Hybrid-Memory-Simulator : MARSSX86 && NVMain && DRAMSim2 && HybridSim

Copyright 2015 Huazhong University of Science and Technology (cyjseagull @ 163.com)

Hybrid-Memory-Simulator is a simulation tool for x86-64 based computing system with hybrid memory system consisting of both non-volatile memory(such as SSD , PCM ) and dynamic random access memory.

It is based on four independent open-source project: MARSSx86(http://www.marss86.org/~marss86/index.php/Home), NVMain(http://wiki.nvmain.org/) , DRAMsim2(https://github.com/jimstevens2001/DRAMSim2), NVDIMMSim(nvm simulator,but not very accurate , https://github.com/jimstevens2001/NVDIMMSim), HybridSim(https://github.com/jimstevens2001/HybridSim).Thanks for the hard working of people who had developed these simulators and made them open-source.

System Requirements

To compile Marss on your system, you will need following:

• 2.5GHz CPU with minimum 2GB RAM (4GB Preferred)
• Standard C++ compiler, like g++ or icc
• SCons tool for compiling Marss (Minimum version 1.2.0)
• SDL Development Libraries (Required for QEMU)

Patches

These patches are provided for original marss which does not support for NVMAIN, DRAMSim2 and HybridSim.

• patch-config : modify config files to example config files of hybrid-memory-simulator ;
• patch-hybrid-simulator : modify files of original MARSSX86 , makes it support for NVMAIN, DRAMSim2 and HybridSim
• attention: before patch with file patch-config , you must backup your config files in the config directory first

commands:

patches -p1 < path of file patch-config
patches -p1 < path of file patch-hybrid-system

Compiling

If you do not have SCons install, install it using your stanard application installation program like apt-get or yum.

Once you have SCons install go to the code hybrid-memory-simulator and give following command:

$scons -Q config=machine configuration path  [mem=NVMAIN/DRAMSIM/HYBRIDSIM] [mem_dir=path of memory simulator] [debug=0/1/2] [c=num of cores]

• config: required , path of machine config file
• mem : optional , default is NVMAIN ( plug NVMain as memory system simulator)
• mem_dir : optional , default is hybrid-memory-simulator/nvmain ( if mem_dir is default , make sure nvmain simulator exists in hybrid-memory-simulator directory)
• debug : optional , default is 0 (no debugging)
• c: optional , default is 1, single-core configuration
• attention :
  • NVMAIN as mem , default mem_dir is hybrid-memory-simulator/nvmain
  • DRAMSIM as mem , default mem_dir is hybrid-memory-simulator/DRAMSim2
  • HYBRIDSIM as mem , default mem_dir is hybrid-memory-simulator/HybridSim
  • before compile hybrid-memory-system , you must make sure libdramsim.so in DRAMSim2 directory and libhybridsim.so in HybridSim directory

e.g.:

$ scons -Q mem=NVMAIN config=config/new-machine/moesi.conf c=2

To clean your compilation:

$ command of build a machine -c ( eg. scons -Q mem=NVMAIN config=config/new-machine/moesi.conf c=2 -c)
$ rm -rf build/

Running

After successfull compilation, to run hybrid-memory-simulator , go to hybrid-memory-simulator directory , then give the following command:

$ qemu/qemu-system-x86_64 -m [memory_size] -hda [path-to-qemu-disk-image] -simconfig [simconfig file path] [-nographic]

• -m: optional , memory size , unit is M or G or K
• -hda : required , path of qemu disk image
• -simconfig: optional , path of simconfig file , simconfig file is used to config simulation , such as logfile,nvmain_config_path , loglevel , configuration related to dramsim2 , etc. You can know it deeply through MARSSX86 webpage(http://www.marss86.org/~marss86/index.php/Home). You can also switch to simulation mode , and set simconfig according to following step.
• -nographic: when connect remote server with shell , and run qemu through shell , should add this option to disable graphic requirement.

You can use all the regular QEMU command here, like start VM window in VNC give vnc :10 etc. Once the system is booted, you can switch to Monitor mode using Ctrl-Alt-2 key and give following command to switch to simulation mode:

(qemu) simconfig -run -stopinsns 100m -stats [stats-file-name]

To get the list of available simulation options give following command:

(qemu) simconfig

It will print all the simulation options on STDOUT.

Happy Hacking.