[gmx-developers] On integrating 'progrep' - a command-line utility to show live status, ETA etc. - with GROMACS

[Erik Lindahl]

Hi Somajit,

Sounds like a useful tool - we've thought about adding something like this
ourselves too.

However, unfortunately, if it's GPLv3, it means people cannot redistribute
binaries under the (much more permissive) GROMACS LGPLv2 license used by
GROMACS, so while I won't rule out adding optional support, we can't enable
it by default.

Cheers,

Erik



On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 4:01 PM sdphys_rs Calcutta University <
sdphys_rs at caluniv.ac.in> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I have recently released a command-line utility, called 'progrep'
> (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4294762), which is intended to show % completed,
> wall-time remaining (ETA), wall-time elapsed, number of threads, CPU
> usage and speed (Frames Per Second) for any molecular dynamics (MD)
> simulation. 'progrep' works in client+server model. The server can be
> installed in the simulation source code (such as md.cpp in
> src/gromacs/mdrun/) with only 4 extra lines, viz.
>
> # include <cprogrep.h>   // The progrep header for C++ code
>
> progrep_installer();   //Installs SIGWINCH handler
>
> progrep_tot=<total number of MD steps>;   //Before entering the main loop
>
> progrep_curr=<current MD step>;   //Inside the main loop
>
> When the 'progrep' command is invoked through terminal, it queries this
> server by sending a SIGWINCH signal at 1s intervals. The server
> handles this signal by writing the current simulation state (just 16
> bytes) atomically to a binary pipe, which the user-invoked client then
> reads, processes and displays. 'progrep' does not interfere with or
> slow down the simulation when not invoked. Even when invoked, the
> overhead is insignificant (only 16 bytes stream output every second).
>
> The purpose of this mail is to inquire if integration of the
> progrep-server or driver in the official version of GROMACS would be
> useful in your opinion. If GROMACS ships with 'progrep', the end-user
> would be able to track the above-mentioned aspects of live GROMACS
> simulations easily in real-time, any time, without waiting for /
> depending on the md.log updates that only happen once in a while. In
> addition, with the command: progrep list, the user would be able to
> list all active GROMACS simulations with their respective process id,
> start time and login/user name - an empty list indicating all GROMACS
> jobs are complete/terminated.
>
> 'progrep' can be availed under GPL-v3-or-later from DOI:
> 10.5281/zenodo.4294762 or https://sourceforge.net/projects/progrep/ .
> Sample codes are provided therein to demonstrate how it all works.
>
> Regards,
> --
> Somajit Dey
> Department of Physics, University of Calcutta
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-- 
Erik Lindahl <erik.lindahl at dbb.su.se>
Professor of Biophysics, Dept. Biochemistry & Biophysics, Stockholm
University
Science for Life Laboratory, Box 1031, 17121 Solna, Sweden
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