SGI ProPack(TM) 7 for Linux(R) Service Pack 1 - Release Notes ============================================================= Copyright (c) 2010 SGI. All rights reserved. Contents -------- 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Before You Start / System Requirements 1.2 Major Highlights 1.3 SGI Software Product Life Cycle Management 1.4 Additional Information Online 2.0 Getting Started 2.1 Related Documentation 2.2 Installation 2.3 Software Updates 2.4 Additional Details about Changes 2.5 Upgrading from SGI ProPack 6 2.6 Upgrading from SGI ProPack 2, 3, 4 or 5 3.0 Known Problems, Workarounds and System Configuration Adjustments 4.0 Additional Installation Methods 4.1 For Systems running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 5.0 Reader Comments and Feedback 6.0 Additional Notices ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 1.0 Introduction ----------------- SGI ProPack 7 SP1 is the first service pack for the SGI ProPack 7 release, the next generation of SGI's suite of performance optimization libraries and tools that accelerate applications and provide additional capabilities for SGI high performance computer systems. SGI ProPack 7 SP1 supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 (SLES11 SP1) on all SGI ia64 and x86_64 platforms. The SGI ProPack 7 releases focus on the value-add features SGI develops such as the SGI Message Passing Toolkit, linkless FFIO, XVM volume manager, numatools, cpusets, Unified Parallel C, global reference unit (GRU) and superpages support on SGI Altix UV and SGI REACT Real-Time for Linux. This document contains the latest release information for SGI ProPack 7 for Linux, known problems at the time of release and pointers to related documentation. For late breaking caveats and other information not included in these release notes, visit the SGI ProPack 7 product pages on Supportfolio: https://support.sgi.com/content_request/779613/index.html Also available on Supportfolio is the SGI Software Support Policy. This document contains important information about major and minor releases, describes the different support modes, standard bugfix guidelines and the support policy overview for SGI ProPack for Linux. 1.1 Before You Start / System Requirements ------------------------------------------- If you have not already read through the SGI Foundation Software 2 SP1 release notes, please do so now. You can find the SGI Foundation Software release notes in the /docs directory of the SGI Foundation Software media and in the /usr/share/doc/packages/sgi-foundation-2/ directory on systems already running the SGI Foundation Software. Please read the following important notices for using SGI ProPack 7 SP1: - requires SLES11 SP1 - requires SGI Foundation Software 2 SP1 release Do not install the SGI ProPack 7 SP1 release unless your system is already running SLES11 SP1 or you plan to upgrade to SGI ProPack 7 SP1 and SLES11 SP1 in a single installation session. 1.2 Major Highlights --------------------- Some of the major highlights in the SGI ProPack 7 SP1 release include the following: - supports SLES11 SP1 - added support for SGI Altix UV 100/1000 platforms - added SGI Altix UV global reference unit (GRU) support and API - added SGI Altix UV superpages support and API - updated MPT version to 2.01 - added xpmem-devel package - added SGI Altix UV XVMA interface - added new cpumap utility to numatools package - removed kernel modules for debug kernel variant - other bugfixes and improvements (see CHANGELOGS.txt for details) For information about changes in previous SGI ProPack 7 releases, see the release notes for previous version(s) on Supportfolio: https://support.sgi.com/content_request/779613/index.html For more information about some of these changes, please see section "2.4 Additional Details about Changes" located in this document. As noted in the introduction above, SGI ProPack 7 SP1 supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 (SLES11 SP1) at this time on both the ia64 and x86_64 architectures. Not all software features are supported across all architectures. The following table highlights the differences: ============================================== Software Feature sles11 sles11 Description ia64 x86_64 ============================================== array services o o ---------------------------------------------- comprehensive sys. accounting o o ---------------------------------------------- cpuset support o^1 o^1 ---------------------------------------------- cross partitioning (xpmem) o o^2 ---------------------------------------------- dapl support o - ---------------------------------------------- global ref. unit (gru) support - uv ---------------------------------------------- gru api development kit - o ---------------------------------------------- linkless flexible file i/o o o ---------------------------------------------- linux jobs support o o ---------------------------------------------- memory accounting library o o ---------------------------------------------- message fabric tests/mpitests o o ---------------------------------------------- message passing toolkit o o ---------------------------------------------- model specific register tools - o ---------------------------------------------- mpi profiling (perfcatcher) o o ---------------------------------------------- mpi perfboost - o ---------------------------------------------- numatools support o o ---------------------------------------------- performance co-pilot (sgi) o o ---------------------------------------------- process set support o o ---------------------------------------------- real time support (react) o^3 xe+uv^4 ---------------------------------------------- secure array services o o ---------------------------------------------- sgi propack config scripts o xe+uv ---------------------------------------------- PSLDLT solver libs (sgisolve) o o ---------------------------------------------- sgitar o o ---------------------------------------------- superpages support - uv ---------------------------------------------- unified parallel c (upc) - o ---------------------------------------------- xvma interface - uv ---------------------------------------------- xvm volume manager o xe+uv ---------------------------------------------- ^1: SGI ProPack provides the cpuset-utils, libcpuset and libbitmask packages; SGI recommends replacing the libcpuset1/libbitmask1 packages provided in SLES11 with the SGI equivalents ^2: xpmem is required for support of sgi-mpt, and also required for cross partitioning (numalink) support. ^3: includes support for external interrupts, frame rate scheduler, parallel blocking barrier (kbar), libsgirt, react-configuration, react-docs, user level interrupts, cpu shield module, trace toolkit, real-time debug kernel and libreact real-time CPU config API ^4: includes support for external interrupts, frame rate scheduler, libsgirt, react-configuration, react-docs, user level interrupts, cpu shield module, trace toolkit, real-time debug kernel SGI ProPack 7 contains a mixture of open source and proprietary licensed software. For a complete list of the packages, their licenses and where they are located on the SGI ProPack 7 media, see the RPMS.txt file. For a list changes in SGI ProPack 7 SP1, see the CHANGELOGS.txt file. RPMS.txt, CHANGELOGS.txt and these release notes (README.txt) are located in the /docs directory on the product media. 1.3 SGI Software Product Life Cycle Management ----------------------------------------------- In accordance with the SGI software product life cycle management strategy, SGI will announce support mode changes for existing software products. The following page on Supportfolio describes the SGI Software Life Cycle Definitions and Support Modes: https://support.sgi.com/content_request/779611/index.html The support mode status for SGI software is detailed on the following page: https://support.sgi.com/content_request/779612/index.html For any bundled and unbundled software products that are not released in Active Support Mode, SGI will specify the support mode status in the release documentation. SGI ProPack 7 for Linux is currently in Active Support mode. Please note that in general, updates are provided for the latest SGI ProPack 7 release or service pack. 1.4 Additional Information Online ---------------------------------- Online caveats, release note updates, package indexes and other useful information is available on the SGI ProPack 7 pages on Supportfolio Online at the following location: https://support.sgi.com/content_request/779613/index.html Note that you must be logged into Supportfolio to access these pages. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 2.0 Getting Started -------------------- This section provides pointers to related documentation and installation resources as well as additional information about getting software updates and tips for sites migrating from earlier versions of SGI ProPack. Novell Product Registration: If you have not yet registered your SLES software with Novell, please do so now by visiting the following site: http://www.novell.com/reg If you have not already created a Novell account, you will need to create an account before you can register your software purchase with Novell. Follow the onscreen instructions at that site using the subscription number printed on the registration card that came with your software. Only registered users are entitled to the resources that Novell make available online. SGI Supportfolio Account: If you have not already created an SGI Supportfolio login account, please do so now by visiting the following site: https://support.sgi.com/register_request You will need to have a Supportfolio account in order to access valuable online information as well as to get online updates to the SGI ProPack product. It is important that you register your system(s) so that SGI can ensure that you can access online updates using your Supportfolio login id and password. 2.1 Related Documentation -------------------------- SGI may provide documentation in printed or online formats. The Start Here Guide is provided in printed format with new systems pre-installed with SGI ProPack. The Start Here can also be found in the /docs directory on the SGI ProPack media and at the Techpubs Library (http://docs.sgi.com) online. Documentation created or updated for this release includes: - SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP1 Release Notes (this document) - SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP1 RPM Packages (RPMS.txt) - SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP1 Changelogs (CHANGELOGS.txt) - SGI ProPack 7 for Linux SP1 Start Here (007-5640-002) - SGI Altix UV GRU Development Kit Programmer's Guide (007-5668-001) - SGI Altix UV Systems Linux Configuration and Operations Guide (007-5629-001) - SGI Altix UV Systems Controller Software User's Guide (007-5636-001) - Unified Parallel C (UPC) User's Guide (007-5604-002) - REACT Real-Time for Linux Programmer's Guide (007-4746-013) Documentation for the SLES releases is available on the Novell website: http://www.novell.com/documentation/ Documentation for SGI software products is available on the SGI Technical Publications website: http://docs.sgi.com/ 2.2 Installation ----------------- SGI ProPack 7 SP1 can be installed on SLES11 SP1. In general, SGI strongly recommends that you refer to Novell documentation when you need to install or update to SLES11 SP1. For more general information about the SLES11 SP1 install, refer to the manuals and guides from Novell. SLES11 SP1 supports upgrades from SLES10 via the bootable DVD media. Refer to SLES11 SP1 release notes for more information about updating/upgrading existing SLES installations. Chapter 2 of the SGI ProPack 7 SP1 Start Here guide provides general information about installing the product. See section "4.0 Additional Installation Methods" in these release notes for alternative, text-based installation methods. 2.3 Software Updates --------------------- SGI recommends that customers use the online update tools provided in the SLES11 operating system to keep the software installed on systems up to date with the latest maintenance fixes. Update procedures for clustered systems may differ, so refer to your cluster management software documentation for details. For updates to SLES11 SP1, see the appropriate sections in the README file in the root of the SLES11 SP1 media. Software updates for SLES are provided by Novell. In order to configure your system to enable online updates, you must register with Novell. For more help with this, you can use the "Novell Customer Center Configuration" tool available in the Software section of the YaST Control Center. Customers that received SGI ProPack pre-installed on their new SGI platform may run the following command to add the proper update source for SGI ProPack 7: $ /usr/sbin/sgi-propack-update-source This script will prompt you for your Supportfolio login and then add the proper SGI update source for the given architecture. To view the contents of the update server, simply point your browser at the following directory: https://update.sgi.com/pp/7/sp1/sles11/{ia64,x86_64}/ You will need to provide your Supportfolio login and password to access the directory. For additional information on how to configure YaST Online Update and YUM to download updates for SGI ProPack for Linux, login to Supportfolio and then point your browser to the SGI ProPack 7 product pages: https://support.sgi.com/content_request/779613/index.html 2.4 Additional Details about Changes ------------------------------------- This section provides additional details about certain changes in the SGI ProPack 7 release. - SGI MPT 2.01 MPT 2.01 introduced several new features and improvements, as noted above in section "1.2 Major Highlights". For more information about these new features and improvements, please see the SGI MPT 2.01 release notes located in /opt/sgi/mpt/mpt-2.01/doc/README.relnotes. - SGI Altix UV Global Reference Unit (GRU) Development Kit The GRU is part of the SGI Altix UV Hub application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The UV Hub is the heart of the SGI Altix UV compute blade. It connects to two Intel Xeon 7500 series processor sockets through the Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) ports and to the high speed SGI NUMAlink interconnect fabric through one of four NUMAlink 5 ports. The GRU development kit provides the application programming interface (API) that allows applications direct access to GRU functionality. For more information about the GRU development kit, refer to the SGI Altix UV GRU Development Kit Programmer's Guide located at /usr/share/doc/packages/sgi-propack-7/GRUDEV_PG/. For more information on the SGI Altix UV hub, SGI Altix UV compute blades, QPI, and NUMAlink 5, see the SGI Altix UV 1000 System User's Guide. - SGI Altix UV Superpages Driver, Libraries, Headers and Utilities The superpages driver provides a character device to the user, who can use ioctl's to allocate and map in very large pages (up to a TB). The superpage memory is set up by firmware and is not known to the rest of the operating system. The superpage driver discovers it at startup and controls allocation and zeroing of that memory. For more information, refer to the superpages man page. - SGI Altix UV XVMA Interface The xvma module provides a vma-like interface among xpmem, the GRU driver and the Superpages driver. Each task using superpages has an xmm_struct associated with it (akin to a linux mm_struct). Each superpage mapping has both a vma and an xvma_struct, the later providing superpage operations -- in particular a virtual-to-physical address translation. - New cpumap Utility The cpumap utility displays in human-readable format the logical cpus on a system and relationships between them and the topology. Refer to the cpumap man page for usage information. - Removed Kernel Modules for Debug Kernel Variant As of SLES11 SP1, Novell no longer ships the debug kernel variant; it has been replaced with the "trace" kernel variant. SGI plans to provide SGI ProPack 7 SP1 kernel modules for the new trace kernel variant as a patch to the release at a future date. 2.5 Upgrading from SGI ProPack 6 --------------------------------- To upgrade from the previous SGI ProPack 6 release on a system that is already running SLES11 and SGI Foundation Software 2, either install SGI ProPack 7 as a new add-on product in YaST or as a new software repository in YaST and use the software management module to install all newer SGI ProPack 7 packages. To upgrade on a system that is running SGI ProPack 6 on a SLES10 release, follow the Novell instructions for upgrading from SLES10 to SLES11, then install both SGI Foundation Software 2 and SGI ProPack 7 using the Add-On Product module in YaST. 2.6 Upgrading from SGI ProPack 2, 3, 4 or 5 -------------------------------------------- If you are running SGI ProPack 3, any one of the SGI ProPack 3 Service Packs or an earlier version of SGI ProPack 2, note that upgrades are not supported. In order to run SLES11, SGI Foundation Software 2 and SGI ProPack 7, you will need to do a fresh installation. In order to update from previous SGI ProPack versions running on SLES10 to SGI ProPack 7, SGI recommends that you first uninstall the older SGI ProPack version, then update your system to SLES11. As a final step, install the SGI Foundation Software 2 and SGI ProPack 7 products on your system. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 3.0 Known Problems, Workarounds and System Configuration Changes ----------------------------------------------------------------- The following two sections outline the problems and workarounds for issues that SGI identified during testing on SLES11 SP1. Changes in SGI ProPack 7 SP1 - The CHANGELOGS.txt file contains a comprehensive list of the changes since the last release. The file is located in the /docs directory on the SGI ProPack 7 media or /usr/share/doc/packages/sgi-propack-7/ on systems running SGI ProPack 7 releases. Online Caveats - Late breaking caveats can be found on the SGI ProPack 7 project pages on Supportfolio Online. For more information, refer to section "1.4 Additional Information Online" in these notes. Virtualization - Xen support for ia64 is incomplete at this time, so SGI ProPack 7 does not provide any kernel modules for xen-enabled kernels on the ia64 architecture. Furthermore, SGI ProPack 7 is not supported in guest operating systems. SGI ProPack 7 is supported on the host operating system on the x86_64 architecture, but not in the virtual environments. Installation Issues - YaST may report a failure during the installation of SGI ProPack 7 when attempting to add the update source. YaST will present you with an opportunity to provide your Supportfolio login and password. If you do not add the update source during the initial installation, you may add the installation source at a later time. Go into YaST Control Center and select "Software" and then "Installation Source". Select "Add" and then use the following information to add the update source: Protocol = HTTPS Server Name = update.sgi.com Directory on Server = pp/7/sp1/sles11/{ia64,x86_64} User Name = [your Supportfolio user name] Password = [your Supportfolio password] If you have received a new SGI platform with SGI ProPack 7 pre-installed, you may also run the following command to setup the update source for SGI ProPack 7: $ /usr/sbin/sgi-propack-update-source - Some packages, such as xvm-commands, require packages provided by the SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SDK. SGI recommends adding the SDK as available installation repository in order to meet package dependencies. PSLDLT Sparse Direct Solver Family Libraries - In order to install the sgisolve package, you will need to first install the Intel Runtime Libraries (IRTL) from www.intel.com. SGI no longer ships its own copy of the runtimes in SGI ProPack 7. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 4.0 Additional Installation Methods ------------------------------------ New systems ordered with SGI ProPack with leave the SGI factory with the SGI Foundation Software and SGI ProPack software pre-installed on the system. In addition, SGI lists the base operating system, SGI Foundation Software and SGI ProPack software as YaST installation sources (sles) or local YUM repositories (rhel) in order to help you meet any package dependencies that other 3rd party software may have. The following sub-sections provide some additional notes on installing the products and re-creating the local YaST installation sources and YUM repositories that SGI provides on systems configured in the factory. The additional installation instructions provided below can be completed using the physical product media or the ISO image, but are written based on use of the ISO images. 4.1 For Systems running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 -------------------------------------------------------- 4.1.1 Add SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 as Installation Source ----------------------------------------------------------------- The following instructions assume that the system is already running SLES11. Adding SLES11 as an installation source will allow YaST to find any SLES11 packages required to meet any RPM dependencies during installation. # mkdir -p /opt/sgi/Factory-Install # mkdir /var/sles11-dvd1 # mount -ro loop SLES-11-DVD-ia64-GM-DVD1.iso /var/sles11-dvd1 (use SLES-11-DVD-x86_64-GM-DVD1.iso for x86_64 architecture) # cp -rp /var/sles11-dvd1 /opt/sgi/Factory-Install/ # umount /var/sles11-dvd1 # rmdir /var/sles11-dvd1 # zypper addrepo --type yast2 dir:///opt/sgi/Factory-Install/sles11-dvd1 "sles11-dvd1" # zypper refresh To verify that the product is now available, run the following command and review the output: # zypper lr The SLES11 release contains three (3) DVDs; the first contains binary packages, the second contains source packages and the third contains debug packages. If you want to make the source and debug packages available as well, repeat the steps above for each of the DVDs and replace "dvd1" with "dvd2" or "dvd3". 4.1.2 Add SGI Foundation Software as an Installation Source and Install ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Remember to replace the ISO file name in the following examples with the actual ISO name. For example, use foundation-2SP1-cd1-media-sles11-ia64.iso, if adding the SGI Foundation Software 2 SP1 release. # mkdir /var/sfs2 # mount -ro loop foundation-2-cd1-media-sles11-ia64.iso /var/sfs2 (use foundation-2-cd1-media-sles11-x86_64.iso for x86_64 architecture) # cp -rp /var/sfs2 /opt/sgi/Factory-Install/ # umount /var/sfs2 # rmdir /var/sfs2 # zypper addrepo --type yast2 dir:///opt/sgi/Factory-Install/sfs2 "sfs2" # zypper refresh To verify that the product is now available, run the following command and review the output: # zypper lr To see the available patterns in the SGI Foundation product, type the following command: # zypper patterns sfs2 If asked about trusting the SGI key, select "trust always". Install a single pattern, such as SGI-Foundation, with the following command: # zypper in --type pattern SGI-Foundation To install multiple patterns, list them on the same line separated by spaces as follows: # zypper in --type pattern SGI-Foundation SGI-Foundation-debug-Modules 4.1.3 Add SGI ProPack as an Installation Source and Install ------------------------------------------------------------ * Remember to replace the ISO file name in the following examples with the actual ISO name. For example, use propack-7SP1-cd1-media-sles11-ia64.iso, if adding the SGI ProPack 7 SP1 release. # mkdir /var/pp7 # mount -ro loop propack-7-cd1-media-sles11-ia64.iso /var/pp7 (use propack-7-cd1-media-sles11-x86_64.iso for x86_64 architecture) # cp -rp /var/pp7 /opt/sgi/Factory-Install/ # umount /var/pp7 # rmdir /var/pp7 # zypper addrepo --type yast2 dir:///opt/sgi/Factory-Install/pp7 "pp7" # zypper refresh To verify that the product is now available, run the following command and review the output: # zypper lr To see the available patterns in the SGI ProPack product, type the following command: # zypper patterns pp7 Install a single pattern, such as SGI-Foundation, with the following command: # zypper in --type pattern SGI-ProPack To install multiple patterns, list them on the same line separated by spaces as follows: # zypper in --type pattern SGI-ProPack SGI-React ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 5.0 Reader Comments & Feedback ------------------------------- If you have comments about the technical accuracy, content, or organization of this document, please tell us. Be sure to include the title of this document, "SGI ProPack 7 for Linux Service Pack 1 - Release Notes". You can contact us in one of following three ways: - Send e-mail to techpubs@sgi.com - Use the Feedback option on the Technical Publications Library page: http://techpubs.sgi.com - Contact your local support representative and ask that an incident be filed in the SGI incident tracking system We value your comments. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 6.0 Additional Notices ----------------------- The dplace command links against the hwloc package. As such, SGI is required to include the following copyright information from the hwloc package. The following notice applies to the hwloc package only and not the SGI software: Copyright (c) 2009 CNRS, INRIA, Universite Bordeaux 1 All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Product/sp/patch: SGI ProPack 7 / SP1 / 0 Final edits made: Thu May 20 06:46:05 CDT 2010