Newsgroups: comp.parallel.mpi
From: gdburns@osc.edu (Greg Burns)
Subject: XMPI: an MPI run/debug GUI for LAM
Organization: Ohio Supercomputer Center
Date: 1 Sep 1994 18:34:24 -0400
Message-ID: <345ktg$iih@tbag.osc.edu>



Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) announces the general release of
XMPI, an X/Motif graphical user interface for running and debugging
MPI applications.  The software is available in source code form under the
terms of the GNU general license (V2).  Distribution is via anonymous ftp
from tbag.osc.edu under pub/lam.

Supported Platforms

Sun 4 (sparc), SunOS 4.1.3
Sun 4 (sparc), Solaris 2.3
SGI IRIX 4.0.5
IBM RS/6000, AIX v3r2
DEC AXP, OSF/1 V2.0
HP 9000/755, HP-UX 9.01

Key Features

- monitors MPI process execution status and synchronization
- monitors undelivered message synchronization
- zooms onto communicator, tag and message length information
- assembles MPI applications from local or remote programs
- easy startup and takedown of applications

Release Notes

XMPI is an X/Motif based graphical user interface for running and
debugging MPI programs.  It is implemented on top of LAM, an MPI
cluster computing environment, but the interface is generally independent
of LAM operating concepts.  You write an MPI application in one or
more MPI programs, tell XMPI about these programs and where they are
to be run, then snapshot the synchronization status of MPI processes
throughout the application execution.

Each time you hit the big stimulation button, you get a brief graphical
synopsis of the overall application.  By clicking on one or more processes
you get detailed information on execution status (running or blocked and why),
and unreceived message status (communicator, tag, length).

XMPI is one piece in a complete debugging toolset.  We intend to follow
XMPI with a trace visualization GUI.  A trace collection system is already
in LAM.

We have attempted to make XMPI look as uniformly presentable on the
six "UNIX-portable" platforms we support (the same platforms as LAM supports).
The application resource files are meant to fill in the cracks.

Although we officially support HP-UX, our HP test machines were down
for the latter stages of XMPI testing.  A pre-production version did
check out on HP, but the HP display was never tested.

XMPI works with LAM 5.2 or later.

-=-
Greg Burns				Ohio Supercomputer Center
gdburns@tbag.osc.edu			http://www.osc.edu/lam.html

