4. Opening reports
In order to view reports, the Graph Analyser requires one or more of the files listed in the Capturing Reports section.
You can open report files on your local machine, or from a remote server over SSH.
4.1. Opening recent reports
If you’ve used the application before, the Home screen displays a list of recently opened report directories in the Recent reports tab.
Click on a recent report to open it again. That report will automatically move to the top of the Recent reports list.
If you want to remove a report directory from the Recent reports list, click on the trash icon that appears to the left of a report when you hover the mouse over it.
If you attempt to open a report from the Recent reports list that has been moved or deleted since it was last opened, an error dialog appears indicating that the file can’t be found. You can either replace the file, in which case the corresponding link in the Recent reports panel will work again, or you can click on the Remove from recent files button in the error dialog to remove that file from the Recent reports list.
To copy a report directory’s location in the PopVision custom format, click the Copy icon to the right of the report’s entry. See Sharing reports below for details.
The Recent reports list can contain up to 64 previous file selections.
The News from Graphcore section on the right of the landing page shows recent news articles from Graphcore. Clicking on the links opens the articles in your default web browser. You can collapse the news section by clicking the small arrow next to it.
If you’ve previously opened two reports to compare them, they will be listed on the Recent comparisons tab, which allows you to open them again for comparison.
4.3. Opening the Demo Report
If you don’t have any generated reports, you can open and browse the demo report that’s included with the Graph Analyser. It’s a small report, but contains all of the features that are supported in the current application.
Click on the Open demo report link on the Home screen to open the demo report.
4.4. Comparing reports
You can open two similar reports at once to compare them by clicking on the Compare reports… link on the Home screen. This presents you with two file selection dialogs that work in exactly the same way as for opening a single report. The information from both reports is then combined on the report pages, allowing you to compare them.
When opening a pair of reports to compare, you can click on the magnet icon at the right-hand end of the directory textbox in either file selector. This copies the directory from the file selector on the other side.
4.5. Local reports
You can open report files stored on your local machine.
4.5.1. Opening local reports
To open a report stored locally on your machine:
On the Home screen of the Graph Analyser application, click on the Open a report… link in the Open panel. You’ll be presented with a file selection dialog, and the local tab at the top will be selected by default. You’ll see listings of the directories and files on your local machine.
Use this dialog to navigate to the folder in which your report files have been saved. You’ll notice that when the Graph Analyser identifies a directory in which any of the report files listed above are found, those files are listed on the right-hand side. Note that if no
profile.poporarchive.afiles are present, the Open button will be disabled.When typing a path into the text box at the top of the dialog, a drop-down list shows the directories within the current directory. You can use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to navigate this list, and choose the next path element by pressing Enter.
You can sort these files by name or modified date, in ascending or descending order, by clicking on the appropriate column header. Your sorting preference is saved.
Once you’ve selected the directory with the necessary report files within it, click on the Open button to load the report data.
The dialog remembers which location tab (local or remote) you selected previously, and selects it automatically the next time it is opened.
You can toggle the Open dialog between modal and full-screen view by clicking on the icon to the left of the window’s title.
The Summary Report is displayed first, and the progress bar along the top of the screen shows the files being pre-processed by the application prior to being loaded and displayed.
Notice that the bottom of the Summary Report shows the relevant files that have been found, and their loading state. More details on these files, and which reports need them, can be found in the Poplar report files section.
4.6. Remote reports
If you are using an IPU system on a remote server, for example on a cloud service, any reports generated will be saved to that server. In this case you can open them remotely by specifying the server address, and connecting to the machine over SSH. The report contents are them streamed back to the Graph Analyser application on your local machine, allowing you to view the reports.
When the Graph Analyser opens report files stored remotely, it uploads a small binary app, containing an analysis engine, to the remote machine. This analysis engine pre-processes the report data and sends it back over SSH to the Graph Analyser application running on your local machine. If you’re running other performance-critical processes on that remote machine, you should be aware of any effects this process may have on the capacity of the remote machine’s hardware to run any other tasks. As server performance varies a great deal, the only way to know how much processor speed the app takes is to try a small sample, and monitor the CPU usage.
If the upload of the analysis engine fails, an appropriate error message is displayed. This may be because, for example, you do not have the right permissions to upload to the remote machine, or there may be insufficient disk space.
4.6.1. Opening a remote report
To open a report stored on a remote machine from the Graph Analyser application running on your local machine:
On the Home screen of the Graph Analyser, click on the Open a report… link in the Open panel. This opens the file selection dialog, and the local tab at the top will be selected by default.
Click on the remote tab at the top, and you’ll see a login dialog that allows you to connect to a remote server. Enter your username, and the address of the remote machine. You can enter the port or use the default. Click on the Connect button to connect to the remote machine.
If you have configured your SSH key in the Preferences dialog, then the application will use the key for authentication on the remote server.
If your SSH key requires a passphrase, then you will have to configure an SSH agent in order to use the key.
If you haven’t set a path to your private SSH key in the Preferences dialog nor have you configured an SSH agent, then you will be prompted for a password to log into the remote machine.
Once you’re logged in, you’ll see a file dialog listing the directories and files on the server. You can sort these files by name or modified date, in ascending or descending order, by clicking on the appropriate column header. Your sorting preference is saved.
Navigate to the folder in which your Poplar report files have been saved. You’ll notice that when you select a directory in which Poplar report files are found, the file window lists those files on the right-hand side. Note that if the
archive.aor theprofile.popfiles are not present, the Open button will be disabled, as one of these these files is the minimal requirement for generating a report in the Graph Analyser. See the Report files section for details of how to generate each file, and what it contains.Once you’ve entered the directory with the necessary report files in it, click on the Open button to load the report.
The SSH connection is constantly checked, and if, for any reason, it goes down, a warning dialog is displayed, letting you know.
The Summary Report is displayed first, and the progress bar along the top of the screen shows the files being loaded into the application, and the report data being analysed and prepared for display.
Notice that the bottom of the Summary Report shows the relevant files that have been found, and their loading state. More details on these files, and which reports need them, can be found in the Poplar report files section.
Configure SSH agent
The Graph Analyser does not currently support encrypted SSH private keys, which are keys that are protected by a passphrase. However it does support SSH agents. If your key is passphrase-protected, you will need to make sure to add it to your SSH agent before the Graph Analyser can use it, by using the
ssh-addcommand-line tool and ensure that the SSH agent mode is set correctly in the Preferences dialog.
To configure the SSH agent from a terminal, run:
# Start the SSH agent in the background.
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
# Add your SSH private key to the SSH agent
ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Then restart the Graph Analyser, open the Preferences dialog and remove the path in SSH private key path. Make sure that SSH agent mode is set to Automatically obtain SSH agent socket path from environment
Connecting via SSH and ProxyJump
If you are using an machine via a ProxyJump you can still use PopVision if you set up SSH forwarding. If your ProxyJump machine is at proxy.jump.com and your remote machine is at remote.machine.com, you can use port forwarding to connect:
ssh -N -f -L localhost:2222:remote.machine.com:22 proxy.jump.com
Then in PopVision click “Open a Report…” on the main screen, select “Remote”, and set “Hostname” to localhost and “Port” to 2222. You should now be able
to open reports on the remote machine over the ProxyJump link.
Port forwarding is shut down again once that SSH session ends.
4.6.2. Connection errors
A number of errors can occur when connecting to a remote server. This section lists the most common and gives some troubleshooting steps.
Error: getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND server.example.com
This error occurs when the specified server could not be found (DNS lookup failed). Check that you have typed the server’s name correctly. If a VPN connection is required, check that it is connected and working correctly.
Error: Password authentication failed
If the SSH agent and SSH key authentication fail then password authentication is attempted. If you normally use a public key to connect to the server, check that you have correctly specified the key in SSH preferences. Otherwise, check that password authentication is enabled on the server and that you have typed your password correctly.
Error: Cannot create directory '.cache/poplar_report_viewer' because a file already exists there.
Graph Analyser will attempt to create a number of directories on the remote server if they do not already exist. If a file already exists with the same name then attempting to create the directory will fail. Check what the file is and either delete or rename it to allow the directory to be created.
Error: Could not create directory '.cache': Permission denied
Graph Analyser will attempt to create a number of directories on the remote server if they do not already exist. This error indicates that you did not have permission to create one of these directories. This usually indicates a problem with how your home directory is setup on the server: either you do not have a home directory and don’t have permission to create one, or you have not been given adequate permissions on your own home directory. Contact the server administrator to ask for a home directory to be created or for its permissions to be corrected.
Error: Could not write to '.cache/poplar_report_viewer/backend_...' on the remote. This could be caused by a full filesystem
This error usually occurs because there was not enough disk space on the server to upload the required binary file to your home directory (around 20MB is required). You may be able to free up some space by deleting unused files.
In some cases servers have a home directory filesystem which is very limited in size but have a much larger local disk or “scratch space” available. The Graph Analyser can upload to the scratch space if you create a symbolic link from your home directory to the scratch drive, for example:
mv ~/.cache /localdata/username/.cache
ln -s /localdata/username/.cache ~/.cache