# Tips and tricks¶

## Making models fit on Loihi¶

### Splitting large Ensembles¶

By default, NengoLoihi will split Ensemble objects that are too large to fit on a single Loihi core into smaller pieces to distribute across multiple cores. For some networks (e.g. most densely-connected networks), this can happen by itself without any guidance from the user.

For networks that use nengo.Convolution transforms, such as image processing networks, some assistance is usually required to tell NengoLoihi how to split an ensemble. This is because grouping the neurons sequentially is rarely ideal for such networks. For example, if an Ensemble is representing a 32 x 32 x 4 image (that is 32 rows, 32 columns, and 4 channels), we might want to split that ensemble into four 32 x 32 x 1 groups, or four 16 x 16 x 4 groups. In the first case, each Loihi core will contain information from all spatial locations in the image, but each will only contain one of the channels. In the second case, each Loihi core will represent a different spacial quadrant of the image (i.e., top-left, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-right), but each will contain all channels for its respective location. In neither case, though, will all cores contain solely consecutive pixels, assuming our pixel array is ordered by rows, then columns, then channels. Since the default behaviour of the system is to split into consecutive groups, we need to override that behaviour.

To do this, we use the BlockShape class with the block_shape configuration option:

import numpy as np

image_shape = (32, 32, 4)

with nengo.Network() as net:

# first case: splitting across channels
ens1 = nengo.Ensemble(np.prod(image_shape), 1)
net.config[ens1].block_shape = nengo_loihi.BlockShape((32, 32, 1), image_shape)

# second case: splitting spatially
ens2 = nengo.Ensemble(np.prod(image_shape), 1)
net.config[ens2].block_shape = nengo_loihi.BlockShape((16, 16, 4), image_shape)


We are not limited to splitting only along the spatial or channel axes. For example, with a 32 x 32 x 4 image we could choose a block shape of 16 x 16 x 2, which would result in 8 cores tiling the image both in the spatial and channel dimensions. We could also use shapes that are uneven in the spatial dimensions, for example 16 x 32 x 2.

Furthermore, the block shape does not have to fit evenly into the image shape in all (or even any) of the dimensions. For example, with a 4 x 4 image, we could choose a block shape of 3 x 3; this would result in 4 blocks: a 3 x 3 block for the top-left of the image, a 3 x 1 block for the top-right, a 1 x 3 block for the bottom-left, and a 1 x 1 block for the bottom-right. In this case, it would be better to use a 2 x 2 block shape, which also results in 4 blocks, but uses resources more equally across all cores. (This assumes that resource constraints are preventing us from using e.g. a 2 x 4 or 4 x 4 block shape that would simply use fewer cores.)

The constraints on BlockShape are that each block has to fit on one Loihi core. The most basic resource limitation is that the number of neurons (the product of the shape), must be less than or equal to 1024 (the maximum number of neurons per core). Our two original block shapes of 32 x 32 x 1 and 16 x 16 x 4 both equal exactly 1024 neurons per core. However, there are other limiting resources on Loihi cores, such as the numbers of input and output axons, and the amount of synapse memory. We therefore may not always be able to use block shapes that fully utilize the number of compartments, if other resources are in short supply.

### Measuring utilization of chip resources¶

The Model.utilization_summary command can be used to get more information on the resources used by each block (i.e. Loihi core). This can help you to judge whether cores are being optimally utilized. When using this command, it is best to give all your ensembles unique labels (like nengo.Ensemble(..., label="my_ensemble")); these names will show up in the summary, allowing you to identify problematic blocks.

### Reducing axons by changing pop_type¶

The pop_type configuration option can be used to set the type of population axons used on convolutional connections. Setting this to 16 instead of 32 (the default) reduces the number of axons required by the model, but also adds some restrictions on how convolutional connections are set up. See add_params for more details.

### Reducing synapses and axons by changing block shape¶

In networks with convolutional connections, an inefficient parameterization can cause some connection weights to be copied up to four times (to work around limitations when mapping these connections onto Loihi). If you are running out of synapse memory or axons on convolutional connections, use the following guidelines to see whether restructuring could help.

First, it is important to understand the difference between the spatial dimensions of a shape and the channel dimension. The channel dimension will be the first dimension of the shape if channels_last=False or the last dimension if channels_last=True. All other dimensions of the shape will be part of the spatial shape. For example, if channels_last=True and we have the shape 32 x 32 x 4, the spatial shape is 32 x 32, and the spatial size is 32 * 32 = 1024.

When choosing our block shape, we can trade off between spatial size and channel size. For example, if our image shape is 32 x 32 x 8, an Ensemble representing this will need at least 8 cores (since 32 * 32 * 8 / 1024 == 8). Two potential block shapes to achieve these 8 cores are 32 x 32 x 1, which has a spatial size of 1024, and 16 x 16 x 4, which has a spatial size of 256. If we wish to reduce the spatial size of our block shape, decreasing the spatial size per block while simultaneously increasing the number of channels per block will often let us keep the same number of neurons per core, but decrease other resources such as synapse memory or axon usage.

If the problem is output axon usage, try to increase the channel size of the blocks on any Ensemble targeted by connections from the problematic Ensemble. Axons can be reused across channels, so the more channels per core, the fewer output axons are required to send the information to all target cores.

If the problem is input axon usage, try to reduce the spatial size of the problematic Ensemble. Again, since axons are reused across channels, changing the channel size will have no effect (potentially, it can even be increased to compensate for the drop in spatial size, and keep the same number of compartments per core).

If the problem is synapse memory usage, then the problem is caused by incoming Connections to the problematic Ensemble. The solution depends on the value of channels_last on the Convolution transform, and the value of pop_type on the Connection (if you have not set pop_type, 32 is the default value). The following can be applied to any or all of the incoming Connections:

• If the connection is using channels_last=False and pop_type=32, extra weights are created if the spatial size is greater than 256 (the factor by which the size of the weights is multiplied is approximately the spatial size divided by 256). Decrease the spatial size.

• If the connection is using channels_last=False and pop_type=16, extra weights are always created. Consider using channels_last=True, or not using pop_type=16 if you are using less than 50% of the available axons.

• If the connection is using channels_last=True and pop_type=32, extra weights are created if there are more than 256 neurons per core. Consider using channels_last=False.

• If the connection is using channels_last=True and pop_type=16, extra weights are created if the number of channels per block is not a multiple of 4, and if there are more than 256 neurons per core. Consider making the channels per block a multiple of 4.

In all cases, decreasing the number of channels per block will decrease the amount of synapse memory used, since there is one set of weights per channel.

## Local machine¶

### SSH hosts¶

Adding ssh hosts to your SSH configuration will make working with remote superhosts, hosts, and boards much quicker and easier. After setting them up, you will be able to connect to any machine through a single ssh <machine> command.

To begin, make a ~/.ssh/config file.

touch ~/.ssh/config


Then open that file in a text editor and add a Host entry for each machine that you want to interact with remotely.

Typically machines that you can connect to directly will have a configuration like this:

Host <short name>
HostName <host name or IP address>


For security, the port on which ssh connections are accepted is often changed. To specify a port, add the following to the Host entry.

Host <short name>
...
Port 1234


Finally, many machines (especially hosts and boards) are not accessible through the open internet and must instead be accessed through another machine, like a superhost. To access these with one command, add the following to the Host entry. <tunnel short name> refers to the <short name> of the Host entry through which you access the machine (e.g., the <host short name> entry uses the superhost’s short name for <tunnel short name>).

Host <short name>
...
ProxyCommand ssh <tunnel short name> -W %h:%p


Once host entries are defined, you can access those machine with:

ssh <short name>


You can also use the short name in rsync, scp, and other commands that use ssh under the hood.

For more details and options, see this tutorial.

We recommend that Loihi system administrators make specific host entries for their system available to all users.

### SSH keys¶

SSH keys allow you to log in to remote machines without providing your password. This is especially useful when accessing a board through a host and superhost, each of which require authentication.

You may already have created an SSH key for another purpose. By default, SSH keys are stored as

• ~/.ssh/id_rsa (private key)

• ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub (public key)

If these files exist when you do ls ~/.ssh, then you already have an SSH key.

If you do not have an SSH key, you can create one with

ssh-keygen


Follow the prompts, using the default values when unsure. We recommend setting a passphrase in case someone obtains your SSH key pair.

Once you have an SSH key pair, you will copy your public key to each machine you want to log into without a password.

ssh-copy-id <host short name>


<host short name> is the name you specified in your SSH config file for that host (e.g., ssh-copy-id loihi-host). You will be prompted for your password in order to copy the key. Once it is copied, try ssh <host short name> to confirm that you can log in without providing a password.

### Remote port tunneling¶

Tunneling a remote port to your local machine allows you to run the Jupyter notebook server or the NengoGUI server on the superhost or host, but access the web-based interface on your local machine.

To do this, we will create a new terminal window on the local machine that we will keep open while the tunnel is active. In this terminal, do

ssh -L <local port>:localhost:<remote port>


You will then enter an SSH session in which you can start the process that will communicate over <remote port>.

Example 1: Starting a NengoGUI server on port 8000 of superhost-1, which has a loihi conda environment.

# In a new terminal window on your local machine
ssh -L 8000:localhost:8000 superhost-1
# We are now on superhost-1
source activate loihi
cd ~/nengo-loihi/docs/examples
nengo --port 8000 --no-browser --auto-shutdown 0 --backend nengo_loihi


On your local machine, open http://localhost:8000/ and you should see the NengoGUI interface.

Example 2: Starting a Jupyter notebook server on port 8080 of superhost-2, which has a loihi virtualenv environment.

# In a new terminal window on your local machine
ssh -L 8080:localhost:8080 superhost-2
# We are now on superhost-2
workon loihi
cd ~/nengo-loihi/docs/examples
jupyter notebook --no-browser --port 8080


The jupyter command should print out a URL of the form http://localhost:8888/?token=<long-strong>, which you can open on your local machine.

### Syncing with rsync¶

If you work on your local machine and push changes to multiple remote superhosts, it is worth spending some time to set up a robust solution for syncing files between your local machine and the superhosts.

rsync is a good option because it is fast (it detects what has changed and only sends changes) and can be configured to ensure that the files on your local machine are the canonical files and are not overwritten by changes made on remotes. rsync also uses SSH under the hood, so the SSH hosts you set up previously can be used.

rsync is available from most package managers (e.g. apt, brew) and in many cases will already be installed on your system.

The basic command that is most useful is

rsync -rtuv --exclude=*.pyc /src/folder /dst/folder

• -r recurses into subdirectories

• -t copies and updates file modifications times

• -u replaces files with the most up-to-date version as determined by modification time

• -v adds more console output to see what has changed

• --exclude=*.pyc ensures that *.pyc files are not copied

When sending files to a remote host, you may also want to use the --delete option to delete files in the destination folder that have been removed from the source folder.

To simplify rsync usage, you can make small bash functions to make your workflow explicit.

For example, the following bash functions will sync the NxSDK and nengo-loihi folders between the local machine and the user’s home directory on host-1. In this example, the --delete flag is only used on pushing so that files are never deleted from the local machine. The --exclude=*.pyc flag is only used for nengo-loihi because *.pyc files are an important part of the NxSDK source tree. These and other options can be adapted based on your personal workflow.

LOIHI="/path/to/nengo-loihi/"
NXSDK="/path/to/NxSDK/"
push_host1() {
rsync -rtuv --exclude=*.pyc --delete "$LOIHI" "host-1:nengo-loihi" rsync -rtuv --delete "$NXSDK" "host-1:NxSDK"
}
pull_host1() {
rsync -rtuv --exclude=*.pyc "host-1:nengo-loihi/" "$LOIHI" rsync -rtuv "host-1:NxSDK" "$NXSDK"
}


These functions are placed in the ~/.bashrc file and executed at a terminal with

push_host1
pull_host1


### Remote editing with SSHFS¶

If you primarily work with a single remote superhost, SSHFS is a good option that allows you to mount a remote filesystem to your local machine, meaning that you manipulate files as you normally would on your local machine, but those files will actually exist on the remote machine. SSHFS ensures that change you make locally are efficiently sent to the remote.

SSHFS is available from most package managers, including apt and brew.

To mount a remote directory to your local machine, create a directory to mount to, then call sshfs to mount it.

mkdir -p <mount point>
sshfs -o allow_other,defer_permissions <host short name>:<remote directory> <mount point>


When you are done using the remote files, unmount the mount point.

fusermount -u <mount point>


Note

If fusermount is not available and you have sudo access, you can also unmount with

sudo umount <mount point>


As with rsync, since you may do these commands frequently, it can save time to make a short bash function. The following example functions mount and unmount the host-2 ~/loihi directory to the local machine’s ~/remote/host-2 directory.

mount_host2() {
mkdir -p ~/remote/host-2
sshfs host-2:loihi ~/remote/host-2
}
unmount_host2() {
fusermount -u ~/remote/host-2
}


## Superhost¶

### Plotting¶

If you are generating plots with Matplotlib on the superhost or host, you may run into issues due to there being no monitor attached to those machines (i.e., they are “headless”). Rather than plotting to a screen, you can instead save plots as files with plt.savefig. You will also need to configure Matplotlib to use a headless backend by default.

The easiest way to do this is with a matplotlibrc file.

mkdir -p ~/.config/matplotlib
echo "backend: Agg" >> ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc


### IPython / Jupyter¶

If you want to use the IPython interpreter or the Jupyter notebook on a superhost (e.g., the INRC superhost), you may run into issues due to the network file system (NFS), which does not work well with how IPython and Jupyter track command history. You can configure IPython and Jupyter to instead store command history to memory only.

To do this, start by generating the configuration files.

jupyter notebook --generate-config
ipython profile create


Then add a line to three files to configure the command history for NFS.

echo "c.NotebookNotary.db_file = ':memory:'" >> ~/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.py
echo "c.HistoryAccessor.hist_file = ':memory:'" >> ~/.ipython/profile_default/ipython_config.py
echo "c.HistoryAccessor.hist_file = ':memory:'" >> ~/.ipython/profile_default/ipython_kernel_config.py


### Slurm cheatsheet¶

Most Loihi superhosts use Slurm to schedule and distribute jobs to Loihi hosts. Below are the commands that Slurm makes available and what they do.

sinfo

Check the status (availability) of connected hosts.

squeue

Check the status of your jobs.

scancel <jobid>

scancel --user=<username>

sudo scontrol update nodename="<nodename>" state="idle"

Mark a Loihi host as “idle”, which places it in the pool of available hosts to be used. Use this when a Loihi host that was down comes back up.

Note

This should only be done by a system administrator.

### Use Slurm by default¶

Most superhosts use Slurm to run models on the host. Normally you can opt in to executing a command with

SLURM=1 my-command


However, you will usually want to use Slurm, so to switch to an opt-out setup, open your shell configuration file in a text editor (usually ~/.bashrc), and add the following line to the end of the file.

export SLURM=1


Once making this change you can opt out of using Slurm by executing a command with

SLURM=0 my-command


### Running large models¶

Normally you do not need to do anything other than setting the SLURM environment variable to run a model on Slurm. However, in some situation Slurm may kill your job due to long run times or other factors.

Custom Slurm partitions can be used to run your job with different sets of restrictions. Your system administrator will have to set up the partition. You can see a list of all partitions and nodes with sinfo.

To run a job with the loihiinf partition, set the environment variable PARTITION. For example, you can run bigmodel.py using this partition with

PARTITION=loihiinf python bigmodel.py


Similarly, if you wish to use a particular board (called a “node” in Slurm), set the BOARD environment variable. For example, to run model.py on the loihimh board, do

BOARD=loihimh python model.py