About This Manual

This publication documents the SGI implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI).

MPI consists of a library, which contains both normal and profiling entry points, and commands that support the MPI interface. MPI is a component of the SGI Message Passing Toolkit (MPT).

MPT is a software package that supports parallel programming on large systems and clusters of computer systems through a technique known as message passing. Systems running MPI applications must also be running Array Services software version 3.1 or later. For more information on Array Services, see Chapter 3, “Array Services” in the Linux Resource Administration Guide.

Related Publications and Other Sources

Material about MPI is available from a variety of sources. Some of these, particularly webpages, include pointers to other resources. Following is a grouped list of these sources.

The MPI standard:

  • As a technical report: University of Tennessee report (reference [24] from Using MPI: Portable Parallel Programming with the Message-Passing Interface, by Gropp, Lusk, and Skjellum).

  • As online PostScript or hypertext on the Web:

    http://www.mpi-forum.org/

  • As a journal article in the International Journal of Supercomputer Applications, volume 8, number 3/4, 1994. See also International Journal of Supercomputer Applications , volume 12, number 1/4, pages 1 to 299, 1998.

Book: Using MPI: Portable Parallel Programming with the Message-Passing Interface, by Gropp, Lusk, and Skjellum, publication TPD-0011.

Newsgroup: comp.parallel.mpi

SGI manuals: SpeedShop User's Guide and Linux Resource Administration Guide for information on Array Services

Obtaining Publications

You can obtain SGI documentation in the following ways:

  • See the SGI Technical Publications Library at: http://docs.sgi.com. Various formats are available. This library contains the most recent and most comprehensive set of online books, release notes, man pages, and other information.

  • You can also view man pages by typing man title on a command line.

Conventions

The following conventions are used throughout this document:

Convention 

Meaning

command 

This fixed-space font denotes literal items such as commands, files, routines, path names, signals, messages, and programming language structures.

manpage(x) 

Man page section identifiers appear in parentheses after man page names.

variable 

Italic typeface denotes variable entries and words or concepts being defined.

user input 

This bold, fixed-space font denotes literal items that the user enters in interactive sessions. (Output is shown in nonbold, fixed-space font.)

[ ] 

Brackets enclose optional portions of a command or directive line.

... 

Ellipses indicate that a preceding element can be repeated.

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