A portable debugger for parallel and distributed programs

Author

Cheng, Doreen ; Hood, Robert

Author_Institution

Comput. Sci. Corp., NASA Ames Res. Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

fYear

1994

fDate

14-18 Nov 1994

Firstpage

723

Lastpage

732

Abstract

We describe the design and implementation of a portable debugger for parallel and distributed programs. The design incorporates a client server model in order to isolate nonportable debugger code from the user interface. The precise definition of a protocol for client server interaction facilitates a high degree of client portability. Replication of server components permits the implementation of a debugger for distributed computations. Portability across message passing implementations is achieved with a protocol that specifies the interaction between a message passing library and the debugger. This permits the same debugger to be used both on PVM and MPI programs. The process abstractions used for debugging message passing programs can be adapted to debug HPF programs at the source level. This permits the meaningful display of information obscured in tool generated code

Keywords

client-server systems; message passing; parallel programming; program debugging; software portability; MPI programs; PVM; client portability; client server interaction; client server model; debugger code; distributed programs; message passing implementations; message passing library; message passing programs; parallel programs; portable debugger; process abstractions; server components; tool generated code; user interface; Aerodynamics; Computer networks; Concurrent computing; Debugging; Distributed computing; Dynamic programming; High performance computing; NASA; Protocols; User interfaces;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Supercomputing '94., Proceedings

Conference_Location

Washington, DC

Print_ISBN

0-8186-6605-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SUPERC.1994.344338

Filename

344338