Astaroth - A Multi-GPU Library for Generic Stencil Computations

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Astaroth is a multi-GPU library for three-dimensional stencil computations. It is designed especially for performing high-order stencil computations in structured grids, where several coupled fields are updated each time step. Astaroth consists of a multi-GPU and single-GPU APIs and provides a domain-specific language for translating high-level descriptions of stencil computations into efficient GPU code. This makes Astaroth especially suitable for multiphysics simulations.

Astaroth is licenced under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence, version 3, or later (see LICENCE.txt). For contributing guidelines, see Contributing.

System Requirements

• An NVIDIA GPU with support for compute capability 3.0 or higher (Kepler architecture or newer)

Dependencies

Relative recent versions of

gcc cmake cuda flex bison.

Building

In the base directory, run

1. mkdir build
2. cd build
3. cmake ..
4. make -j

Optional: Documentation can be generated by running doxygen in the base directory. The generated documentation can be found in doc/doxygen.

Tip: The library is configured by passing options to CMake with -D[option]=[ON|OFF]. For example, double precision can be enabled by calling cmake -DBUILD_DOUBLE_PRECISION=ON ... See CMakeLists.txt for an up-to-date list of options.

Note: CMake will inform you if there are missing dependencies.

CMake Options

Option	Description	Default
BUILD_DEBUG	Builds Astaroth with extensive error checking	OFF
BUILD_STANDALONE	Builds a standalone library for testing, benchmarking and simulation	ON
BUILD_UTILS	Builds a generic utility library (WIP replacement for BUILD_STANDALONE)	ON
BUILD_RT_VISUALIZATION	Builds the real-time visualization module	OFF
BUILD_SAMPLES	Builds projects in samples subdirectory	OFF
DOUBLE_PRECISION	Generates double precision code	OFF
MULTIGPU_ENABLED	Enables Astaroth to use multiple GPUs on a single node	ON
MPI_ENABLED	Enables additional functions for MPI communciation	OFF
DSL_MODULE_DIR	Defines the directory to be scanned when looking for DSL files	astaroth/acc/mhd_solver

Standalone Module

Usage: ./ac_run [options]
	     --help | -h: Prints this help.
	     --test | -t: Runs autotests.
	--benchmark | -b: Runs benchmarks.
	 --simulate | -s: Runs the simulation.
	   --render | -r: Runs the real-time renderer.
	   --config | -c: Uses the config file given after this flag instead of the default.

See analysis/python/ directory of existing data visualization and analysis scripts.

Interface

• astaroth/include/astaroth.h: Legacy interface for backwards compatibility and quick testing.
• astaroth/include/astaroth_node.h: Multi-GPU interface (single node).
• astaroth/include/astaroth_device.h: Single-GPU interface.
• astaroth/src/utils/: Utility library for host-side memory allocations, verification and other tasks.

FAQ

Can I use the code even if I don't make my changes public?

GPL requires only that if you release a binary based on Astaroth to the public, then you should also release the source code for it. In private you can do whatever you want (secret forks, secret collaborations, etc).

How do I compile with MPI support?

MPI implementation for Astaroth is still work in progress, these commands are for testing only. Invoke CMake with cmake -DMPI_ENABLED=ON -DBUILD_MPI_TEST=ON -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=$(which mpicxx) ... Otherwise the build steps are the same. Run with mpirun -np 4 ./mpitest.

How do I contribute?

See Contributing.