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path: root/src/dev/multi_iface.cc
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2015-07-15dev: add support for multi gem5 runsGabor Dozsa
Multi gem5 is an extension to gem5 to enable parallel simulation of a distributed system (e.g. simulation of a pool of machines connected by Ethernet links). A multi gem5 run consists of seperate gem5 processes running in parallel (potentially on different hosts/slots on a cluster). Each gem5 process executes the simulation of a component of the simulated distributed system (e.g. a multi-core board with an Ethernet NIC). The patch implements the "distributed" Ethernet link device (dev/src/multi_etherlink.[hh.cc]). This device will send/receive (simulated) Ethernet packets to/from peer gem5 processes. The interface to talk to the peer gem5 processes is defined in dev/src/multi_iface.hh and in tcp_iface.hh. There is also a central message server process (util/multi/tcp_server.[hh,cc]) which acts like an Ethernet switch and transfers messages among the gem5 peers. A multi gem5 simulations can be kicked off by the util/multi/gem5-multi.sh wrapper script. Checkpoints are supported by multi-gem5. The checkpoint must be initiated by a single gem5 process. E.g., the gem5 process with rank 0 can take a checkpoint from the bootscript just before it invokes 'mpirun' to launch an MPI test. The message server process will notify all the other peer gem5 processes and make them take a checkpoint, too (after completing a global synchronisation to ensure that there are no inflight messages among gem5).