Mode d’emploi
- Copiez la commande et examinez le paquet avant de l’installer dans votre environnement agent.
- Consultez le document original pour les outils, identifiants et environnements requis.
- Décrivez les entrées et le livrable souhaité ; comparez la sortie aux sources.
npx skills add https://github.com/mohitmishra786/low-level-dev-skills --skill numa-programmingAvant de commencer
- L’installation n’inclut ni abonnement au modèle, ni quota API, ni accès aux fichiers.
- Étoiles et installations reflètent l’activité, pas un test indépendant de qualité ou de sécurité.
Rendu depuis le dépôt source en conservant titres, exemples, code, tableaux, liens et images.
NUMA Programming
Purpose
Guide agents through NUMA-aware programming: topology detection with numactl and sysfs, libnuma API (numa_alloc_onnode, mbind, set_mempolicy), process binding with numactl, NUMA-aware data structures, remote access diagnosis with perf stat, and lstopo visualization.
When to Use
- Multi-socket server shows poor scaling despite low CPU utilization
- Memory bandwidth saturation on one NUMA node
- Binding database or cache process to local memory
- Designing per-node freelists or sharded allocators
- Measuring remote vs local memory access latency
- Tuning HPC, DPDK, or custom allocator for socket locality
Workflow
1. Topology detection
# Hardware topology summary
numactl --hardware
# Detailed topology with distances
lstopo --of console
# sysfs nodes
ls /sys/devices/system/node/
cat /sys/devices/system/node/node0/meminfo
cat /sys/devices/system/node/node0/cpulistTypical output:
available: 2 nodes (0-1)
node 0 cpus: 0-15
node 0 size: 65536 MB
node 1 cpus: 16-31
node 1 size: 65536 MB
node distances:
node 0 1
0: 10 21
1: 21 10Distance 10 = local, higher = remote (cross-socket).
2. Process binding with numactl
# Bind to node 0 CPUs and memory
numactl --cpunodebind=0 --membind=0 ./myapp
# Interleave memory across all nodes
numactl --interleave=all ./myapp
# Preferred node (fallback if full)
numactl --preferred=0 ./myapp
# Show process NUMA policy
numactl --show
cat /proc/self/numa_maps3. libnuma API
#include <numa.h>
#include <numaif.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
if (numa_available() < 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "NUMA not available\n");
return 1;
}
int node = numa_node_of_cpu(0);
printf("CPU 0 on node %d\n", node);
// Allocate on specific node
size_t size = 1024 * 1024 * 1024;
void *mem = numa_alloc_onnode(size, 0);
if (!mem) return 1;
// Bind existing memory
unsigned long nodemask = 1UL << 0;
mbind(mem, size, MPOL_BIND, &nodemask, sizeof(nodemask) * 8, 0);
numa_free(mem, size);
return 0;
}gcc -o numa_test numa_test.c -lnuma| API | Purpose |
|---|---|
numa_alloc_onnode | Allocate on specific node |
numa_alloc_local | Allocate on current CPU's node |
mbind | Set policy on existing mapping |
set_mempolicy | Default policy for subsequent allocs |
move_pages | Migrate pages to target node |
4. NUMA-aware data structures
// Per-node freelist — avoids cross-node synchronization
#define MAX_NODES 8
struct per_node_pool {
void *free_list[MAX_NODES];
int node_count;
};
void *pool_alloc_numa(struct per_node_pool *p) {
int node = numa_node_of_cpu(sched_getcpu());
void *blk = p->free_list[node];
if (blk) {
p->free_list[node] = *(void **)blk;
return blk;
}
return numa_alloc_onnode(BLOCK_SIZE, node);
}Pin threads to cores on the same node as their pool.
5. Thread affinity alignment
# Pin thread 0 to CPU 0 (node 0), allocate on node 0
numactl --cpunodebind=0 --membind=0 ./worker --id 0
numactl --cpunodebind=1 --membind=1 ./worker --id 1#include <pthread.h>
#include <sched.h>
cpu_set_t cpuset;
CPU_ZERO(&cpuset);
CPU_SET(target_cpu, &cpuset);
pthread_setaffinity_np(pthread_self(), sizeof(cpuset), &cpuset);6. Remote access diagnosis
# Cache misses often spike with remote memory
perf stat -e cache-misses,cache-references,node-load-misses \
numactl --cpunodebind=0 --membind=1 ./myapp
# Compare local vs remote binding
perf stat numactl --cpunodebind=0 --membind=0 ./myapp
perf stat numactl --cpunodebind=0 --membind=1 ./myapp# NUMA hit/miss stats (if available)
perf stat -e node-loads,node-load-misses,node-stores ./myapp7. Measuring remote penalty
// Microbenchmark: touch 1GB on local vs remote node
clock_t start = clock();
for (size_t i = 0; i < size; i += 4096)
sum += ((char *)mem)[i];Expect 1.5–3x slowdown for remote access depending on interconnect (QPI/UPI/Infinity Fabric).
8. lstopo visualization
# Graphical (if X11)
lstopo
# Text with memory/PCI
lstopo --of ascii
# Export for documentation
lstopo file.pngShows: NUMA nodes, cores, caches, PCI devices — essential for DPDK NIC placement.
9. Decision tree
Poor scaling on multi-socket?
├── Check numactl --hardware
├── Verify thread and memory on same node
├── perf stat node-load-misses
├── Remote misses high?
│ ├── numactl --membind=local
│ └── Per-node data partitioning
└── Still slow → memory bandwidth bound; reduce sharingCommon Problems
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| OOM on one node despite free RAM elsewhere | MPOL_BIND too strict | Use --preferred or interleave |
| 2x slower after scaling threads | Remote memory access | numactl --membind matching CPU node |
| Inconsistent benchmark results | OS migrated pages | mbind MPOL_BIND; mlock if needed |
| DPDK NIC on wrong socket | PCI far from CPU | lstopo; bind EAL to local socket |
| libnuma not found | Package not installed | apt install libnuma-dev |
| First-touch policy surprise | Alloc on node 0, run on node 1 | Allocate from bound thread |
Related Skills
skills/allocators/custom-allocators— per-node pool allocatorsskills/async-io/dpdk—rte_malloc_socket, NIC NUMA localityskills/hpc/mpi— MPI process binding per NUMA nodeskills/profilers/hardware-counters— cache miss measurementskills/profilers/linux-perf— perf NUMA eventsskills/low-level-programming/cpu-cache-opt— cache locality fundamentals



