.. include:: replace.txt MPI for Distributed Simulation ------------------------------ Parallel and distributed discrete event simulation allows the execution of a single simulation program on multiple processors. By splitting up the simulation into logical processes, LPs, each LP can be executed by a different processor. This simulation methodology enables very large-scale simulations by leveraging increased processing power and memory availability. In order to ensure proper execution of a distributed simulation, message passing between LPs is required. To support distributed simulation in |ns3|, the standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) is used, along with a new distributed simulator class. Currently, dividing a simulation for distributed purposes in |ns3| can only occur across point-to-point links. .. _current-implementation-details: Current Implementation Details ****************************** During the course of a distributed simulation, many packets must cross simulator boundaries. In other words, a packet that originated on one LP is destined for a different LP, and in order to make this transition, a message containing the packet contents must be sent to the remote LP. Upon receiving this message, the remote LP can rebuild the packet and proceed as normal. The process of sending an receiving messages between LPs is handled easily by the new MPI interface in |ns3|. Along with simple message passing between LPs, a distributed simulator is used on each LP to determine which events to process. It is important to process events in time-stamped order to ensure proper simulation execution. If a LP receives a message containing an event from the past, clearly this is an issue, since this event could change other events which have already been executed. To address this problem, two conservative synchronization algorithm with lookahead are used in |ns3|. For more information on different synchronization approaches and parallel and distributed simulation in general, please refer to "Parallel and Distributed Simulation Systems" by Richard Fujimoto. The default parallel synchronization strategy implemented in the DistributedSimulatorImpl class is based on a globally synchronized algorithm using an MPI collective operation to synchronize simulation time across all LPs. A second synchronization strategy based on local communication and null messages is implemented in the NullMessageSimulatorImpl class, For the null message strategy the global all to all gather is not required; LPs only need to communication with LPs that have shared point-to-point links. The algorithm to use is controlled by which the |ns3| global value SimulatorImplementationType. The best algorithm to use is dependent on the communication and event scheduling pattern for the application. In general, null message synchronization algorithms will scale better due to local communication scaling better than a global all-to-all gather that is required by DistributedSimulatorImpl. There are two known cases where the global synchronization performs better. The first is when most LPs have point-to-point link with most other LPs, in other words the LPs are nearly fully connected. In this case the null message algorithm will generate more message passing traffic than the all-to-all gather. A second case where the global all-to-all gather is more efficient is when there are long periods of simulation time when no events are occurring. The all-to-all gather algorithm is able to quickly determine then next event time globally. The nearest neighbor behavior of the null message algorithm will require more communications to propagate that knowledge; each LP is only aware of neighbor next event times. Remote point-to-point links +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ As described in the introduction, dividing a simulation for distributed purposes in |ns3| currently can only occur across point-to-point links; therefore, the idea of remote point-to-point links is very important for distributed simulation in |ns3|. When a point-to-point link is installed, connecting two nodes, the point-to-point helper checks the system id, or rank, of both nodes. The rank should be assigned during node creation for distributed simulation and is intended to signify on which LP a node belongs. If the two nodes are on the same rank, a regular point-to-point link is created. If, however, the two nodes are on different ranks, then these nodes are intended for different LPs, and a remote point-to-point link is used. If a packet is to be sent across a remote point-to-point link, MPI is used to send the message to the remote LP. Distributing the topology +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Currently, the full topology is created on each rank, regardless of the individual node system ids. Only the applications are specific to a rank. For example, consider node 1 on LP 1 and node 2 on LP 2, with a traffic generator on node 1. Both node 1 and node 2 will be created on both LP1 and LP2; however, the traffic generator will only be installed on LP1. While this is not optimal for memory efficiency, it does simplify routing, since all current routing implementations in |ns3| will work with distributed simulation. Running Distributed Simulations ******************************* Prerequisites +++++++++++++ .. highlight:: bash Ensure that MPI is installed, as well as mpic++. In Ubuntu repositories, these are openmpi-bin, openmpi-common, openmpi-doc, libopenmpi-dev. In Fedora, these are openmpi and openmpi-devel. Note: There is a conflict on some Fedora systems between libotf and openmpi. A possible "quick-fix" is to yum remove libotf before installing openmpi. This will remove conflict, but it will also remove emacs. Alternatively, these steps could be followed to resolve the conflict: 1) Rename the tiny otfdump which emacs says it needs:: $ mv /usr/bin/otfdump /usr/bin/otfdump.emacs-version 2) Manually resolve openmpi dependencies:: $ sudo yum install libgfortran libtorque numactl 3) Download rpm packages: .. sourcecode:: text openmpi-1.3.1-1.fc11.i586.rpm openmpi-devel-1.3.1-1.fc11.i586.rpm openmpi-libs-1.3.1-1.fc11.i586.rpm openmpi-vt-1.3.1-1.fc11.i586.rpm from http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/releases/11/Everything/i386/os/Packages/ 4) Force the packages in:: $ sudo rpm -ivh --force \ openmpi-1.3.1-1.fc11.i586.rpm \ openmpi-libs-1.3.1-1.fc11.i586.rpm \ openmpi-devel-1.3.1-1.fc11.i586.rpm \ openmpi-vt-1.3.1-1.fc11.i586.rpm Also, it may be necessary to add the openmpi bin directory to PATH in order to execute mpic++ and mpirun from the command line. Alternatively, the full path to these executables can be used. Finally, if openmpi complains about the inability to open shared libraries, such as libmpi_cxx.so.0, it may be necessary to add the openmpi lib directory to LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Here is an example of setting up PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH using a bash shell: * For a 32-bit Linux distribution:: $ export PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/openmpi/bin $ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/lib/openmpi/lib For a 64-bit Linux distribution:: $ export PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib64/openmpi/bin $ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/lib64/openmpi/lib These lines can be added into ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc to avoid having to retype them when a new shell is opened. Building and Running Examples +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ If you already built |ns3| without MPI enabled, you must re-build:: $ ./waf distclean Configure |ns3| with the --enable-mpi option:: $ ./waf -d debug configure --enable-examples --enable-tests --enable-mpi Ensure that MPI is enabled by checking the optional features shown from the output of configure. Next, build |ns3|:: $ ./waf After building |ns3| with mpi enabled, the example programs are now ready to run with mpirun. Here are a few examples (from the root |ns3| directory):: $ mpirun -np 2 ./waf --run simple-distributed $ mpirun -np 4 -machinefile mpihosts ./waf --run 'nms-udp-nix --LAN=2 --CN=4 --nix=1' An examle using the null message synchronization algorithm:: $ mpirun -np 2 ./waf --run simple-distributed --nullmsg The np switch is the number of logical processors to use. The machinefile switch is which machines to use. In order to use machinefile, the target file must exist (in this case mpihosts). This can simply contain something like: .. sourcecode:: text localhost localhost localhost ... Or if you have a cluster of machines, you can name them. NOTE: Some users have experienced issues using mpirun and waf together. An alternative way to run distributed examples is shown below:: $ ./waf shell $ cd build/debug $ mpirun -np 2 src/mpi/examples/simple-distributed Setting synchronization algorithm to use ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The global value SimulatorImplementationType is used to set the synchronization algorithm to use. This value must be set before the MpiInterface::Enable method is invoked if the default DistributedSimulatorImpl is not used. Here is an example code snippet showing how to add a command line argument to control the synchronization algorithm choice::: cmd.AddValue ("nullmsg", "Enable the use of null-message synchronization", nullmsg); if(nullmsg) { GlobalValue::Bind ("SimulatorImplementationType", StringValue ("ns3::NullMessageSimulatorImpl")); } else { GlobalValue::Bind ("SimulatorImplementationType", StringValue ("ns3::DistributedSimulatorImpl")); } // Enable parallel simulator with the command line arguments MpiInterface::Enable (&argc, &argv); Creating custom topologies ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ .. highlight:: cpp The example programs in src/mpi/examples give a good idea of how to create different topologies for distributed simulation. The main points are assigning system ids to individual nodes, creating point-to-point links where the simulation should be divided, and installing applications only on the LP associated with the target node. Assigning system ids to nodes is simple and can be handled two different ways. First, a NodeContainer can be used to create the nodes and assign system ids:: NodeContainer nodes; nodes.Create (5, 1); // Creates 5 nodes with system id 1. Alternatively, nodes can be created individually, assigned system ids, and added to a NodeContainer. This is useful if a NodeContainer holds nodes with different system ids:: NodeContainer nodes; Ptr node1 = CreateObject (0); // Create node1 with system id 0 Ptr node2 = CreateObject (1); // Create node2 with system id 1 nodes.Add (node1); nodes.Add (node2); Next, where the simulation is divided is determined by the placement of point-to-point links. If a point-to-point link is created between two nodes with different system ids, a remote point-to-point link is created, as described in :ref:`current-implementation-details`. Finally, installing applications only on the LP associated with the target node is very important. For example, if a traffic generator is to be placed on node 0, which is on LP0, only LP0 should install this application. This is easily accomplished by first checking the simulator system id, and ensuring that it matches the system id of the target node before installing the application. Tracing During Distributed Simulations ************************************** Depending on the system id (rank) of the simulator, the information traced will be different, since traffic originating on one simulator is not seen by another simulator until it reaches nodes specific to that simulator. The easiest way to keep track of different traces is to just name the trace files or pcaps differently, based on the system id of the simulator. For example, something like this should work well, assuming all of these local variables were previously defined:: if (MpiInterface::GetSystemId () == 0) { pointToPoint.EnablePcapAll ("distributed-rank0"); phy.EnablePcap ("distributed-rank0", apDevices.Get (0)); csma.EnablePcap ("distributed-rank0", csmaDevices.Get (0), true); } else if (MpiInterface::GetSystemId () == 1) { pointToPoint.EnablePcapAll ("distributed-rank1"); phy.EnablePcap ("distributed-rank1", apDevices.Get (0)); csma.EnablePcap ("distributed-rank1", csmaDevices.Get (0), true); }