Chapter 16. Debugging Parallel Programs

If you are using a cluster, you are probably dealing with large, relatively complicated problems. As problem complexity grows, the likelihood of errors grows as well. In these circumstances, debugging becomes an increasingly important skill. It is a simple fact of life-if you write code, you are going to have to debug it.

In this chapter, we'll begin by looking at why debugging parallel programs can be challenging. Next, we'll review debugging in general. Finally, we'll look at how the traditional serial debugging approaches can be extended to parallel problems. Parallel debugging is an active research area, so there is a lot to learn. We'll stick to the basics here.