fi_cq(3) Libfabric v1.15.1 fi_cq(3) NAME fi_cq - Completion queue operations fi_cq_open / fi_close Open/close a completion queue fi_control Control CQ operation or attributes. fi_cq_read / fi_cq_readfrom / fi_cq_readerr Read a completion from a completion queue fi_cq_sread / fi_cq_sreadfrom A synchronous (blocking) read that waits until a specified condition has been met before reading a completion from a completion queue. fi_cq_signal Unblock any thread waiting in fi_cq_sread or fi_cq_sreadfrom. fi_cq_strerror Converts provider specific error information into a printable string SYNOPSIS #include <rdma/fi_domain.h> int fi_cq_open(struct fid_domain *domain, struct fi_cq_attr *attr, struct fid_cq **cq, void *context); int fi_close(struct fid *cq); int fi_control(struct fid *cq, int command, void *arg); ssize_t fi_cq_read(struct fid_cq *cq, void *buf, size_t count); ssize_t fi_cq_readfrom(struct fid_cq *cq, void *buf, size_t count, fi_addr_t *src_addr); ssize_t fi_cq_readerr(struct fid_cq *cq, struct fi_cq_err_entry *buf, uint64_t flags); ssize_t fi_cq_sread(struct fid_cq *cq, void *buf, size_t count, const void *cond, int timeout); ssize_t fi_cq_sreadfrom(struct fid_cq *cq, void *buf, size_t count, fi_addr_t *src_addr, const void *cond, int timeout); int fi_cq_signal(struct fid_cq *cq); const char * fi_cq_strerror(struct fid_cq *cq, int prov_errno, const void *err_data, char *buf, size_t len); ARGUMENTS domain Open resource domain cq Completion queue attr Completion queue attributes context User specified context associated with the completion queue. buf For read calls, the data buffer to write completions into. For write calls, a completion to insert into the completion queue. For fi_cq_strerror, an optional buffer that receives printable error in- formation. count Number of CQ entries. len Length of data buffer src_addr Source address of a completed receive operation flags Additional flags to apply to the operation command Command of control operation to perform on CQ. arg Optional control argument cond Condition that must be met before a completion is generated timeout Time in milliseconds to wait. A negative value indicates infinite timeout. prov_errno Provider specific error value err_data Provider specific error data related to a completion DESCRIPTION Completion queues are used to report events associated with data transfers. They are associated with message sends and receives, RMA, atomic, tagged messages, and triggered events. Reported events are usually associated with a fabric endpoint, but may also refer to memory regions used as the target of an RMA or atomic operation. fi_cq_open fi_cq_open allocates a new completion queue. Unlike event queues, comple- tion queues are associated with a resource domain and may be offloaded en- tirely in provider hardware. The properties and behavior of a completion queue are defined by struct fi_cq_attr. struct fi_cq_attr { size_t size; /* # entries for CQ */ uint64_t flags; /* operation flags */ enum fi_cq_format format; /* completion format */ enum fi_wait_obj wait_obj; /* requested wait object */ int signaling_vector; /* interrupt affinity */ enum fi_cq_wait_cond wait_cond; /* wait condition format */ struct fid_wait *wait_set; /* optional wait set */ }; size Specifies the minimum size of a completion queue. A value of 0 in- dicates that the provider may choose a default value. flags Flags that control the configuration of the CQ. - FI_AFFINITY Indicates that the signaling_vector field (see below) is valid. format Completion queues allow the application to select the amount of de- tail that it must store and report. The format attribute allows the application to select one of several completion formats, indicating the structure of the data that the completion queue should return when read. Supported formats and the structures that correspond to each are listed below. The meaning of the CQ entry fields are de- fined in the Completion Fields section. - FI_CQ_FORMAT_UNSPEC If an unspecified format is requested, then the CQ will use a provider selected default format. - FI_CQ_FORMAT_CONTEXT Provides only user specified context that was associated with the completion. struct fi_cq_entry { void *op_context; /* operation context */ }; * .RS 2 FI_CQ_FORMAT_MSG Provides minimal data for processing completions, with expanded sup- port for reporting information about received messages. struct fi_cq_msg_entry { void *op_context; /* operation context */ uint64_t flags; /* completion flags */ size_t len; /* size of received data */ }; * .RS 2 FI_CQ_FORMAT_DATA Provides data associated with a completion. Includes support for received message length, remote CQ data, and multi-receive buffers. struct fi_cq_data_entry { void *op_context; /* operation context */ uint64_t flags; /* completion flags */ size_t len; /* size of received data */ void *buf; /* receive data buffer */ uint64_t data; /* completion data */ }; * .RS 2 FI_CQ_FORMAT_TAGGED Expands completion data to include support for the tagged message interfaces. struct fi_cq_tagged_entry { void *op_context; /* operation context */ uint64_t flags; /* completion flags */ size_t len; /* size of received data */ void *buf; /* receive data buffer */ uint64_t data; /* completion data */ uint64_t tag; /* received tag */ }; wait_obj CQ's may be associated with a specific wait object. Wait objects allow applications to block until the wait object is signaled, indi- cating that a completion is available to be read. Users may use fi_control to retrieve the underlying wait object associated with a CQ, in order to use it in other system calls. The following values may be used to specify the type of wait object associated with a CQ: FI_WAIT_NONE, FI_WAIT_UNSPEC, FI_WAIT_SET, FI_WAIT_FD, FI_WAIT_MU- TEX_COND, and FI_WAIT_YIELD. The default is FI_WAIT_NONE. - FI_WAIT_NONE Used to indicate that the user will not block (wait) for completions on the CQ. When FI_WAIT_NONE is specified, the application may not call fi_cq_sread or fi_cq_sreadfrom. - FI_WAIT_UNSPEC Specifies that the user will only wait on the CQ using fabric inter- face calls, such as fi_cq_sread or fi_cq_sreadfrom. In this case, the underlying provider may select the most appropriate or highest performing wait object available, including custom wait mechanisms. Applications that select FI_WAIT_UNSPEC are not guaranteed to re- trieve the underlying wait object. - FI_WAIT_SET Indicates that the completion queue should use a wait set object to wait for completions. If specified, the wait_set field must refer- ence an existing wait set object. - FI_WAIT_FD Indicates that the CQ should use a file descriptor as its wait mech- anism. A file descriptor wait object must be usable in select, poll, and epoll routines. However, a provider may signal an FD wait object by marking it as readable, writable, or with an error. - FI_WAIT_MUTEX_COND Specifies that the CQ should use a pthread mutex and cond variable as a wait object. - FI_WAIT_YIELD Indicates that the CQ will wait without a wait object but instead yield on every wait. Allows usage of fi_cq_sread and fi_cq_sread- from through a spin. signaling_vector If the FI_AFFINITY flag is set, this indicates the logical cpu num- ber (0..max cpu - 1) that interrupts associated with the CQ should target. This field should be treated as a hint to the provider and may be ignored if the provider does not support interrupt affinity. wait_cond By default, when a completion is inserted into a CQ that supports blocking reads (fi_cq_sread/fi_cq_sreadfrom), the corresponding wait object is signaled. Users may specify a condition that must first be met before the wait is satisfied. This field indicates how the provider should interpret the cond field, which describes the condi- tion needed to signal the wait object. A wait condition should be treated as an optimization. Providers are not required to meet the requirements of the condition before signaling the wait object. Applications should not rely on the condition necessarily be- ing true when a blocking read call returns. If wait_cond is set to FI_CQ_COND_NONE, then no additional conditions are applied to the signaling of the CQ wait object, and the insertion of any new entry will trigger the wait condition. If wait_cond is set to FI_CQ_COND_THRESHOLD, then the cond field is interpreted as a size_t threshold value. The threshold indicates the number of entries that are to be queued before at the CQ before the wait is satisfied. This field is ignored if wait_obj is set to FI_WAIT_NONE. wait_set If wait_obj is FI_WAIT_SET, this field references a wait object to which the completion queue should attach. When an event is inserted into the completion queue, the corresponding wait set will be sig- naled if all necessary conditions are met. The use of a wait_set enables an optimized method of waiting for events across multiple event and completion queues. This field is ignored if wait_obj is not FI_WAIT_SET. fi_close The fi_close call releases all resources associated with a completion queue. Any completions which remain on the CQ when it is closed are lost. When closing the CQ, there must be no opened endpoints, transmit contexts, or receive contexts associated with the CQ. If resources are still associ- ated with the CQ when attempting to close, the call will return -FI_EBUSY. fi_control The fi_control call is used to access provider or implementation specific details of the completion queue. Access to the CQ should be serialized across all calls when fi_control is invoked, as it may redirect the imple- mentation of CQ operations. The following control commands are usable with a CQ. FI_GETWAIT (void **) This command allows the user to retrieve the low-level wait object associated with the CQ. The format of the wait-object is specified during CQ creation, through the CQ attributes. The fi_control arg parameter should be an address where a pointer to the returned wait object will be written. See fi_eq.3 for addition details using fi_control with FI_GETWAIT. fi_cq_read The fi_cq_read operation performs a non-blocking read of completion data from the CQ. The format of the completion event is determined using the fi_cq_format option that was specified when the CQ was opened. Multiple completions may be retrieved from a CQ in a single call. The maximum num- ber of entries to return is limited to the specified count parameter, with the number of entries successfully read from the CQ returned by the call. (See return values section below.) A count value of 0 may be used to drive progress on associated endpoints when manual progress is enabled. CQs are optimized to report operations which have completed successfully. Operations which fail are reported `out of band'. Such operations are re- trieved using the fi_cq_readerr function. When an operation that has com- pleted with an unexpected error is encountered, it is placed into a tempo- rary error queue. Attempting to read from a CQ while an item is in the er- ror queue results in fi_cq_read failing with a return code of -FI_EAVAIL. Applications may use this return code to determine when to call fi_cq_read- err. fi_cq_readfrom The fi_cq_readfrom call behaves identical to fi_cq_read, with the exception that it allows the CQ to return source address information to the user for any received data. Source address data is only available for those end- points configured with FI_SOURCE capability. If fi_cq_readfrom is called on an endpoint for which source addressing data is not available, the source address will be set to FI_ADDR_NOTAVAIL. The number of input src_addr entries must be the same as the count parameter. Returned source addressing data is converted from the native address used by the underlying fabric into an fi_addr_t, which may be used in transmit operations. Under most circumstances, returning fi_addr_t requires that the source address already have been inserted into the address vector asso- ciated with the receiving endpoint. This is true for address vectors of type FI_AV_TABLE. In select providers when FI_AV_MAP is used, source ad- dresses may be converted algorithmically into a usable fi_addr_t, even though the source address has not been inserted into the address vector. This is permitted by the API, as it allows the provider to avoid address look-up as part of receive message processing. In no case do providers in- sert addresses into an AV separate from an application calling fi_av_insert or similar call. For endpoints allocated using the FI_SOURCE_ERR capability, if the source address cannot be converted into a valid fi_addr_t value, fi_cq_readfrom will return -FI_EAVAIL, even if the data were received successfully. The completion will then be reported through fi_cq_readerr with error code -FI_EADDRNOTAVAIL. See fi_cq_readerr for details. If FI_SOURCE is specified without FI_SOURCE_ERR, source addresses which cannot be mapped to a usable fi_addr_t will be reported as FI_ADDR_NO- TAVAIL. fi_cq_sread / fi_cq_sreadfrom The fi_cq_sread and fi_cq_sreadfrom calls are the blocking equivalent oper- ations to fi_cq_read and fi_cq_readfrom. Their behavior is similar to the non-blocking calls, with the exception that the calls will not return until either a completion has been read from the CQ or an error or timeout oc- curs. Threads blocking in this function will return to the caller if they are signaled by some external source. This is true even if the timeout has not occurred or was specified as infinite. It is invalid for applications to call these functions if the CQ has been configured with a wait object of FI_WAIT_NONE or FI_WAIT_SET. fi_cq_readerr The read error function, fi_cq_readerr, retrieves information regarding any asynchronous operation which has completed with an unexpected error. fi_cq_readerr is a non-blocking call, returning immediately whether an er- ror completion was found or not. Error information is reported to the user through struct fi_cq_err_entry. The format of this structure is defined below. struct fi_cq_err_entry { void *op_context; /* operation context */ uint64_t flags; /* completion flags */ size_t len; /* size of received data */ void *buf; /* receive data buffer */ uint64_t data; /* completion data */ uint64_t tag; /* message tag */ size_t olen; /* overflow length */ int err; /* positive error code */ int prov_errno; /* provider error code */ void *err_data; /* error data */ size_t err_data_size; /* size of err_data */ }; The general reason for the error is provided through the err field. Provider specific error information may also be available through the prov_errno and err_data fields. Users may call fi_cq_strerror to convert provider specific error information into a printable string for debugging purposes. See field details below for more information on the use of err_data and err_data_size. Note that error completions are generated for all operations, including those for which a completion was not requested (e.g. an endpoint is config- ured with FI_SELECTIVE_COMPLETION, but the request did not have the FI_COM- PLETION flag set). In such cases, providers will return as much informa- tion as made available by the underlying software and hardware about the failure, other fields will be set to NULL or 0. This includes the op_con- text value, which may not have been provided or was ignored on input as part of the transfer. Notable completion error codes are given below. FI_EADDRNOTAVAIL This error code is used by CQs configured with FI_SOURCE_ERR to re- port completions for which a usable fi_addr_t source address could not be found. An error code of FI_EADDRNOTAVAIL indicates that the data transfer was successfully received and processed, with the fi_cq_err_entry fields containing information about the completion. The err_data field will be set to the source address data. The source address will be in the same format as specified through the fi_info addr_format field for the opened domain. This may be passed directly into an fi_av_insert call to add the source address to the address vector. fi_cq_signal The fi_cq_signal call will unblock any thread waiting in fi_cq_sread or fi_cq_sreadfrom. This may be used to wake-up a thread that is blocked waiting to read a completion operation. The fi_cq_signal operation is only available if the CQ was configured with a wait object. COMPLETION FIELDS The CQ entry data structures share many of the same fields. The meanings of these fields are the same for all CQ entry structure formats. op_context The operation context is the application specified context value that was provided with an asynchronous operation. The op_context field is valid for all completions that are associated with an asyn- chronous operation. For completion events that are not associated with a posted operation, this field will be set to NULL. This includes completions generated at the tar- get in response to RMA write operations that carry CQ data (FI_REMOTE_WRITE | FI_REMOTE_CQ_DATA flags set), when the FI_RX_CQ_DATA mode bit is not re- quired. flags This specifies flags associated with the completed operation. The Completion Flags section below lists valid flag values. Flags are set for all relevant completions. len This len field only applies to completed receive operations (e.g. fi_recv, fi_trecv, etc.). It indicates the size of received message data - i.e. how many data bytes were placed into the associ- ated receive buffer by a corresponding fi_send/fi_tsend/et al call. If an endpoint has been configured with the FI_MSG_PREFIX mode, the len also reflects the size of the prefix buffer. buf The buf field is only valid for completed receive operations, and only applies when the receive buffer was posted with the FI_MULTI_RECV flag. In this case, buf points to the starting loca- tion where the receive data was placed. data The data field is only valid if the FI_REMOTE_CQ_DATA completion flag is set, and only applies to receive completions. If FI_RE- MOTE_CQ_DATA is set, this field will contain the completion data provided by the peer as part of their transmit request. The comple- tion data will be given in host byte order. tag A tag applies only to received messages that occur using the tagged interfaces. This field contains the tag that was included with the received message. The tag will be in host byte order. olen The olen field applies to received messages. It is used to indicate that a received message has overrun the available buffer space and has been truncated. The olen specifies the amount of data that did not fit into the available receive buffer and was discarded. err This err code is a positive fabric errno associated with a comple- tion. The err value indicates the general reason for an error, if one occurred. See fi_errno.3 for a list of possible error codes. prov_errno On an error, prov_errno may contain a provider specific error code. The use of this field and its meaning is provider specific. It is intended to be used as a debugging aid. See fi_cq_strerror for ad- ditional details on converting this error value into a human read- able string. err_data The err_data field is used to return provider specific information, if available, about the error. On input, err_data should reference a data buffer of size err_data_size. On output, the provider will fill in this buffer with any provider specific data which may help identify the cause of the error. The contents of the err_data field and its meaning is provider specific. It is intended to be used as a debugging aid. See fi_cq_strerror for additional details on con- verting this error data into a human readable string. See the com- patibility note below on how this field is used for older libfabric releases. err_data_size On input, err_data_size indicates the size of the err_data buffer in bytes. On output, err_data_size will be set to the number of bytes copied to the err_data buffer. The err_data information is typi- cally used with fi_cq_strerror to provide details about the type of error that occurred. For compatibility purposes, the behavior of the err_data and err_data_size fields is may be modified from that listed above. If err_data_size is 0 on input, or the fabric was opened with release < 1.5, then any buffer refer- enced by err_data will be ignored on input. In this situation, on output err_data will be set to a data buffer owned by the provider. The contents of the buffer will remain valid until a subsequent read call against the CQ. Applications must serialize access to the CQ when processing errors to ensure that the buffer referenced by err_data does not change. COMPLETION FLAGS Completion flags provide additional details regarding the completed opera- tion. The following completion flags are defined. FI_SEND Indicates that the completion was for a send operation. This flag may be combined with an FI_MSG or FI_TAGGED flag. FI_RECV Indicates that the completion was for a receive operation. This flag may be combined with an FI_MSG or FI_TAGGED flag. FI_RMA Indicates that an RMA operation completed. This flag may be com- bined with an FI_READ, FI_WRITE, FI_REMOTE_READ, or FI_REMOTE_WRITE flag. FI_ATOMIC Indicates that an atomic operation completed. This flag may be com- bined with an FI_READ, FI_WRITE, FI_REMOTE_READ, or FI_REMOTE_WRITE flag. FI_MSG Indicates that a message-based operation completed. This flag may be combined with an FI_SEND or FI_RECV flag. FI_TAGGED Indicates that a tagged message operation completed. This flag may be combined with an FI_SEND or FI_RECV flag. FI_MULTICAST Indicates that a multicast operation completed. This flag may be combined with FI_MSG and relevant flags. This flag is only guaran- teed to be valid for received messages if the endpoint has been con- figured with FI_SOURCE. FI_READ Indicates that a locally initiated RMA or atomic read operation has completed. This flag may be combined with an FI_RMA or FI_ATOMIC flag. FI_WRITE Indicates that a locally initiated RMA or atomic write operation has completed. This flag may be combined with an FI_RMA or FI_ATOMIC flag. FI_REMOTE_READ Indicates that a remotely initiated RMA or atomic read operation has completed. This flag may be combined with an FI_RMA or FI_ATOMIC flag. FI_REMOTE_WRITE Indicates that a remotely initiated RMA or atomic write operation has completed. This flag may be combined with an FI_RMA or FI_ATOMIC flag. FI_REMOTE_CQ_DATA This indicates that remote CQ data is available as part of the com- pletion. FI_MULTI_RECV This flag applies to receive buffers that were posted with the FI_MULTI_RECV flag set. This completion flag indicates that the original receive buffer referenced by the completion has been con- sumed and was released by the provider. Providers may set this flag on the last message that is received into the multi- recv buffer, or may generate a separate completion that indicates that the buffer has been released. Applications can distinguish between these two cases by examining the com- pletion entry flags field. If additional flags, such as FI_RECV, are set, the completion is associated with a received message. In this case, the buf field will reference the location where the received message was placed into the multi-recv buffer. Other fields in the completion entry will be determined based on the received message. If other flag bits are zero, the provider is reporting that the multi-recv buffer has been released, and the completion entry is not associated with a received message. FI_MORE See the `Buffered Receives' section in fi_msg(3) for more details. This flag is associated with receive completions on endpoints that have FI_BUFFERED_RECV mode enabled. When set to one, it indicates that the buffer referenced by the completion is limited by the FI_OPT_BUFFERED_LIMIT threshold, and additional message data must be retrieved by the application using an FI_CLAIM operation. FI_CLAIM See the `Buffered Receives' section in fi_msg(3) for more details. This flag is set on completions associated with receive operations that claim buffered receive data. Note that this flag only applies to endpoints configured with the FI_BUFFERED_RECV mode bit. COMPLETION EVENT SEMANTICS Libfabric defines several completion `levels', identified using operational flags. Each flag indicates the soonest that a completion event may be gen- erated by a provider, and the assumptions that an application may make upon processing a completion. The operational flags are defined below, along with an example of how a provider might implement the semantic. Note that only meeting the semantic is required of the provider and not the implemen- tation. Providers may implement stronger completion semantics than neces- sary for a given operation, but only the behavior defined by the completion level is guaranteed. To help understand the conceptual differences in completion levels, con- sider mailing a letter. Placing the letter into the local mailbox for pick-up is similar to `inject complete'. Having the letter picked up and dropped off at the destination mailbox is equivalent to `transmit com- plete'. The `delivery complete' semantic is a stronger guarantee, with a person at the destination signing for the letter. However, the person who signed for the letter is not necessarily the intended recipient. The `match complete' option is similar to delivery complete, but requires the intended recipient to sign for the letter. The `commit complete' level has different semantics than the previously mentioned levels. Commit complete would be closer to the letter arriving at the destination and being placed into a fire proof safe. The operational flags for the described completion levels are defined be- low. FI_INJECT_COMPLETE Indicates that a completion should be generated when the source buffer(s) may be reused. A completion guarantees that the buffers will not be read from again and the application may reclaim them. No other guarantees are made with respect to the state of the opera- tion. Example: A provider may generate this completion event after copying the source buffer into a network buffer, either in host memory or on the NIC. An inject completion does not indicate that the data has been transmitted onto the network, and a local error could occur after the completion event has been generated that could prevent it from being transmitted. Inject complete allows for the fastest completion reporting (and, hence, buffer reuse), but provides the weakest guarantees against network errors. Note: This flag is used to control when a completion entry is inserted into a completion queue. It does not apply to operations that do not generate a completion queue entry, such as the fi_inject operation, and is not subject to the inject_size message limit restriction. FI_TRANSMIT_COMPLETE Indicates that a completion should be generated when the transmit operation has completed relative to the local provider. The exact behavior is dependent on the endpoint type. For reliable endpoints: Indicates that a completion should be generated when the operation has been delivered to the peer endpoint. A completion guarantees that the operation is no longer dependent on the fabric or local resources. The state of the operation at the peer endpoint is not defined. Example: A provider may generate a transmit complete event upon receiving an ack from the peer endpoint. The state of the message at the peer is un- known and may be buffered in the target NIC at the time the ack has been generated. For unreliable endpoints: Indicates that a completion should be generated when the operation has been delivered to the fabric. A completion guarantees that the operation is no longer dependent on local resources. The state of the operation within the fabric is not defined. FI_DELIVERY_COMPLETE Indicates that a completion should not be generated until an opera- tion has been processed by the destination endpoint(s). A comple- tion guarantees that the result of the operation is available; how- ever, additional steps may need to be taken at the destination to retrieve the results. For example, an application may need to pro- vide a receive buffers in order to retrieve messages that were buffered by the provider. Delivery complete indicates that the message has been processed by the peer. If an application buffer was ready to receive the results of the message when it arrived, then delivery complete indicates that the data was placed into the application's buffer. This completion mode applies only to reliable endpoints. For operations that return data to the initiator, such as RMA read or atomic-fetch, the source endpoint is also considered a destination endpoint. This is the de- fault completion mode for such operations. FI_MATCH_COMPLETE Indicates that a completion should be generated only after the oper- ation has been matched with an application specified buffer. Opera- tions using this completion semantic are dependent on the applica- tion at the target claiming the message or results. As a result, match complete may involve additional provider level acknowledge- ments or lengthy delays. However, this completion model enables peer applications to synchronize their execution. Many providers may not support this semantic. FI_COMMIT_COMPLETE Indicates that a completion should not be generated (locally or at the peer) until the result of an operation have been made persis- tent. A completion guarantees that the result is both available and durable, in the case of power failure. This completion mode applies only to operations that target persistent mem- ory regions over reliable endpoints. This completion mode is experimental. FI_FENCE This is not a completion level, but plays a role in the completion ordering between operations that would not normally be ordered. An operation that is marked with the FI_FENCE flag and all operations posted after the fenced operation are deferred until all previous operations targeting the same peer endpoint have completed. Addi- tionally, the completion of the fenced operation indicates that prior operations have met the same completion level as the fenced operation. For example, if an operation is posted as FI_DELIV- ERY_COMPLETE | FI_FENCE, then its completion indicates prior opera- tions have met the semantic required for FI_DELIVERY_COMPLETE. This is true even if the prior operation was posted with a lower comple- tion level, such as FI_TRANSMIT_COMPLETE or FI_INJECT_COMPLETE. Note that a completion generated for an operation posted prior to the fenced operation only guarantees that the completion level that was origi- nally requested has been met. It is the completion of the fenced operation that guarantees that the additional semantics have been met. The above completion semantics are defined with respect to the initiator of the operation. The different semantics are useful for describing when the initiator may re-use a data buffer, and guarantees what state a transfer must reach prior to a completion being generated. This allows applications to determine appropriate error handling in case of communication failures. TARGET COMPLETION SEMANTICS The completion semantic at the target is used to determine when data at the target is visible to the peer application. Visibility indicates that a memory read to the same address that was the target of a data transfer will return the results of the transfer. The target of a transfer can be iden- tified by the initiator, as may be the case for RMA and atomic operations, or determined by the target, for example by providing a matching receive buffer. Global visibility indicates that the results are available regard- less of where the memory read originates. For example, the read could come from a process running on a host CPU, it may be accessed by subsequent data transfer over the fabric, or read from a peer device such as a GPU. In terms of completion semantics, visibility usually indicates that the transfer meets the FI_DELIVERY_COMPLETE requirements from the perspective of the target. The target completion semantic may be, but is not necessar- ily, linked with the completion semantic specified by the initiator of the transfer. Often, target processes do not explicitly state a desired completion seman- tic and instead rely on the default semantic. The default behavior is based on several factors, including: * whether a completion even is generated at the target * the type of transfer involved (e.g. msg vs RMA) * endpoint data and message ordering guarantees * properties of the targeted memory buffer * the initiator's specified completion semantic Broadly, target completion semantics are grouped based on whether or not the transfer generates a completion event at the target. This includes writing a CQ entry or updating a completion counter. In common use cases, transfers that use a message interface (FI_MSG or FI_TAGGED) typically gen- erate target events, while transfers involving an RMA interface (FI_RMA or FI_ATOMIC) often do not. There are exceptions to both these cases, depend- ing on endpoint to CQ and counter bindings and operational flags. For ex- ample, RMA writes that carry remote CQ data will generate a completion event at the target, and are frequently used to convey visibility to the target application. The general guidelines for target side semantics are described below, followed by exceptions that modify that behavior. By default, completions generated at the target indicate that the trans- ferred data is immediately available to be read from the target buffer. That is, the target sees FI_DELIVERY_COMPLETE (or better) semantics, even if the initiator requested lower semantics. For applications using only data buffers allocated from host memory, this is often sufficient. For operations that do not generate a completion event at the target, the visibility of the data at the target may need to be inferred based on sub- sequent operations that do generate target completions. Absent a target completion, when a completion of an operation is written at the initiator, the visibility semantic of the operation at the target aligns with the ini- tiator completion semantic. For instance, if an RMA operation completes at the initiator as either FI_INJECT_COMPLETE or FI_TRANSMIT_COMPLETE, the data visibility at the target is not guaranteed. One or more of the following mechanisms can be used by the target process to guarantee that the results of a data transfer that did not generate a completion at the target is now visible. This list is not inclusive of all options, but defines common uses. In the descriptions below, the first transfer does not result in a completion event at the target, but is even- tually followed by a transfer which does. * If the endpoint guarantees message ordering between two transfers, the target completion of a second transfer will indicate that the data from the first transfer is available. For example, if the endpoint supports send after write ordering (FI_ORDER_SAW), then a receive completion cor- responding to the send will indicate that the write data is available. This holds independent of the initiator's completion semantic for either the write or send. When ordering is guaranteed, the second transfer can be queued with the provider immediately after queuing the first. * If the endpoint does not guarantee message ordering, the initiator must take additional steps to ensure visibility. If initiator requests FI_DE- LIVERY_COMPLETE semantics for the first operation, the initiator can wait for the operation to complete locally. Once the completion has been read, the target completion of a second transfer will indicate that the first transfer's data is visible. * Alternatively, if message ordering is not guaranteed by the endpoint, the initiator can use the FI_FENCE and FI_DELIVERY_COMPLETE flags on the sec- ond data transfer to force the first transfers to meet the FI_DELIV- ERY_COMPLETE semantics. If the second transfer generates a completion at the target, that will indicate that the data is visible. Otherwise, a target completion for any transfer after the fenced operation will indi- cate that the data is visible. The above semantics apply for transfers targeting traditional host memory buffers. However, the behavior may differ when device memory and/or per- sistent memory is involved (FI_HMEM and FI_PMEM capability bits). When heterogenous memory is involved, the concept of memory domains come into play. Memory domains identify the physical separation of memory, which may or may not be accessible through the same virtual address space. See the fi_mr(3) man page for further details on memory domains. Completion ordering and data visibility are only well-defined for transfers that target the same memory domain. Applications need to be aware of or- dering and visibility differences when transfers target different memory domains. Additionally, applications also need to be concerned with the memory domain that completions themselves are written and if it differs from the memory domain targeted by a transfer. In some situations, either the provider or application may need to call device specific APIs to syn- chronize or flush device memory caches in order to achieve the desired data visibility. When heterogenous memory is in use, the default target completion semantic for transfers that generate a completion at the target is still FI_DELIV- ERY_COMPLETE, however, applications should be aware that there may be a negative impact on overall performance for providers to meet this require- ment. For example, a target process may be using a GPU to accelerate computa- tions. A memory region mapping to memory on the GPU may be exposed to peers as either an RMA target or posted locally as a receive buffer. In this case, the application is concerned with two memory domains - system and GPU memory. Completions are written to system memory. Continuing the example, a peer process sends a tagged message. That mes- sage is matched with the receive buffer located in GPU memory. The NIC copies the data from the network into the receive buffer and writes an en- try into the completion queue. Note that both memory domains were accessed as part of this transfer. The message data was directed to the GPU memory, but the completion went to host memory. Because separate memory domains may not be synchronized with each other, it is possible for the host CPU to see and process the completion entry before the transfer to the GPU memory is visible to either the host GPU or even software running on the GPU. From the perspective of the provider, visibility of the completion does not imply visibility of data written to the GPU's memory domain. The default completion semantic at the target application for message oper- ations is FI_DELIVERY_COMPLETE. An anticipated provider implementation in this situation is for the provider software running on the host CPU to in- tercept the CQ entry, detect that the data landed in heterogenous memory, and perform the necessary device synchronization or flush operation before reporting the completion up to the application. This ensures that the data is visible to CPU and GPU software prior to the application processing the completion. In addition to the cost of provider software intercepting completions and checking if a transfer targeted heterogenous memory, device synchronization itself may impact performance. As a result, applications can request a lower completion semantic when posting receives. That indicates to the provider that the application will be responsible for handling any device specific flush operations that might be needed. See fi_msg(3) FLAGS. For data transfers that do not generate a completion at the target, such as RMA or atomics, it is the responsibility of the application to ensure that all target buffers meet the necessary visibility requirements of the appli- cation. The previously mentioned bulleted methods for notifying the target that the data is visible may not be sufficient, as the provider software at the target could lack the context needed to ensure visibility. This im- plies that the application may need to call device synchronization/flush APIs directly. For example, a peer application could perform several RMA writes that tar- get GPU memory buffers. If the provider offloads RMA operations into the NIC, the provider software at the target will be unaware that the RMA oper- ations have occurred. If the peer sends a message to the target applica- tion that indicates that the RMA operations are done, the application must ensure that the RMA data is visible to the host CPU or GPU prior to execut- ing code that accesses the data. The target completion of having received the sent message is not sufficient, even if send-after-write ordering is supported. Most target heterogenous memory completion semantics map to FI_TRANS- MIT_COMPLETE or FI_DELIVERY_COMPLETE. Persistent memory (FI_PMEM capabil- ity), however, is often used with FI_COMMIT_COMPLETE semantics. Heteroge- nous completion concepts still apply. For transfers flagged by the initiator with FI_COMMIT_COMPLETE, a comple- tion at the target indicates that the results are visible and durable. For transfers targeting persistent memory, but using a different completion se- mantic at the initiator, the visibility at the target is similar to that described above. Durability is only associated with transfers marked with FI_COMMIT_COMPLETE. For transfers targeting persistent memory that request FI_DELIVERY_COM- PLETE, then a completion, at either the initiator or target, indicates that the data is visible. Visibility at the target can be conveyed using one of the above describe mechanism - generating a target completion, sending a message from the initiator, etc. Similarly, if the initiator requested FI_TRANSMIT_COMPLETE, then additional steps are needed to ensure visibility at the target. For example, the transfer can generate a completion at the target, which would indicate visibility, but not durability. The initiator can also follow the transfer with another operation that forces visibility, such as using FI_FENCE in conjunction with FI_DELIVERY_COMPLETE. NOTES A completion queue must be bound to at least one enabled endpoint before any operation such as fi_cq_read, fi_cq_readfrom, fi_cq_sread, fi_cq_sread- from etc. can be called on it. Completion flags may be suppressed if the FI_NOTIFY_FLAGS_ONLY mode bit has been set. When enabled, only the following flags are guaranteed to be set in completion data when they are valid: FI_REMOTE_READ and FI_REMOTE_WRITE (when FI_RMA_EVENT capability bit has been set), FI_REMOTE_CQ_DATA, and FI_MULTI_RECV. If a completion queue has been overrun, it will be placed into an `overrun' state. Read operations will continue to return any valid, non-corrupted completions, if available. After all valid completions have been re- trieved, any attempt to read the CQ will result in it returning an FI_EOVERRUN error event. Overrun completion queues are considered fatal and may not be used to report additional completions once the overrun oc- curs. RETURN VALUES fi_cq_open / fi_cq_signal Returns 0 on success. On error, a negative value corresponding to fabric errno is returned. fi_cq_read / fi_cq_readfrom / fi_cq_readerr fi_cq_sread / fi_cq_sreadfrom : On success, returns the number of completion events retrieved from the com- pletion queue. On error, a negative value corresponding to fabric errno is returned. If no completions are available to return from the CQ, -FI_EA- GAIN will be returned. fi_cq_sread / fi_cq_sreadfrom On success, returns the number of completion events retrieved from the completion queue. On error, a negative value corresponding to fabric errno is returned. If the timeout expires or the calling thread is signaled and no data is available to be read from the com- pletion queue, -FI_EAGAIN is returned. fi_cq_strerror Returns a character string interpretation of the provider specific error returned with a completion. Fabric errno values are defined in rdma/fi_errno.h. SEE ALSO fi_getinfo(3), fi_endpoint(3), fi_domain(3), fi_eq(3), fi_cntr(3), fi_poll(3) AUTHORS OpenFabrics. Libfabric Programmer's Manual 2022-01-28 fi_cq(3)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | ARGUMENTS | DESCRIPTION | COMPLETION FIELDS | COMPLETION FLAGS | COMPLETION EVENT SEMANTICS | TARGET COMPLETION SEMANTICS | NOTES | RETURN VALUES | SEE ALSO | AUTHORS
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