[openib-general] Performance Degradation with OFED v. Voltaire(lustre)

Bernadat, Philippe philippe_bernadat at hp.com
Mon Dec 18 03:18:44 PST 2006


I think I am going to need more help here.

I did use both tricks, opensm enable_quirks TRUE & rdma_cm
tavor_quirk=1.
This seems to have no effect.

But I may be doing something wrong. So some questions I have:

1) Doc (sdp_release_notes.txt, see below) says we can use either of the
two tricks, is it really the case ?

2) I usually don't run opensm (not required for me till now) and I am
not too familiar with it. But I did, so that I could try the
enable_quirks TRUE quirk option. Does opensm run in background, when I
run it never returns, last messages are:
    >>>> -------------------------------------------------
    >>>> OpenSM Rev:openib-2.0.5
    >>>> Based on OpenIB svn Exported revision
    >>>>  Using Cached Option:guid = 0x0008f10403961e4d
    >>>>  Using Cached Option:log_flags = 3
    >>>>  Using Cached Option:enable_quirks = TRUE
    >>>> Command Line Arguments:
    >>>>  Log File: /var/log/osm.log
    >>>> -------------------------------------------------
    >>>> OpenSM Rev:openib-2.0.5 OpenIB svn Exported revision
    >>>> 
    >>>> Entering STANDBY state

3) Is there a way to change the MTU from within the lustre LND kernel
module. I saw that the IB perf programs did this with the modify_qp()
APIs.

4) And by the way, I can confirm that the MTU is the issue. Forcing it
to 2K with the ib_witre_perf test also degrades performance.



Extract from sdp_release_notes.txt

- By default, SDP utilizes a 2 Kbyte MTU size.  This may cause PCI-X
cards
  using Mellanox Technologies "Infinihost" HCAs to experience low
bandwidth.
  Workaround:  reset the MTU size to 1K in this situation, using either
of
  the two methods below:

  1. Activate the "tavor quirk" workaround in opensm:
     a. Create an opensm options cache file
(/var/cache/osm/opensm.opts):
          > opensm --cache-options -o
     b. Add the following line to /var/cache/osm/opensm.opts:
          enable_quirks TRUE
     c. Rerun opensm using your usual command line options to activate
        the opensm quirk option.

  2. Activate the "tavor quirk" workaround in cma:
       set the tavor_quirk module parameter of the rdma_cm module to
value 1
       (default: 0).

Philippe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hal Rosenstock [mailto:halr at voltaire.com] 
> Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 8:15 PM
> To: Eitan Zahavi
> Cc: Matt L. Leininger; Roland Dreier; Bernadat, Philippe; 
> openib-general at openib.org
> Subject: Re: [openib-general] Performance Degradation with 
> OFED v. Voltaire(lustre)
> 
> On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 12:20, Eitan Zahavi wrote:
> > Matt Leininger wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 09:44 +0100, Bernadat, Philippe wrote:
> > >   
> > >> I also looked at the HCA counters, and I indeed think 
> > >> there is something wrong about the MTU:
> > >>
> > >> For the same test
> > >>
> > >> With VIB
> > >>
> > >> PortXmitData:                  2684490382
> > >> PortRcvData:                      1750145
> > >> PortXmitPkts:                    10280007
> > >> PortRcvPkts:                        49962
> > >>
> > >> With OFED
> > >>
> > >> XmtBytes:........................2653730483
> > >> RcvBytes:........................1710541
> > >> XmtPkts:.........................5160009
> > >> RcvPkts:.........................50012
> > >>
> > >> Which means we sent half less packets with OFED 
> > >> and if you do the math it is 2K packets with OFED 
> (counters are 32bit
> > >> units)
> > >> and 1K packets with VIB.
> > >>
> > >> So fo some reason the tavor_quirk param is ignored/overwriten.
> > >> Is there an interface to control this ?
> > >>     
> > >
> > >   Michael said you have to turn on this feature in 
> OpenSM.  From the
> > > release notes I'm not sure how you turn it on in OpenSM.  
> You did turn
> > > on the tavor mtu work around in the rdma_cm, but did you 
> turn it on in
> > > OpenSM?  Also what version of OpenSM are you running?
> > >   
> > To turn this option on in opensm you need to:
> > 1. Run: opensm -c -o
> 
> If you already have an opensm.opts file then you can skip this step.
> 
> -- Hal
> 
> > 2. Modify the file /var/cache/osm/opensm.opts by changing 
> the line below
> > enable_quirks FALSE
> > to
> > enable_quirks TRUE
> > 
> > 3. Run: opensm
> > >   Thanks,
> > >
> > > 	- Matt
> > >
> > >   
> > >> Philippe
> > >>
> > >>     
> > >>> -----Original Message-----
> > >>> From: Bernadat, Philippe 
> > >>> Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 8:59 AM
> > >>> To: Michael S. Tsirkin; Roland Dreier
> > >>> Cc: Eitan Zahavi; Hal Rosenstock; openib-general at openib.org
> > >>> Subject: RE: Performance Degradation with OFED v. 
> Voltaire (lustre)
> > >>>
> > >>> I have set tavor_quirk to 1 with no effect.
> > >>> Another thing I have tried is the same lustre 
> > >>> LNET echo test with a single thread (vs 8)
> > >>>
> > >>> VIB:      400 MB/s
> > >>> OFED-1.1: 333 MB/s
> > >>>
> > >>> I am posting the live param values for all infiniband 
> > >>> modules in case someone could identify some wrong setting:
> > >>>
> > >>> infiniband/core/ib_cm
> > >>>
> > >>> mra_timeout_limit              30000
> > >>>
> > >>> infiniband/core/rdma_cm
> > >>>
> > >>> max_cm_retries                    15
> > >>> tavor_quirk                        1
> > >>>
> > >>> infiniband/hw/ipath/ib_ipath
> > >>>
> > >>> cfgports                           0
> > >>> debug                              1
> > >>> disable_sma                        0
> > >>> kpiobufs                           0
> > >>> lkey_table_size                   12
> > >>> max_ahs                        65535
> > >>> max_cqes                      196607
> > >>> max_cqs                       131071
> > >>> max_mcast_grps                 16384
> > >>> max_mcast_qp_attached             16
> > >>> max_pds                        65535
> > >>> max_qps                        16384
> > >>> max_qp_wrs                     16383
> > >>> max_sges                          96
> > >>> max_srqs                        1024
> > >>> max_srq_sges                     128
> > >>> max_srq_wrs                   131071
> > >>> qp_table_size                    251
> > >>>
> > >>> infiniband/hw/mthca/ib_mthca
> > >>>
> > >>> catas_reset_disable                0
> > >>> debug_level                        0
> > >>> fmr_reserved_mtts             262144
> > >>> fw_cmd_doorbell                    0
> > >>> msi                                0
> > >>> msi_x                              1
> > >>> num_cq                         65536
> > >>> num_mcg                         8192
> > >>> num_mpt                       131072
> > >>> num_mtt                      1048576
> > >>> num_qp                         65536
> > >>> num_udav                       32768
> > >>> rdb_per_qp                         4
> > >>> tune_pci                           1
> > >>>
> > >>> infiniband/ulp/ipoib/ib_ipoib
> > >>>
> > >>> debug_level                        0
> > >>> mcast_debug_level                  0
> > >>> recv_queue_size                  128
> > >>> send_queue_size                   64
> > >>>
> > >>> Philippe
> > >>>
> > >>>       
> > >>>> -----Original Message-----
> > >>>> From: Michael S. Tsirkin [mailto:mst at mellanox.co.il] 
> > >>>> Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 6:32 PM
> > >>>> To: Roland Dreier
> > >>>> Cc: Bernadat, Philippe; Eitan Zahavi; Hal Rosenstock; 
> > >>>> openib-general at openib.org
> > >>>> Subject: Re: Performance Degradation with OFED v. Voltaire
> > >>>>
> > >>>>         
> > >>>>>  > I think Eric described the major differences earlier on, 
> > >>>>>           
> > >>>> here it is, see
> > >>>>         
> > >>>>>  > second half:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> OK, I forgot about that.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> I guess one last thing to check would be the MTU being used 
> > >>>>>           
> > >>>> for the RC
> > >>>>         
> > >>>>> connections.  Since this is PCI-X HW then the MTU should 
> > >>>>>           
> > >>> be 1024 for
> > >>>       
> > >>>>> best throughput (instead of the max MTU of 2048).
> > >>>>>           
> > >>>> The MTU issue is described in the OFED release notes.
> > >>>> You must turn the Tavor work-around for it on in opensm.
> > >>>> This was introduced late in release cycle to it was 
> deemed safer
> > >>>> to make it off by default.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> By the way, Eitan, Hal, can we turn this on by default now?
> > >>>> This was we'll get more feedback from people, and 
> we'll still have
> > >>>> time to turn it off before release if this unexpectedly 
> > >>>> creates issues.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> -- 
> > >>>> MST
> > >>>>
> > >>>>         
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> openib-general mailing list
> > >> openib-general at openib.org
> > >> http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general
> > >>
> > >> To unsubscribe, please visit 
> http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general
> > >>
> > >>     
> > >
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