VTune Amplifier XE 2013 installation on clusters

2.During installation you may change the install directory, and select the components to install. Make sure you are installing the product on a shared file system path accessible for reading by all expected users. For successful installation you should have read and write permissions for the /tmp directory.

3.In addition, you may select the ‘Change Advanced Options’ menu item to configure the kernel driver installation options.

4. You may want to change the driver installation schema to enable hardware EBS analysis and Power analysis on the rest of the nodes, in addition or instead of the current node. You don’t need to install the entire product on each node, as it’s already set in the shared file system. However, driver installation is required on every system/node in the network where hardware EBS and Power analysis data are to be collected.

To do that, you need to enter each node and run the installation scripts located in the product installation directory. It's better to write a script performing the same installation procedure on all required nodes.

where my_group is the user group or NIS group to have access to the hardware EBS data collection.

Note: by default the vtune group is used if the --group option is omitted. Have the users included in the vtune group in this case.

The insmod-sep script loads the driver into the system on the current node. The boot-script configures the driver boot script and then installs it in the appropriate system directory. For more details of the available options run the script with the --help option.

The same applies to the PWR driver:

Note: the described installation schema works only if the cluster or the network is homogeneous, i.e. the nodes hardware configuration and OS are identical. In case the machines in the network are not identical, you'll need a local driver build and installation for each system.

Although, more proper command to check driver status would be to run the script from the driver SDK:

./insmod-sep3 -q

You will get full information on all drivers loaded, user group ownership and file permits:

pax driver is loaded and owned by group "vtune" with file permissions "660".

sep3_10 driver is loaded and owned by group "vtune" with file permissions "660".

vtsspp driver is not loaded.

Alternatively, if you want more control over driver installation, you may go the following way.

1. Go to the unpacked product on and run the install script with the following option:

./install.sh --SHARED_INSTALL

The --SHARED_INSTALL option allows skipping driver installation for the current machine. This is needed as users are expected to launch profiling on the compute nodes, in general, not necessarily on the main or head node or the node used by admin for installation.

2. Even without the EBS driver installed, the product can be used for profiling with predefined analysis types based on software sampling (e.g. Hotspots, Concurrency, Lock and Waits). Users may launch the product from a shared file system, for example: /mnt/nfs/appsrvr/intel/vtune_amplifier_xe_2013/bin64/amplxe-cl

3. Prepare the kernel driver for installation. Let's take the SEP driver as an example. Build the driver for the current OS. Run the following commands:

cd <INSTALL-DIR>/sepdk/src

./build-driver –ni

The driver will be compiled and installed in the current src directory.

If you need to build and install the driver in a custom directory, use the --install-dir option:

./build-driver  --install-dir=/path-to-share/my_vtune_driver/

to specify the driver installation directory. The my_vtune_driver directory should exist in the path.

Then copy these scripts to the driver installation directory:

cp insmod-sep3 /path-to-share/my_vtune_driver/

cp rmmod-sep3 /path-to-share/my_vtune_driver/

cp boot-script /path-to-share/my_vtune_driver/

Copy the pax driver stub scripts as well (create a pax subdirectory in the new driver location):

cd pax

cp insmod-pax /path-to-share/my_vtune_driver/pax

cp rmmod-pax /path-to-share/my_vtune_driver/pax

cp boot-script /path-to-share/my_vtune_driver/pax

See the <INSTALL-DIR>/sepdk/src/README.txt document for more details on building the driver or run the script with the --help option for more details on the available options.

4. Now install the kernel driver on the selected nodes and add users to the list who are allowed to run EBS analysis.

Enter each node that you expect to use for performance profiling and run the following commands from the shared directory where the appropriate driver is located. E.g. for the built driver driver installed into the prebuilt subdirectory:

cd <INSTALL-DIR>/sepdk/prebuilt

./insmod-sep3 –-group my_group

./boot-script –-install –-group my_group

The insmod-sep script loads the driver into the system on the current node. The boot-script configures the driver boot script and then installs it in the appropriate system directory. For more details of the available options run the script with the --help option.

If needed, the driver can be unloaded and uninstalled on any node. To do that enter the selected node and run the following commands from the directory where the appropriate driver is located. E.g. for the prebuilt driver:

cd <INSTALL-DIR>/sepdk/prebuilt

./rmmod-sep3

./boot-script –-uninstall

The same applies to the PWR driver, with source file and scripts located at <INSTALL-DIR>/pwrdk/src. You can install it separately or decide not to install at all.

cd <INSTALL-DIR>/pwrdk/src

./build-driver

./insmod-apwr –-group my_group

./boot-script –-install –-group my_group

5. Now the users that belong to my_group can run hardware EBS analysis and Power analysis on the nodes. Users may run either the command line or the GUI version of the tool, depending on their display device. Users are expected to set the results directory path within their home directory. By default the tool uses the path: ${HOME}/intel/amplxe/Projects/project-name. Users may set up a directory to save analysis results to a local path, e.g. /tmp. In the case of very slow network connection this may help speed data loading and processing while analyzing collected results. The user should check in advance if there is enough disk space where /tmp is mounted.

Let’s consider a more specific case, which is typical for a cluster infrastructure. Users usually have no direct access to the nodes except one node; let’s call it “head node” or node1. The only disk space available for writing is the user’s home directory. (Pic.2.). The main idea behind such a configuration is that users have all their data and software on the file system mounted on the head node and start their tasks using job scripts which involve MPI mechanisms for dispatching the tasks among other nodes.

Pic.2.

Here the installation is not much different from the previous. The administrator has to make sure the product can be launched on each compute node and the kernel driver is installed and loaded on each compute node.

Note: the cluster has to be homogeneous.

The main difference is in how the users run performance collection on the nodes, as they are not able to run the product directly on the nodes. In this case users should use the scheduling system scripts in order to launch an analysis. E.g. for Intel MPI the mpiexec script can be used on the head node to launch the profiling collector on the other nodes, specifying a user application to run as a parameter.

The usage model of VTune Amplifier XE 2013 on clusters will be discussed in detail in a separate article.

Installing multiple versions of VTune Amplifier on the same system

You can install and use multiple versions of the product on the same system; however kernel driver usage is limited to a single version of VTune Amplifier. So, you may have installed several copies of VTune Amplifier without SEP driver or PWR driver and a single VTune Amplifier version with the drivers installed. The latter would be enabled with the advanced types of analysis using hardware EBS and Power analysis data collection.

For example, you may have the following installation directory structure on your machine:

ls -l /opt/intel/

vtune_amplifier_xe_2013_Update1

vtune_amplifier_xe_2013_Update5

vtune_amplifier_xe -> /opt/intel/vtune_amplifier_xe_2013

Note: the default installation of the product creates a soft link vtune_amplifier_xe, pointed to the current version.

If you need, you can uninstall the kernel drivers of the current VTune Amplifier version and install the ones from another e.g. “older” VTune Amplifier version. In this case this “older” VTune Amplifier version only is enabled with the advanced types of analysis.