Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

NetBSD on more than 16 cores?

2 views
Skip to first unread message

Phil Nelson

unread,
Jan 13, 2011, 4:03:59 PM1/13/11
to
Hello,

I was wondering if there is anyone who has run NetBSD
(either i386 or amd64) on a SMP with more than 16 cores.

I'm interested in any experience with 16 to 48 core machines.

--Phil

--
Phil Nelson (phil at cs.wwu.edu) http://www.cs.wwu.edu/nelson
NetBSD: http://www.NetBSD.org Coda: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu
Life: http://www.goallpower.com

--
Posted automagically by a mail2news gateway at muc.de e.V.
Please direct questions, flames, donations, etc. to news-...@muc.de

Jean-Yves Migeon

unread,
Jan 13, 2011, 6:38:10 PM1/13/11
to
On 13.01.2011 22:03, Phil Nelson wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I was wondering if there is anyone who has run NetBSD
> (either i386 or amd64) on a SMP with more than 16 cores.
>
> I'm interested in any experience with 16 to 48 core machines.

I've run and used NetBSD on a Dell (M710), with up to 24 core detected.

However, max number of CPU is 32; IIRC, we still use a bitmask on an int
for CPU tracking, and well, int => 4 bytes => 32 bits (heh).

--
Jean-Yves Migeon
jeanyve...@free.fr

David Johnson

unread,
Jan 13, 2011, 7:18:20 PM1/13/11
to
Very interesting. I'll be watching for a response on this one!

Great question,

David

electronsciences.vcf

Hubert Feyrer

unread,
Jan 14, 2011, 3:11:03 AM1/14/11
to
pic^Wdmesg or it didn't happen :-)


- Hubert


Am 14.01.2011 um Fr. 14.01.2011 00:38 schrieb Jean-Yves Migeon:

> On 13.01.2011 22:03, Phil Nelson wrote:

>> Hello,
>>
>> I was wondering if there is anyone who has run NetBSD
>> (either i386 or amd64) on a SMP with more than 16 cores.
>>
>> I'm interested in any experience with 16 to 48 core machines.
>

> I've run and used NetBSD on a Dell (M710), with up to 24 core detected.
>
> However, max number of CPU is 32; IIRC, we still use a bitmask on an int
> for CPU tracking, and well, int => 4 bytes => 32 bits (heh).
>
> --
> Jean-Yves Migeon
> jeanyve...@free.fr

Jean-Yves Migeon

unread,
Jan 14, 2011, 4:06:26 AM1/14/11
to
On 14.01.2011 09:11, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
> pic^Wdmesg or it didn't happen :-)

Attached.

>
>
> - Hubert
>
>
> Am 14.01.2011 um Fr. 14.01.2011 00:38 schrieb Jean-Yves Migeon:
>

>> On 13.01.2011 22:03, Phil Nelson wrote:

>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I was wondering if there is anyone who has run NetBSD
>>> (either i386 or amd64) on a SMP with more than 16 cores.
>>>
>>> I'm interested in any experience with 16 to 48 core machines.
>>

>> I've run and used NetBSD on a Dell (M710), with up to 24 core detected.
>>
>> However, max number of CPU is 32; IIRC, we still use a bitmask on an int
>> for CPU tracking, and well, int => 4 bytes => 32 bits (heh).
>>
>> --
>> Jean-Yves Migeon
>> jeanyve...@free.fr
>


--
Jean-Yves Migeon
jeanyve...@free.fr

dmesg.Dell_M710

Andy Ruhl

unread,
Jan 14, 2011, 11:04:46 AM1/14/11
to
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 2:06 AM, Jean-Yves Migeon
<jeanyve...@free.fr> wrote:
> On 14.01.2011 09:11, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
>> pic^Wdmesg or it didn't happen :-)
>
> Attached.

Yeap, there it is. Lotsa memory too.

Do you think you could build me a few kernels? And userlands? And
cross build the entire pkgsrc for a few other platforms? When you have
spare time?

:)

Andy

Ignatios Souvatzis

unread,
Jan 14, 2011, 4:29:04 PM1/14/11
to
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 05:41:49PM +0000, Mindaugas Rasiukevicius wrote:
>
> Oh, and support is for amd64, not i386. No point to work on the later.
> We ought to encourage the use of amd64 more these days.

While for the question of massive multi-CPU machines this is probably not
a problem, relatively small machines are punished a lot when using 64bit
code running memory-hungry applications, like... cc1plus in certain
situations, etc...

-is

Jean-Yves Migeon

unread,
Jan 14, 2011, 7:34:37 PM1/14/11
to
On 14.01.2011 17:04, Andy Ruhl wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 2:06 AM, Jean-Yves Migeon
> <jeanyve...@free.fr> wrote:
>> On 14.01.2011 09:11, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
>>> pic^Wdmesg or it didn't happen :-)
>>
>> Attached.
>
> Yeap, there it is. Lotsa memory too.
>
> Do you think you could build me a few kernels? And userlands? And
> cross build the entire pkgsrc for a few other platforms? When you have
> spare time?
>
> :)

If the host was mine, I could do it, yes :(

I only have access to it to test the additions to bnx(4) (ported from
FreeBSD and OpenBSD). Jukka also plays/ed with it, focusing on the dark
side of it (ACPI).

Maybe you can negotiate something with his owner (contact me privately
for his mail address). But that will need work on the PERC controller
driver first, as it is not currently supported in NetBSD; and this rules
out hard disk access.

--
Jean-Yves Migeon
jeanyve...@free.fr

--

Aaron J. Grier

unread,
Mar 26, 2011, 5:40:55 PM3/26/11
to
On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 01:03:59PM -0800, Phil Nelson wrote:
> I was wondering if there is anyone who has run NetBSD (either i386 or
> amd64) on a SMP with more than 16 cores.
>
> I'm interested in any experience with 16 to 48 core machines.

when I made attempts last fall, both -current and netbsd-5 amd64 paniced
during boot on the Quanta QSSC-S4r I have access to through my employer
(Intel). these are quad-socket 7500-series Xeon machines, with 8 HT (16
cpus) per socket. our group runs Linux on them, with only one processor
populated. (linux 2.6.35 or thereabouts.)

--
Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agr...@poofygoof.com

0 new messages