IBM pSeries manual Debug settings in the AIX 5L kernel, Daemon configuration, Rsct daemons

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If you have eight cards for p690 (or four cards for p655), this command also indicates whether you have full memory bandwidth.

3.8 Debug settings in the AIX 5L kernel

The AIX 5L kernel has several debug settings that affect the performance of an application. To make sure you are running with all the debug settings in the kernel turned off, run the following command:

bosdebug -L

The output will look something like this:

Memory debugger

off

Memory sizes

0

Network memory sizes

0

Kernel debugger

off

Real Time Kernel

off

Check the output to make sure that all the debug settings are off. To change any of these settings, run the following command:

bosdebug -o <variable>=off

After you make changes to the kernel settings, run the following command and then reboot:

bosboot -a

4.0 Daemon configuration

Several daemons on AIX 5L and the HPS can impact performance. These daemons run periodically to monitor the system, but can interfere with performance of parallel applications. If there are as many MPI tasks as CPUs, then when these demons run, they must temporarily take a CPU away from a task. This perturbs the performance of the application if one task takes a little longer to reach a synchronization point in its execution as compared to other tasks. Lowering the frequency of these daemons can improve performance or repeatability of the performance of a parallel application.

4.1 RSCT daemons

If you are using RSCT Peer Domain (such as VSD, GPFS, LAPI striping, or fail over), check the IBM.ConfigRMd daemon and the hats_nim daemon. If you see these daemons taking cycles, restart the daemons with AIXTHREAD_SCOPE=S.

pshpstuningguidewp040105.doc

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Contents IBM ~pSeries High Performance Switch Contents Mpprintenv Mpstatistics Introduction Tunables and settings for switch software MPI tunables for Parallel EnvironmentMpeagerlimit MppollingintervalMprexmitbufsize and Mprexmitbufcnt MemoryaffinityMpcssinterrupt MptaskaffinityMPI-IO Chgsni command IP tunables Tunables and settings for AIX 5LFile cache Svmon and vmstat commands Svmon Vsid Esid Type Description LPage Inuse Pin Pgsp VirtualVmstat Pin Pgsp VirtualLarge page sizing Pshpstuningguidewp040105.doc Memory affinity for a single Lpar Large pages and IP supportAmount of memory available Daemon configuration Debug settings in the AIX 5L kernelRsct daemons Reducing the number of daemons running LoadLeveler daemonsReducing logging Placement of POE managers and LoadLeveler scheduler Settings for AIX 5L threadsAIX 5L mail, spool, and sync daemons Debug settings and data collection tools Lsattr tuningDriverdebug setting Iptrclvl settingSmall Real Mode Address Region on HMC GUI Deconfigured L3 cacheService focal point Affinity LPARsHMC error logging Errpt commandMultiple versions of MPI libraries Mpprintenv Mpstatistics MemoryaffinityDropped switch packets Nddipacketsmsw 0x00000000 Nddipacketslsw Packets dropped in the ML0 interface Packets dropped because of a hardware problem on an endpoint Packets dropped in the switch hardware MpinfolevelLapidebugcommtimeout LapidebugperfAIX 5L trace for daemon activity Conclusions and summaryAdditional reading HPS documentationPOWER4 MPI documentationAIX 5L performance guides IBM RedbooksPshpstuningguidewp040105.doc