Debugging Tool for Localizing Faulty Processes in Message Passing Programs

Abstract

In message passing programs, once a process terminates with an unexpected error, the terminated process can propagate the error to the rest of processes through communication dependencies, resulting in a program failure. Therefore, to locate faults, developers must identify the group of processes involved in the original error and faulty processes that activate faults. This paper presents a novel debugging tool, named MPI-PreDebugger (MPI-PD), for localizing faulty processes in message passing programs. MPI-PD automatically distinguishes the original and the propagated errors by checking communication errors during program execution. If MPI-PD observes any communication errors, it backtraces communication dependencies and points out potential faulty processes in a timeline view. We also introduce three case studies, in which MPI-PD has been shown to play the key role in their debugging. From these studies, we believe that MPI-PD helps developers to locate faults and allows them to concentrate in correcting their programs.