mmon

Usage

mmon

Notes

mmon is a big bloated Motif program that helps debug MCP programs and Myrinet problems. mmon shows a real-time picture of a Myrinet. mmon shows MCP counters, registers, ISR bits, variables, arrays, the network map and routes. mmon lets you make dump files of MCP memory.

Files

Files
Network Map
Counters
Dials
Debug

Mmon reads in 3 kinds of files. To examine a running MCP, you must read in an "mcp.dat" file: select "Open mcp.dat". To dump the contents of an MCP's memory, first open the "mcp.dat" file for the MCP, and then select "Save As Dump." You can open this dump file as if it were an MCP file--with "Open Dump"; it will act just like a frozen MCP. When dumping an MCP, you can make sure that the MCP's map doesn't change during the dump, by using the "Handshake with Mapper" toggle button on the "Save As Dump" File Selection Box. Finally, you can save a file representing the topology of a Myrinet with the "Save As Map" menu item. You can open these map files, into windows of their own, with "Open Map." These map files can be used with the "compare" feature, which is explained below.

Mmon's dump feature replaces the old "ldump" program. Files created with "ldump" are not compatible with Mmon.

To use Mmon, first open an "mcp.dat" file, or a "dump" file.

Next, select the "Counters" from the "Special" Menu. The Counters dialog box shows you various MCP counters. Verify that the MCP is working properly:

The items in the right hand column should not be question marks.
Map Messages Sent and Received should be increasing.
FRESes and Bad CRCs should be low and constant.
The Map is Valid and the Routes are Valid should be 1.

Now that you have verified that the MCP is working, you can show the network map. In the main mmon window, select the "Mapping" toggle Button. If nothing happens, try again. Once you have a map, you can pretty it up my moving nodes with the mouse. You can change the labels of the nodes by double clicking on them. Sometimes this seems to require a brisk triple or even quadruple click. You can save the map to a file by selecting the "Save As" item from the "File" menu. You can watch the Map change in real-time by clicking the "Continuous" Toggle button on the mmon main window. You can compare the current network map to a network map store in a file by first opening the file, with the "Open Map File" item from the "File Menu" and then by pushing the "Compare" toggle button on mmons main window. You can see (sometimes) routes from your host (the largest computer icon) to any other host by selecting the "Routes" toggle button and then by selecting the desired destination node on the main map.

You should never need to do this, but you can, if you want, reload the MCP by pushing the "Reset" button. Normally the "i" (interrupt) toggle button should be selected too.

To see the bandwidths and bytecounts across various MCP interfaces, use the Dials dialog box, by selecting "Dials" from the "Special" menu.

If you are writing your own MCP you can use the Debug dialog box to see the values of MCP variables, or of LANai memory locations. Select "Debug" from the "Special" Menu. In the lefthand column you can type variable names; their values will be shown in the righthand column. If the variable cannot be found a question mark will appear in the righthand column.

This debug window syntax is for versions of mmon 3.7 or greater. If you have an older version of mmon the words "short" and "char" are not defined, and, by default, all variables and addressing is half-words.

Debug Window Syntax

Variable	Value
name	a 32 bit number called name
(char)name	an 8-bit number.
(short)name	a 16 bit number.
(long)name	a 32 bit number.
&name	the address of name. (half-word addressed on the L2)
name[i]	the i-th 32 bit number in an array of 32 bit numbers.
(char)name[i]	the i-th 8-bit number in an array of 8-bit numbers.
(short)name[i]	the i-th 16-bit number in an array of 16-bit numbers.
(long)name[i]	the i-th 32-bit number in an array of 32-bit numbers.
0xhex number	the 32-bit contents of memory location hex number.
(char)0xhex number	the 8-bit contents of memory location hex number.
(short)0xhex number	the 16-bit contents of memory location hex number.
(long)0xhex number	the 32-bit contents of memory location hex number.

Whitespace probably counts. You can load a list of variables saved in a file with the "load" button on the Debug window. To use half-word addressing (for the L2) push the button called "L2" in.

The mmon Dump feature is also useful for debugging your own MCP.

Finally, you can change the rate at which mmon samples the MCP (updates maps, if Continuous or Compare is selected) with the Scale control just beneath the mmon main window's menu. The number show is the sample period, in seconds.

mmon Fonts

On some ill-configured systems mmons fonts look foul. To fix foul fonts, create an app-defaults file and define the variable

Mmon*fontList:

By default most of mmon fonts are 12 point Helvetica:

Mmon*fontList: *-*-Helvetica-bold-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-p-*-*-*"

On my solaris computer 12 point Helvetica looks like dry catfood. So I use the screen font, which is supposed to be readable on the screen:

Mmon*fontList:-*-screen-bold-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*

To make an app-defaults file active you can rely on X-Windowses complicated environment variable scheme, which somehow searches for app-defaults files in certain randomly defined directories. Or you can just tell X to take your app-default directly, with xrdb. In my .xinitrc file I have the line

xrdb -merge mmon.ad

There is also a way you can set app-defaults variables through the command line. And some people claim that the .Xdefaults file in your home directory is automatically used to set up the X resource database.

Here is the mmon app-defaults file:


Mmon*background: lightgrey
Mmon*highlightThickness: 0
Mmon*fontList:-*-screen-bold-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*
Mmon*Net.background: white
Mmon*Net.symbolFont:  -*-screen-bold-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*

Mmon*XmScrolledWindow.scrollingPolicy: AUTOMATIC
Mmon*XmScrolledWindow.visualPolicy: VARIABLE
Mmon*XmScrolledWindow.height: 330
Mmon*XmScrolledWindow.width: 460 

Mmon*liveLink.width:2
Mmon*liveLink.foreground:black
Mmon*deadLink.width:1
Mmon*deadLink.foreground:red
Mmon*routeLink.width:2
Mmon*routeLink.foreground:blue

Mmon*autoUnmanage:False
Mmon*applicationLabel.fontList: -*-screen-bold-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*
Mmon*copyrightLabel.fontList: -*-screen-bold-r-*-*-*-240-*-*-*-*-*-*
Mmon*companyLabel.fontList: -*-screen-bold-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*
Mmon*companyLabel.foreground:blue
Mmon*aboutDialog.width: 280
Mmon*aboutDialog.height: 180
Mmon*mainWindow.width:600
Mmon*mainWindow.height:500
Mmon*XmToggleButton.fillOnSelect: True
Mmon*XmToggleButton.selectColor: yellow
Mmon*XmTextField.background: white
Mmon*dialDialog*squareForm.background: white
Mmon*dialDialog*dial.background: white
Mmon*dialDialog.width: 320
Mmon*dialDialog.height: 360
Mmon*debugDialog.height: 500
Mmon*debugDialog.width: 400
Mmon*debugDialog.pane.top.height: 80
Mmon*countDialog*fres.foreground:red

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