1HWLOC(7)                             hwloc                            HWLOC(7)
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NAME

6       hwloc - General information about hwloc ("hardware locality").
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DESCRIPTION

9       hwloc  provides command line tools and a C API to obtain the hierarchi‐
10       cal map of key computing elements, such as: NUMA memory  nodes,  shared
11       caches,  processor  packages, processor cores, and processor "threads".
12       hwloc also gathers various attributes such as cache and memory informa‐
13       tion,  and  is portable across a variety of different operating systems
14       and platforms.
15
16   Definitions
17       hwloc has some specific definitions for terms that are used in this man
18       page and other hwloc documentation.
19
20       hwloc CPU set:
21            A  set  of  processors included in an hwloc object, expressed as a
22            bitmask indexed by the physical numbers of the CPUs (as  announced
23            by  the OS).  The hwloc definition of "CPU set" does not carry any
24            the same connotations as Linux's "CPU set" (e.g.,  process  affin‐
25            ity, etc.).
26
27       hwloc node set:
28            A  set  of  NUMA memory nodes near an hwloc object, expressed as a
29            bitmask indexed by the physical numbers  of  the  NUMA  nodes  (as
30            announced by the OS).
31
32       Linux CPU set:
33            See http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/cpusets.txt for a
34            discussion of Linux CPU sets.  A super-short-ignoring-many-details
35            description (taken from that page) is:
36
37             "Cpusets provide a mechanism for assigning a set of CPUs and Mem‐
38            ory Nodes to a set of tasks."
39
40       Linux Cgroup:
41            See http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/cgroups.txt for a
42            discussion  of Linux control groups.  A super-short-ignoring-many-
43            details description (taken from that page) is:
44
45             "Control Groups provide a mechanism for  aggregating/partitioning
46            sets  of  tasks,  and all their future children, into hierarchical
47            groups with specialized behaviour."
48
49       To be clear, hwloc supports all of the above concepts.   It  is  simply
50       worth noting that they are different things.
51
52   Location Specification
53       Locations  refer to specific regions within a topology.  Before reading
54       the rest of this man page, it may be useful to  read  lstopo(1)  and/or
55       run  lstopo  on your machine to see the reported topology tree.  Seeing
56       and understanding a topology tree will definitely help in understanding
57       the concepts that are discussed below.
58
59       Locations can be specified in multiple ways:
60
61       Tuples:   Tuples of hwloc "objects" and associated indexes can be spec‐
62                 ified in the  form  object:index.   hwloc  objects  represent
63                 types  of  mapped  items  (e.g.,  packages, cores, etc.) in a
64                 topology tree; indexes are non-negative integers that specify
65                 a  unique  physical object in a topology tree.  Both concepts
66                 are described in detail, below.
67
68                 Indexes may also be specified as ranges.  x-y enumerates from
69                 index x to y.  x:y enumerates y objects starting from index x
70                 (wrapping around the end of the index range if  needed).   x-
71                 enumerates  all objects starting from index x.  all, odd, and
72                 even are also supported for  listing  all  objects,  or  only
73                 those with odd or even indexes.
74
75                 Chaining  multiple  tuples  together in the more general form
76                 object1:index[.object2:index2[...]]  is  permissable.   While
77                 the first tuple's object may appear anywhere in the topology,
78                 the Nth tuple's object must have a shallower  topology  depth
79                 than  the  (N+1)th  tuple's  object.  Put simply: as you move
80                 right in a tuple chain, objects must go deeper in the  topol‐
81                 ogy tree.  When using logical indexes (which is the default),
82                 indexes specified in chained tuples are relative to the scope
83                 of the parent object.  For example, "package:0.core:1" refers
84                 to the second core in the first package.
85
86                 When using OS/physical indexes, the first object matching the
87                 given index is used.
88
89                 PCI  and  OS devices may also be designed using their identi‐
90                 fier.  For example, "pci=02:03.1" is the PCI device with  bus
91                 ID "02:03.1".  "os=eth0" is the network interface whose soft‐
92                 ware name is "eth0".
93
94       Hex:      For tools that manipulate object as sets (e.g. hwloc-calc and
95                 hwloc-bind),  locations  can also be specified as hexidecimal
96                 bitmasks prefixed with "0x".  Commas must be used to separate
97                 the    hex    digits    into    blocks    of   8,   such   as
98                 "0xffc0140,0x00020110".  Leading zeros in each block  do  not
99                 need  to  be  specified.  For example, "0xffc0140,0x20110" is
100                 equivalent to the prior example, and "0x0000000f" is  exactly
101                 equivalent  to  "0xf".   Intermediate blocks of 8 digits that
102                 are all zeoro can be left empty; "0xff0,,0x13" is  equivalent
103                 to "0xff0,0x00000000,0x13".  If the location is prefixed with
104                 the special string "0xf...f", then all unspecified  bits  are
105                 set (as if the set were infinite). For example, "0xf...f,0x1"
106                 sets both the first bit and all bits starting with the  33rd.
107                 The  string  "0xf...f"  --  with no other specified values --
108                 sets all bits.
109
110       "all" and "root" are special locations consisting in the root object in
111       tree. It contains the entire current topology.
112
113       Some  tools  directly  operate  on  these  objects (e.g. hwloc-info and
114       hwloc-annotate).  They do not  support  hexadecimal  locations  because
115       each  location may correspond to multiple objects.  For instance, there
116       can be exactly one L3 cache per package and NUMA node, which means it's
117       the  same  location.   If  multiple locations are given on the command-
118       line, these tools will operation on each location individually and con‐
119       secutively.
120
121       Some other tools internally manipulate objects as sets (e.g. hwloc-calc
122       and hwloc-bind).  They translate each input location into a hexidecimal
123       location.   When I/O objects are used, they are translated into the set
124       of processors (or NUMA nodes)  that  are  close  to  the  given  object
125       (because I/O objects do not contain processors or NUMA nodes).
126
127       If  multiple  locations are specified on the command-line (delimited by
128       whitespace), they are combined (the overall  location  is  wider).   If
129       prefixed  with "~", the given location will be cleared instead of added
130       to the current list of locations.  If  prefixed  with  "x",  the  given
131       location  will be and'ed instead of added to the current list.  If pre‐
132       fixed with "^", the given location will be xor'ed.
133
134       More complex operations may be performed by using hwloc-calc to compute
135       intermediate values.
136
137   hwloc Objects
138       Objects  in  tuples  can  be  any of the following strings (listed from
139       "biggest" to "smallest"):
140
141       machine   A set of processors and memory.
142
143       numanode  A NUMA node; a set of processors around memory which the pro‐
144                 cessors  can  directly  access.   If  hbm  is used instead of
145                 numanode in locations, command-line tools only consider high-
146                 bandwidth memory nodes such as KNL's MCDRAM.
147
148       package   Typically  a physical package or chip, that goes into a pack‐
149                 age, it is a grouping of one or more processors.
150
151       cache     A cache memory. If several kinds of caches exist in the  sys‐
152                 tem,  a  specific  one  may  be identified by its level (e.g.
153                 l1cache) and optionally by its type (e.g. l1icache).
154
155       core      A single, physical processing unit which  may  still  contain
156                 multiple logical processors, such as hardware threads.
157
158       pu        Short for processor unit (not process!).  The smallest physi‐
159                 cal execution unit that hwloc recognizes.  For example, there
160                 may be multiple PUs on a core (e.g., hardware threads).
161
162       The  additional  system  type can be used when several machines form an
163       overall single system image (SSI), such as Kerrighed.
164
165       osdev, pcidev, and bridge may also be used to specify  special  devices
166       although  some  of them have dedicated identification ways as explained
167       in Location Specification.
168
169       Finally, note that an object can be denoted by its numeric  "depth"  in
170       the topology graph.
171
172   hwloc Indexes
173       Indexes  are  integer  values that uniquely specify a given object of a
174       specific type.  Indexes can be expressed either as  logical  values  or
175       physical  values.   Most  hwloc  utilities  accept  logical  indexes by
176       default.  Passing --physical switches  to  physical/OS  indexes.   Both
177       logical and physical indexes are described on this man page.
178
179       Logical indexes are relative to the object order in the output from the
180       lstopo command.  They always start with 0 and increment by 1  for  each
181       successive object.
182
183       Physical  indexes are how the operating system refers to objects.  Note
184       that while physical indexes are non-negative integer values, the  hard‐
185       ware  and/or  operating  system may choose arbitrary values -- they may
186       not start with 0, and successive objects may not have consecutive  val‐
187       ues.
188
189       For example, if the first few lines of lstopo -p output are the follow‐
190       ing:
191
192         Machine (47GB)
193           NUMANode P#0 (24GB) + Package P#0 + L3 (12MB)
194             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#0 + PU P#0
195             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#1 + PU P#0
196             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#2 + PU P#0
197             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#8 + PU P#0
198             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#9 + PU P#0
199             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#10 + PU P#0
200           NUMANode P#1 (24GB) + Package P#1 + L3 (12MB)
201             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#0 + PU P#0
202             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#1 + PU P#0
203             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#2 + PU P#0
204             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#8 + PU P#0
205             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#9 + PU P#0
206             L2 (256KB) + L1 (32KB) + Core P#10 + PU P#0
207
208       In this example, the first core on the second package is logically num‐
209       ber  6  (i.e.,  logically the 7th core, starting from 0).  Its physical
210       index is 0, but note that another core also has a physical index of  0.
211       Hence,  physical indexes may only be relevant within the scope of their
212       parent (or set of ancestors).  In this example,  to  uniquely  identify
213       logical  core  6 with physical indexes, you must specify (at a minimum)
214       both a package and a core: package 1, core 0.
215
216       Index values, regardless of whether they are logical or  physical,  can
217       be expressed in several different forms (where X, Y, and N are positive
218       integers):
219
220       X         The object with index value X.
221
222       X-Y       All the objects with index values >= X and <= Y.
223
224       X-        All the objects with index values >= X.
225
226       X:N       N objects starting with index X, possibly wrapping around the
227                 end of the level.
228
229       all       A special index value indicating all valid index values.
230
231       odd       A special index value indicating all valid odd index values.
232
233       even      A special index value indicating all valid even index values.
234
235       REMEMBER:  hwloc's  command line tools accept logical indexes for loca‐
236       tion values by default.  Use --physical and --logical  to  switch  from
237       one mode to another.
238

SEE ALSO

240       hwloc's  command  line  tool  documentation:  lstopo(1), hwloc-bind(1),
241       hwloc-calc(1), hwloc-distrib(1), hwloc-ps(1).
242
243       hwloc has many C API functions, each of which have their own man  page.
244       Some  top-level man pages are also provided, grouping similar functions
245       together.   A  few  good  places  to  start  might  include:   hwlocal‐
246       ity_objects(3),  hwlocality_types(3),  hwlocality_creation(3), hwlocal‐
247       ity_cpuset(3), hwlocality_information(3), and hwlocality_binding(3).
248
249       For a listing of all available hwloc man pages, look  at  all  "hwloc*"
250       files in the man1 and man3 directories.
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2541.11.9                           Jan 18, 2018                         HWLOC(7)
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