How to run application without mpiexec?

[David_D_4]

Greetings forum,

I would like to manually start my application (paraview's pvserver) on each node of a windows cluster without using mpiexec. The reason is that the application needs to make visible windows so that it can drive a CAVE display system. mpiexec will not work for me, because it uses smpd, which is a service, and since Vista windows services can not interact with the user. (Alternatively, is there a way to run smpd.exe as a startup application instead of a service?)

I am hopeful this can be done because in this post: https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-clusters-and-hpc-technology/topic/279685 it was suggested that one could start the application manually with a batch script that would set up environment variables and arguments appropriately. Also I vaguely recall doing something similar years ago with a different MPI on a different OS.

I've looked hard at the verbose mpiexec output, but I do not have enough context about what the different pieces of the puzzle are doing yet to do so with Intel's Windows MPI. Can someone point me to an example or deeper documentation about what pmi_proxy does? Selected log and env recording from mpiexec --log env follow:

Proxy launch args: c:\Program Files (x86)\IntelSWTools\mpi\5.1.1.110\intel64\bin\pmi_proxy --control-port F6-0:1660 --debug --pmi-connect lazy-cache --pmi-aggregate -s 0 --rmk user --launcher service --demux select --pgid 0 --enable-stdin 1 --retries 10 --control-code 7797 --usize -2 --proxy-id 

Arguments being passed to proxy 0:
--version 3.1.2 --iface-ip-env-name MPIR_CVAR_CH3_INTERFACE_HOSTNAME --hostname F6-0 --global-core-map 0,4,4 --pmi-id-map 0,0 --global-process-count 1 --auto-cleanup 1 --pmi-kvsname kvs_2376_0 --pmi-process-mapping (vector,(0,1,4)) --topolib ipl --ckpointlib blcr --ckpoint-prefix /tmp --ckpoint-preserve 1 --ckpoint off --ckpoint-num -1 --global-inherited-env 81 ' <many more>

[mpiexec@F6-0] Launch arguments: c:\Program Files (x86)\IntelSWTools\mpi\5.1.1.110\intel64\bin\pmi_proxy --control-port F6-0:1660 --debug --pmi-connect lazy-cache --pmi-aggregate -s 0 --rmk user --launcher service --demux select --pgid 0 --enable-stdin 1 --retries 10 --control-code 7797 --usize -2 --proxy-id 0 
[mpiexec@F6-0] STDIN will be redirected to 1 fd(s): 4 
!C:=c:\Users\demarle\Desktop\Work\hellompi\intel
ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\ProgramData
APPDATA=C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming

...

I_MPI_CMD=c:\Program Files (x86)\IntelSWTools\mpi\5.1.1.110\intel64\bin\mpiexec.exe -n 1 -v env 

I_MPI_INFO_BRAND=Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3820QM 
I_MPI_INFO_CACHE1=0,1,2,3
I_MPI_INFO_CACHE2=0,0,0,0
I_MPI_INFO_CACHE3=0,1,2,3
I_MPI_INFO_CACHES=2
I_MPI_INFO_CACHE_SHARE=1,4
I_MPI_INFO_CACHE_SIZE=32768,6291456
I_MPI_INFO_CORE=0,1,2,3
I_MPI_INFO_C_NAME=Unknown
I_MPI_INFO_DESC=654311424
I_MPI_INFO_FLGB=0
I_MPI_INFO_FLGC=513
I_MPI_INFO_FLGCEXT=0
I_MPI_INFO_FLGD=395049983
I_MPI_INFO_FLGDEXT=0
I_MPI_INFO_LCPU=4
I_MPI_INFO_MODE=259
I_MPI_INFO_NC=4
I_MPI_INFO_NP=1
I_MPI_INFO_PACK=0,0,0,0
I_MPI_INFO_SIGN=198313
I_MPI_INFO_STATE=0
I_MPI_INFO_THREAD=0,0,0,0
I_MPI_INFO_VEND=1
I_MPI_PM=hydra
I_MPI_RANK_CMD=env 
I_MPI_ROOT=C:\Program Files

etc.

thanks

[Dmitry_S_Intel]

Hi,

Is absence of mpiexec mandatory? Now for Intel(R) MPI Library for Windows OS Hydra process manager is default and you can not install hydra as service but just run hydra_persist.exe by user.

For smpd it is also possible to run it as user in debug mode.

--

Dmitry