[Pkg-openmpi-maintainers] Bug#524553: openmpi-bin: mpiexec seems to be resolving names on server instead of each node

[Micha Feigin]

Package: openmpi-bin
Version: 1.2.8-3
Severity: important


As far as I understand the error, mpiexec resolves name -> addresses on the server
it is run on instead of an each host seperately. This works in an environment where
each hostname resolves to the same address on each host (cluster connected via a
switch) but fails where it resolves to different addresses (ring/star setups for
example where each computer is connected directly to all/some of the others)

I'm not 100% sure that this is the problem as I'm seeing success on a single
case where this should probably fail but it is my best bet from the error message.

version 1.2.8 worked fine for the same simple program (a simple hellow world that
just comunicated the computer name for each process)

An example output:

mpiexec is run on the master node hubert and is set to run the processes on two nodes
fry and leela. As is understood from the error messages leela tries to connect to
fry on address 192.168.1.2 which is it's address on hubert but not leela (where it
is 192.168.4.1)

This is a four node claster all interconnected

    192.168.1.1      192.168.1.2
hubert ------------------------ fry
  |    \                    /    | 192.168.4.1
  |       \              /       |
  |          \        /          |
  |             \  /             |
  |             /  \             |
  |          /        \          |
  |       /              \       |
  |    /                     \   | 192.168.4.2
hermes ----------------------- leelas

=================================================================
mpiexec -np 8 -H fry,leela test_mpi
Hello MPI from the server process of 8 on fry!
[[36620,1],1][../../../../../../ompi/mca/btl/tcp/btl_tcp_endpoint.c:589:mca_btl_tcp_endpoint_start_connect] from leela to: fry Unable to connect to the peer 192.168.1.2 on port 154: Network is unreachable

[[36620,1],3][../../../../../../ompi/mca/btl/tcp/btl_tcp_endpoint.c:589:mca_btl_tcp_endpoint_start_connect] from leela to: fry Unable to connect to the peer 192.168.1.2 on port 154: Network is unreachable

[[36620,1],7][../../../../../../ompi/mca/btl/tcp/btl_tcp_endpoint.c:589:mca_btl_tcp_endpoint_start_connect] from leela to: fry Unable to connect to the peer 192.168.1.2 on port 154: Network is unreachable

[leela:4436] *** An error occurred in MPI_Send
[leela:4436] *** on communicator MPI_COMM_WORLD
[leela:4436] *** MPI_ERR_INTERN: internal error
[leela:4436] *** MPI_ERRORS_ARE_FATAL (your MPI job will now abort)
[[36620,1],5][../../../../../../ompi/mca/btl/tcp/btl_tcp_endpoint.c:589:mca_btl_tcp_endpoint_start_connect] from leela to: fry Unable to connect to the peer 192.168.1.2 on port 154: Network is unreachable

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
mpiexec has exited due to process rank 1 with PID 4433 on
node leela exiting without calling "finalize". This may
have caused other processes in the application to be
terminated by signals sent by mpiexec (as reported here).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
[hubert:11312] 3 more processes have sent help message help-mpi-errors.txt / mpi_errors_are_fatal
[hubert:11312] Set MCA parameter "orte_base_help_aggregate" to 0 to see all help / error messages
=================================================================

This seems to be a directional issue as running the program -H fry,leela failes
where -H leela,fry works, same behaviour for all senarious except those that include
the master node (hubert) where it resolves the external ip (from an external dns) instead
of the internal ip (from the hosts file). thus one direction fails (no external connection
at the moment for all but the master) and the other causes a lockup

I hope that the explenation is not too convoluted

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.28.8 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages openmpi-bin depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.9-7      GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libgcc1                       1:4.3.3-7  GCC support library
ii  libopenmpi1                   1.2.8-3    high performance message passing l
ii  libstdc++6                    4.3.3-7    The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  openmpi-common                1.2.8-3    high performance message passing l

openmpi-bin recommends no packages.

Versions of packages openmpi-bin suggests:
ii  gfortran                      4:4.3.3-2  The GNU Fortran 95 compiler

-- no debconf information