Gelato at UNSW Wiki

This wiki is for sharing experience with the IA64 Linux kernel and related software, and for discussing high-performance computing using IA64 (IPF, Itanium Processor Family). It is maintained at the University of NSW in Sydney, using the MoinMoin package.

If you don't know what a wiki is, see below.

If you're going to modify this site, please read about WikiEtiquette.

You can find out about the Gelato project, and about what we're doing on the web.

Note: The Gelato@UNSW project is officially ended. This WiKi will be maintained more-or-less as-is for the foreseeable future; but none of us is being paid any more to work on Itanium or Linux.

Modifying this Wiki

We appreciate any changes to the WiKi content, however to avoid spam we request that you create an account to make changes. You should be able to make an account here.

We've been hit with a lot of spam from users with 163 . com and hotmail.com email addresses, and as far as I can tell, no legitimate edits. Therefore I have deleted all user accounts that use either of these mail providers. If you are a legitimate user, please recreate your account --- you'll be asked to confirm by email that you are who you say you are.

Starting Points for the Wiki

• RecentChanges: see where people are currently working

• HelpForBeginners: to get you going

• WikiSandBox: feel free to change this page and experiment with editing

• FindPage: search or browse the database in various ways

Activities

The activities that Gelato@UNSW are involved in are:

Maintenance Activities

• We do a KernelAutoBuild each day of the IA64 Kernel from the offical development tree.

• LargeBlockDevices extending Linux to use disc and disc-like devices bigger than 2Tb

• LongFormatVhpt patches to use the long-format page table structure (thus enabling SuperPages and things like Glibc4TLBSharing)

• PageTableInterface defines a generic interface for Linux page table operations, which will be used later for both the standard 3 level page table and the variable radix page table.

• The MicroStateAccounting patch allows high precision accounting of where threads spend their time.

• The GelatoDebianRepository contains software interesting to IA64 users.

• LXR archives for quick cross-referencing of kernel sources

• SkiSimulator --- The Ski Simulator is an instruction level simulator for IA64 machines, that runs on IA64 or IA32 machines.

Research Activities

• SuperPages support for IA64

• UserLevelDrivers --- moving device drivers out of the kernel, for improved system reliability, and in some cases better performance.

• TCPStackPerformance --- evaluating and improving the performance of the TCP/IP stack and networking drivers on IA64

• LinuxScalability --- scaling Linux on IA64 to large numbers of processors, large amounts of memory, and huge amounts of disc storage.

• VariableRadixPageTables --- a more flexible page table structure for Linux to increased performance, enhance superpage support, and page sharing support.

• NFSBenchmarking --- Evaluating and improving Network File System performance on Linux.

• LinuxOnLinux --- Linux as a hypervisor for a paravirtualised Linux on IA-64

• IOScheduling --- Characterising and improving the performance of the block I/O schedulers in Linux 2.6

Plans

• Our current work and plans are at WorkItems and ProjectPlans

Topics

Main topics on this website include:

• GettingStartedWithIA64 --- a guide for people new to working on IA64 at Gelato@UNSW

• LocalInformation on machines, booking, partitioning, etc.

• CrossDevelopment building and testing IA64 binaries on an IA32 machine

• KernelTricksAndTips Tips and Tricks for Kernel Development.

• IA64 Linux getting, configuring and compiling a kernel

• IA64 Kernel Notes on the Linux IA64 kernel implementation

• IA64 Hardware

• Clusters Information on IA64 clusters

• Performance measurement

• MemoryConsistency Understanding the Itanium processor memory ordering model and how it arises

• ItaniumInternals Various Itanium processor implementation details, with a focus on optimising system code

• FAQ which you can join in if you like!

• glibc on IA64 Building and developing Libc and threading libraries.

• how to sell ia64 Summary of a talk given by Matthew Chapman at Slug

• Enhancements Possible enhancements to Linux for better supporting IPF/IA64 and large systems

• IA64 whinges What I wish the designers had done differently

• PatchReleaseChecklist Things to consider before releasing a Kernel patch

• ToDoList Gelato@UNSW generic TODO list --- things we're thinking about looking into.

• RelatedWork Linux activities that are not directly IA64 related, but are interesting nonetheless.

• Benchmarks -- resources on benchmarking

• DebianThings -- Pages related to Debian, including an IA64 DebianInstall walkthrough

• SourceControl -- Links to various pages on Source Control systems.

• ProgrammingTipsAndTricks --- a grabbag of general programming bits and pieces

• Sysadmin --- System Administration Tips and Tricks

• NetworkBenchmarking --- benchmarking networks

People

People associated with IA64 are invited to create a page in our Wiki, and link to it from the HomePages page.

• GelatoUNSWPeople -- The Gelato@UNSW Team

About the Logo

The Gelato Logo was developed by and is copyright to Cyrille Carry. It and variants of it are used here under the terms of the GPL.