1
© International Business Machines Corporation. All rights rerved.IBM Full-System Simulator: Overview and Installation
Updated: March 2006
The IBM Full-System Simulator, internally referred to as “Mambo,” has been developed and refined by the
IBM Austin Rearch Lab (ARL) in conjunction with veral large system design projects built upon the
IBM Power architecture. As an execution-driven, full-system simulator, the IBM Full-System Simulator has
facilitated the experimentation and evaluation of a wide variety of system components for core IBM
initiatives. The IBM Full-System Simulator for PowerPC 970, available from the IBM alphaWorks
Emerging Technologies web site, enables development teams both within IBM and externally to
simulate a PowerPC 970 system in order to develop and enhance application support for this platform.
This document introduces the IBM Full-System Simulator for PowerPC 970 installation environment,
summarizes hardware and software prerequisites, describes procedures to install and run a default
thesimulator, and provides troubleshooting information to isolate and fix a potential installation problems.
Simulation Interfaces and Tools
The IBM Full-System Simulator is a complete simulation infrastructure that enables systems and software developers to run a variety of data collection and analysis tools to gather multiple types of system metrics at varying levels of granularity. Urs also can launch a number of visualization tools to interactively monitor system behavior and diagno potential performance bottlenecks. Figure 1 provides an overview of the IBM Full-System Simulator’s application tools and interfaces:
Figure 1. IBM Full-System Simulation Interfaces and Tools
2
IBM Full-System Simulator: Overview and Installation © IBM Corporation. All rights rerved.The IBM Full-System Simulator's functional fidelity and runtime performance allow a full operating system, such as Linux, to be run interactively in simulation—in this manner, the simulator provides applications that require inter-process or complex operating system interactions with a complete environment. In addition to this full operating system mode,the IBM Full-System Simulator provides a “standalone” environment for lf-contained applications, in which the simulator intercepts and marshals the application’s system calls to the underlying host to optimize execution. Preplanning the Simulation Environment
The IBM Full-System Simulator installation ts up the hardware and software infrastructure, development tools, and system rvices required to start running and using the simulator. The topics in this ction describe important installation information to consider before installing your simulation system.
Installation Topology
The IBM Full-System Simulator installation package contains the ba installation files and object code for the simulator. The installation also
provides scripts and makefiles to build and configure supporting
infrastructure components, such as the PowerPC toolchain, 64-bit PowerPC
L inux kernel, and 64-bit PowerPC rootdisk. For example, a provided
makefile downloads the necessary build tools, binary utilities, and source for GCC, GL IBC, and Unix utilities, and includes steps to build and configure a 64-bit PowerPC Linux kernel and rootdisk. Figure 2 illustrates
the standard execution topology for the simulator
Once built, the rootdisk image provides a snapshot of a functioning Linux system that is available inside the IBM Full-System Simulator, including all libraries and debuggers that are required to run an actual Linux system—all of which enables the simulator to provide the appropriate run-time support to run applications as they are executed in an actual Linux environment. The IBM Full-System Simulator is designed to optimize the execution of the Linux kernel by reading contents of the rootdisk image as the simulator travers the root filesystem.Installation Requirements
Before installing any simulator components, verify that your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements.
The IBM Full-System Simulator is supported on machines with a minimum of 3 GB of available hard disk space to
install the core simulator files and rootdisk image. The simulator must be created and installed on a non-networked directory.
The minimum amount of RAM must equal twice the amount of simulated memory—for example, if the simulator is simulating a system with 256 MB of RAM, the host system must have at least 512 MB of RAM.
The simulator is supported on RedHat Linux v8.0, RedHat Linux v9.0, RedHat Enterpri Linux v3, Fedora Core 2,Fedora Core 3, and Fedora Core 4.
Root privileges are required to build the rootdisk image ; ensure that you are authorized with the correct privileges before building the rootdisk.Processor IBM Full-System Simulator Kernel Figure 2. Multiprocessor System Simulation Processor Rootdisk . . .
3
Creating and Installing the IBM Full-System Simulator Environment Obtaining Installation Media for Your System
Installation media for the IBM Full-System Simulator for PowerPC 970 is available from the IBM alphaWorks Emerging Technologies web site for the following Linux platforms:
Creating and Installing the IBM Full-System Simulator Environment
To run the simulator, complete the following ries of procedures to build a PowerPC toolchain, a 64-bit PowerPC Linux kernel, and a 64-bit PowerPC rootdisk. Once built, the IBM Full-System Simulator provides a complete simulation environment that includes all available data collection and visualizati
on tools, Tcl commands, and call-thru interfaces.“Troubleshooting Your Installation” on page 7 describes information about installation issues that you may encounter. DOWNLOAD AND EXTRACT SIMULATOR BINARY FILES
1.Download the IBM_SystemSim_alphaworks_sdk_x _y _.tar.bz2 package from the IBM alphaWorks
Emerging Technologies web site, as outlined in the previous “Obtaining Installation Media for Your System”ction. To determine the version of Linux that is installed on your system, type the following rpm command at the command line:
rpm -qa | grep relea
2.Extract files from the package; the following sample tar command extracts the ba installation files:
tar xjf {installation_directory }/IBM_SystemSim_alphaworks_sdk_x .tar.bz2
where {installation_directory } is the directory that contains the installation tar file, and x is the current version of the binary. The tar command extracts files in the package into the ibmsim directory.
Table 1-1. Installation Matrix for Host Systems a.Package names follow the naming convention: IBM_SystemSim_alphaworks_sdk_x _y _z _.tar.bz2, where x specifies the host platform, y specifies the host L inux version, and z is the most current version of the binary that is available from the IBM alphaWorks Emerging Technologies web site.
爱丽丝梦游仙境真人版SystemSim_x86_rh8_2.0.tar.bz2Supported on RedHat Linux v8.0 and RedHat Linux v9.0b running on
an x86 machine.b.Installing IBM_SystemSim_alphaworks_sdk_x86_rh8_y _.tar.bz2 on RedHat Linux v9.0 may require you to create symbolic links to point the Linux libraries to the files in the simulator. The “Troubleshooting Your Installation” on page 7 describes steps to resolve this issue.
7.9 MB
callSystemSim_x86_rhel3_2.0.tar.bz2Supported on RedHat Enterpri Linux v3, Fedora Core 2, and Fedora Core 3 running on an x86 machine.7.7 MB
SystemSim_x86_fc4_2.0.tar.bz2Supported on Fedora Core 4 running on an x86 machine.7.7 MB
SystemSim_ppc_sles9_2.0.tar.bz2Supported on SUSE LINUX Enterpri Server 9 running on a Pow
erPC machine.7.7 MB
SystemSim_ppc_fc4_2.0.tar.bz2Supported on Fedora Core 4 running on a PowerPC machine.
7.8 MB
CREATE A POWERPC TOOLCHAIN
1.Build the PowerPC toolchain via the makefile provided in the ibmsim/toolchain directory. This step requires an
Internet connection in order to access the required tools, libraries, and files from third-party web sites.
rowaThe toolchain build operation is a fairly lengthy process—it may be uful to concurrently develop
the PowerPC rootdisk image. See the “Create a PowerPC Root Environment” procedure for
instructions on building a rootdisk.
Change to the toolchain directory:
cd ibmsim/toolchain
2.U the make command to compile the toolchain:
make toolchain_all
CREATE A POWERPC LINUX KERNEL
1.Once the toolchain is constructed, build a 64-bit PowerPC Linux kernel with the makefile provided in the
ibmsim/toolchain directory. Change to the toolchain directory:
cd ibmsim/toolchain
2.U the make command to compile the kernel:
make kernel_all
CREATE A POWERPC ROOT ENVIRONMENT
Complete the following procedures to build a 64-bit PowerPC rootdisk:
Root privileges are required to build the rootdisk image; ensure that you are
authorized with the correct privileges before completing the steps in this ction.
No system files are modified while running the build process as root. IBM
recommends viewing the build_rootdisk target in the Makefile to learn about the
quence of steps in this automated process.
ARL has chon Gentoo Linux for the simulator root environment. Other operating systems may work
as well, with the provision that the contents of the inittab file may differ.
1.Build a 64-bit PowerPC root environment with the makefile provided in the ibmsim/toolchain directory. Change
to the toolchain directory:
cd ibmsim/toolchain
drifter
2.U the make command to compile the kernel:
make build_rootdisk
Running the IBM Full-System Simulator
The installation process described in “Creating and Installing the IBM Full-System Simulator Environment” installs and configures a local instance of the simulator, which contains a default .l file that can be ud to configure
4IBM Full-System Simulator: Overview and Installation© IBM Corporation. All rights rerved.
pedigree
machine definitions and environment ttings that are loaded when the simulator starts. At startup, the simulator loads instructions in .l to t up default simulation behavior. Alternatively, a custom Tcl file may be created from the default .l file to start up and configure a simulation environment with system-specific ttings.
To view and modify simulation ttings in your simulation environment, open the .l file in a text editor, for example such as emacs:
emacs ibmsim/simulators/systemsim-gpul-relea/run/gpul/linux/.l
Once the simulation environment is installed and configured, either the IBM Full-System Simulator graphical ur interface or the command line can be ud to configure components of the microprocessor model, generate performance metrics with new or revid configurations, and run workloads on the modeled architecture. The command line interface also can be ud to perform a number of operations on the simulator itlf, such as adding commands to control a simulation, or starting data collection and visualization tools. The following procedures describe how to start a simulation from the command line and graphical ur interfaces.26个字母图片
TO START A SIMULATION FROM THE COMMAND LINE INTERFACE
1.The IBM Full-System Simulator is launched from the ibmsim/simulators/systemsim-gpul-relea/run/
gpul/linux directory. Change to the linux directory and start the simulator command line interface:
logicalcd ibmsim/simulators/systemsim-gpul-relea/run/gpul/linux
../run_cmdline
The default run_cmdline behavior is to read Tcl commands defined in .l. The following c
ommand line options are available to modify the simulator startup:
-f {file}Overrides the .l file to start the simulator with the specified Tcl file.
-g Starts the graphical ur interface. ARL also provides the ../run_gui command to start the graphical ur interface. See page6 for a procedure to launch the simulator graphical ur interface.incen
-n Does not open an XTerm for the console.
-q Runs the simulator in quiet mode. Quiet mode suppress the printing of the IBM legal notice on startup and the periodic printing of the number of instructions being executed. Quiet mode is
typically ud for running regression tests, in which the varying speed or load of the host processor is
expected to change simulator output in uncontrollable ways.
Running the IBM Full-System Simulator
furious
5
