This patch adds the ability for an application to request dist-gem5 to begin/
end synchronization using an m5 op. When toggling on sync, all nodes agree
on the next sync point based on the maximum of all nodes' ticks. CPUs are
suspended until the sync point to avoid sending network messages until sync has
been enabled. Toggling off sync acts like a global execution barrier, where
all CPUs are disabled until every node reaches the toggle off point. This
avoids tricky situations such as one node hitting a toggle off followed by a
toggle on before the other nodes hit the first toggle off.
In order to support m5ops in virtualized environments, we need to use
a memory mapped interface. This changeset adds support for that by
reserving 0xFFFF0000-0xFFFFFFFF and mapping those to the generic IPR
interface for m5ops. The mapping is done in the
X86ISA::TLB::finalizePhysical() which means that it just works for all
of the CPU models, including virtualized ones.
Changeset 02321b16685f added m5_writefile to m5op_x86.S a second time,
which causes a compilation error on when compiling for x86. This
changeset reverts that changeset and fixes the error.
Used as a command in full-system scripts helps the user ensure the benchmarks have finished successfully.
For example, one can use:
/path/to/benchmark args || /sbin/m5 fail 1
and thus ensure gem5 will exit with an error if the benchmark fails.