mpiexec hangs with localonly on Windows when smpd service not installed

[Ben_Held]

I'm interested as to why mpiexec hangs if I have the Intel MPI RTE installed, but not the service installed (you can get here by installing the RTE and then running smpd -uninstall).

A verbose runs shows this:

mpiexec np 2 localonly notepad verbose

...\\smpd_get_full_path_name

....fixing up exe name: 'notepad' -> '(null)'

.../smpd_get_full_path_name

...handling executable:

notepad.exe

...\\smpd_get_next_host

....\\smpd_get_host_id

..../smpd_get_host_id

.../smpd_get_next_host

...\\smpd_get_next_host

....\\smpd_get_host_id

..../smpd_get_host_id

.../smpd_get_next_host

...\\smpd_create_cliques

....\\prev_launch_node

..../prev_launch_node

....\\prev_launch_node

..../prev_launch_node

....\\prev_launch_node

..../prev_launch_node

....\\prev_launch_node

..../prev_launch_node

.../smpd_create_cliques

...\\smpd_fix_up_host_tree

.../smpd_fix_up_host_tree

../mp_parse_command_args

..host tree:

.. host: localhost, parent: 0, id: 1

..launch nodes:

.. iproc: 1, id: 1, exe: notepad.exe

.. iproc: 0, id: 1, exe: notepad.exe

..\\SMPDU_Sock_create_set

...\\smpd_get_smpd_data

....\\smpd_get_smpd_data_from_environment

..../smpd_get_smpd_data_from_environment

....\\smpd_get_smpd_data_default

..../smpd_get_smpd_data_default

.../smpd_get_smpd_data

...\\smpd_create_context

....\\smpd_init_context

.....\\smpd_init_command

...../smpd_init_command

..../smpd_init_context

.../smpd_create_context

...\\smpd_get_smpd_data

....\\smpd_get_smpd_data_from_environment

..../smpd_get_smpd_data_from_environment

....\\smpd_get_smpd_data_default

..../smpd_get_smpd_data_default

....Unable to get the data for the key 'binary'

.../smpd_get_smpd_data

...\\smpd_start_win_mgr

....starting command:1: "C:\\ProjectsSVN\\ORION_WC\\src\\x64\\Release\\mpiexec.exe" -d 19 -mgr -pipe smpd_temporary_pipe -local

....CreateProcess

[James_T_Intel]

Hi Ben,

Why are you running with SMPD uninstalled?

Sincerely,
James Tullos
Technical Consulting Engineer
Intel Cluster Tools

[Ben_Held]

Reasonable question - it's a scenario that we are concerned our customers might encounter. That's all. It would be nice if didn't hang...

[James_T_Intel]

Hi Ben,

Generally, this is an unsupported scenario. Without SMPD, the processes would have no means of performing MPI communications.

Sincerely,
James Tullos
Technical Consulting Engineer
Intel Cluster Tools

[Ben_Held]

I understand this, but it would be far better if mpiexec would fail in this case. Is this something I can request from Intel?

[James_T_Intel]

Hi Ben,

I can certainly put in a feature request for this. Let me make sure I've got a good understanding of what you want first. Basically, if mpiexec is run in a scenario where SMPD is not running, it should fail (preferably with an informative error message) rather than attempting to proceed. Is this correct?

Sincerely,
James Tullos
Technical Consulting Engineer
Intel Cluster Tools

[Ben_Held]

Correct. The specific case is where the Intel MPI RTE is installed, but for whatever reason the smpd service is NOT running.

[James_T_Intel]

Hi Ben,

Ok, I'm putting in the request. Also, this behavior also occurs on the full SDK, not just the RTE.

Sincerely,
James Tullos
Technical Consulting Engineer
Intel Cluster Tools