't need barrier
+            pass
+        elif backend == Backend.MPI:
             # MPI backend doesn't use store.
             barrier()
         else:

torch/testing/_internal/distributed/fake_pg.py

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+import torch.distributed as dist
+
+# A fake process group (not related to FakeTensor) is a process group which
+# doesn't actually do any communication, it just hallucinates some
+# communication.  You can run a single rank with a fake process group
+# without needing multiple processes.
+
+class FakeProcessGroup(dist.ProcessGroup):
+    pass
+
+class FakeStore(dist.Store):
+    pass
+
+def _create_fake_pg(prefix_store, rank, world_size, timeout):
+    return FakeProcessGroup(rank, world_size)
+
+dist.Backend.register_backend("fake", _create_fake_pg)