Abbreviated Installation Instructions for GM 1.5.2.1

To compile GM on Linux platforms, you will only need GNU make and C/C++ compilers. Please be sure to read the README files for detailed installation instructions and architecture-specific troubleshooting. Unresolved questions may also be addressed in the FAQ.

These abbreviated instructions presume that you are installing GM 1.5.2.1. (Here is the README-linux for GM 1.5.2.1.)

Current cautions and common problems:

  • GM is not in the critical performance path so it does not need to be built with specialized compilers and flags. GM should be built with gcc and only built with -O level of optimization.
  • When building/linking GM applications, you must do so on a Linux box that matches the OS version of the machine on which you will be running. For instance you cannot compile on a glibc-2.2 based OS and run the executable on a glibc-2.1 based one.
  • GM_INSTALL fails? Refer to this FAQ entry for troubleshooting.
  • AGP (nVidia and ATI) conflicts? Refer to the "Caveats" section of the README-linux.
  • APIC IRQ conflicts? Refer to the "Caveats" section of the README-linux.
  • To install GM on RedHat Linux Advanced Server (also known as Pensacola Gold Master), you will need a patch for gm-1.5.2.1. Refer to the FAQ for details.
  • If you have PCI64C NICs running on machines with 33MHz PCI buses, you must use gm-1.5.2 or later.
  • If you're installing GM on an Itanium IA64 McKinley (Tiger motherboard), you will need gm-1.5.2 or later.
  • If you're installing GM on a PAE-enabled x86 Linux kernel with more than 4GB of physical memory, you will need gm-1.5.2 or later.
  • PCI32 NICs are NOT supported on IA64.
  • For Alphas, if you have 2GB or more of memory, we recommend kernel version 2.4.18 or later. You must use kernel version 2.4.14 or later (2.4.9 also works).
  • By default, GM-1.5 and higher assumes that you have LANai9 or LANai7 NICs. If you have LANai4 NICs with 1MB or 512KB memory, you must configure with --disable-new-features.
  • If you have a mixture of hosts with LANai4 and LANai7 (or LANai9) NICs that need to talk to each other, you must configure with --disable-new-features on all of the hosts.
  • By default, GM-1.5 and higher has security features enabled. Thus, you must now be root to run the GM Mapper (or gm_simpleroute).
  • Do not use the configure flag --enable-directcopy with GM 1.5.2.1. This flag is not a valid option to GM 1.5.2.1. It will be re-enabled in a future release.
  • If the host is rebooted, you must reload the GM driver and rerun the GM Mapper.
  • The GM Mapper must be run before any communication over Myrinet can occur.
  • In most cases, the GM Mapper should not be run continuously. It is intrusive and can interfere with network traffic intensive jobs (e.g, MPI applications).

    • GM installation is performed in three easy steps:

    1. Configuring, compiling, and loading the GM driver.

            gunzip -c gm-1.5.2.1_Linux.tar.gz | tar xvf -
        cd gm-1.5.2.1_Linux
        ./configure
        make
        cd binary
        su root
        ./GM_INSTALL

    By default, we assume that the kernel header files for your Linux installation are located in /usr/src/linux. If your Linux installation is not located in /usr/src/linux, you must configure with the following option:

     
        ./configure --with-linux=<linux-source-dir>

    where <linux-source-dir> specifies the directory for the Linux kernel source.

    The kernel header files MUST match the running kernel exactly: not only should they both be from the same version, but they should also contain the same kernel configuration options.

    By default, we also assume that you have LANai9 or LANai7 NICs. If you have LANai4 NIC with 1MB of memory, you will need to configure with:

            ./configure --disable-new-features

    If you have LANai4 NIC with 512KB, you will need to configure with:

     
        ./configure --disable-new-features --with-min-supported-sram=256

    and you will only have 4 GM ports available instead of 8.

    2. Running the GM Mapper.

            cd binary/sbin/
        su root
        ./mapper map_once.args

    There are 3 ways in which the GM Mapper can be run. Refer to the README-linux for details.

    3. Testing the GM Installation.

    A variety of test scripts are available in binary/bin/ to test your GM installation. We recommend the five tests described in tests/README.

    Congratulations! You have successfully installed GM.

    Refer to the Software and Documentation Page for details of GM-based software (MPICH-GM, VI-GM, PVM on GM). If you encountered difficulties during any phase of this installation process, we recommend that you first consult the README-linux and FAQ, and if you still have unresolved questions, please feel free to contact technical support at help@myri.com.


    Last updated: 19 May 2006