Notes compilation for ECE1505, Convex Optimization

March 18, 2017 ece1505

I’ve now posted a notes compilation for the subset of the Convex Optimization (ECE1505H) course I was taking in the winter 2017 session.

This course was taught by Prof. S. Draper.

These convex optimization notes are incomplet, covering only the first 9 lectures. The unredacted notes include my solution to problem set 1 (149 pages, vs. 131 pages).

I initially enrolled on this optimization course because I needed a specific quota of ECE courses to satisfy the M.Eng graduation requirements, and the electromagnetics group wasn’t offering enough courses.  I remembered liking linear programming in high school, and always wanted to understand the rational for some of the assumptions that was based on that were never proven in class.  Specifically, I recall that it was stated, but not proved in that high school class, that the extreme values were always found at the vertices of the optimization region.  So, my thought was, I’ll have fun learning the basis for those assumptions, and also learn about optimization theory in general.

It turns out that optimization theory, at least as presented in this course, is very very dry.  It was an endless seeming sequence of definition and proof, with the end goal so far away that it was very difficult to see the big picture.  I worked through the a number of weeks of this particular course before I had enough and bailed.  Work is too fun right now to torture myself and spend the time on an academic course that I am not enjoying, so I dropped it and am back to full time work at LzLabs (from 80%) until the next session at UofT starts again.

The reason I enrolled on the M.Eng in the first place was to study material that I was interested in.  Ideally I would have done that in a part time physics grad context, but that was not available, so I found that the M.Eng allowed me to take an interesting (but constrained) mix of physics and engineering electromagnetism courses.  However, when I enrolled, the electromagnetism course selection was a lot better, and now unfortunately it is sparse and includes only courses that I’d already taken.  I don’t want the M.Eng degree paper badly enough to torture myself with a course that I’m not actually interested in.

I now actually have a plan to satisfy both the degree requirements and my interests (using a project “course”).  That will involve independent study on Geometric Algebra applications to engineering electromagnetism.  I am irked that I have to pay a part time engineering program fee next year to self study, but it does seem worthwhile to come out of the M.Eng study with an actual degree as a side effect, so I am going to go ahead and do it anyways.

gdb pretty print of structures

March 9, 2017 C/C++ development and debugging. , , , ,

Here’s a nice little gdb trick for displaying structure contents in a less compact format

(gdb) set print pretty on
(gdb) p dd[0]
$4 = {
  jfcb = {
    datasetName = "PJOOT.NVS1", ' ' <repeats 34 times>,
    .
    .
    .
    vols = {"<AAAiW", "\000\000\000\000\000", "\000\000\000\000\000", "\000\000\000\000\000", "\000\000\000\000\000"},
  },
  block_size = 800,
  device_class = 32 '\040',
  device_type = 15 '\017',
  disp_normal = 8 '\010',
  disp_cond = 8 '\010',
  volsers = 0x7fb71801ecd6 "<AAAiW",
}

compare this to the dense default

(gdb) set print pretty on
(gdb) p dd[0]
$5 = {jfcb = {datasetName = "PJOOT.NVS1", ... vols = {"<AAAiW", "\000\000\000\000\000", "\000\000\000\000\000", "\000\000\000\000\000", "\000\000\000\000\000"}, block_size = 800, block_size_limit = 0, device_class = 32 '\040', device_type = 15 '\017', disp_normal = 8 '\010', disp_cond = 8 '\010', volsers = 0x7fb71801ecd6 "<AAAiW"}

For really big structures (this one actually is, but I’ve pruned a bunch of stuff), this makes the structure print display a whole lot more readable. Additionally, if you combine this with ‘(gdb) set logging on’, then with pretty print enabled you can prune the output by line easily to see just what you want.

A really dumb DNS lookup for my internal network

March 8, 2017 perl and general scripting hackery , , , , ,

The new Hitron cable modem in the house cowardly refuses to let me cache mac and ip address pairs, which is really annoying because my ip addresses now change on me over a couple days. The old router (also a Hitron) allowed that, so putting it on a UPS was generally enough to let me have a static IP table, provided I didn’t have to reboot it.

Here’s a hack using nmap that I just cobbled together to fill in the /etc/hosts entries on the couple machines that I want to talk to each other (mac and Linux machines, so all are unix like).

my %hostnameByMacAddr = (
'B8:4E:3F:C4:04:02' => 'router',
'E4:5C:89:C2:0F:4B' => 'macbookw # wireless',
'10:C2:C6:A0:20:58' => 'nuc2w',
'10:C2:C6:CA:93:6A' => 'nuc1w',
'A8:AE:ED:EB:39:86' => 'nuc1',
'A8:AE:ED:7D:CE:5A' => 'nuc2',
'28:C9:86:46:A8:15' => 'macbookt # thunderbolt monitor connected',
'10:24:2B:A1:7B:F7' => 'brother # printer',
'BC:87:A3:34:1A:FF' => 'macbooke # ethernet cable connected',
);

open my $h, "sudo nmap -n -p 22 192.168.0.1/24 2>&1 | grep -e '192' -e '^MAC' |" or die;

my $ip;
while ( <$h> )
{  
   if ( /scan report for.*(192\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+)/ )
   {  
      $ip = $1 ;
   }

   if ( /MAC Address: (.*) / ) {
      my $mac = $1;

      if ( defined $hostnameByMacAddr{$mac} ) {
         print "$ip $hostnameByMacAddr{$mac} # $mac\n" ;
      }
      else {
         print "# $ip $mac # unknown\n" ;
      }
   }
}

close $h or die;

If anybody knows how to set up an actual DNS server for internal networks, I’d be interested to see what is involved, since it looked very hard when I googled it.

VSAM creation and population with JCL and IDCAMS

March 7, 2017 Mainframe , , , , , , , ,

I learned a few JCL DATASET related things yesterday that seemed notable, at least for a JCL newbie.

Delete a DATASET, and ignore any error.

Each time I’ve wanted a DATASET cleanup step in JCL I’ve been using a separate script, and running that first.  A better way of doing this is to include a IDCAMS job step in the script, and have that do the deletion

//CLEANUP EXEC PGM=IDCAMS
//SYSIN DD *
  DELETE PJOOT.XXXXX005
  SET MAXCC = 0
/*
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSOUT   DD SYSOUT=*
//*SYSTERM  DD SYSOUT=*

This deletes the file PJOOT.XXXXX005, which in this case was a VSAM file. In case that file (a DATASETs in mainframe-eze) did not exist, the error code for that DELETE is ignored by setting MAXCC=0. If you have multiple things that you want to do with IDCAMS, you can do things like DELETE and then ALLOCATE immediately, such as

//REALLOC EXEC PGM=IDCAMS
//SYSIN DD *
  DELETE PJOOT.XXXXX005
  SET MAXCC = 0
  DEFINE CLUSTER (NAME(PJOOT.XXXXX005) -
               CYLINDERS(1) VOLUMES(LZ0000) -
               INDEXED -
               KEYS(4 0) -
               RECORDSIZE(240 240) -
               ) -
         DATA (NAME(PJOOT.XXXXX005.DATA)) -
         INDEX (NAME(PJOOT.XXXXX005.INDEX))
/*
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSOUT   DD SYSOUT=*
//*SYSTERM  DD SYSOUT=*

This does the DELETE, ignores any error, and then proceeds to do the new ALLOCATE for the VSAM file. I haven’t seen any way described of ALLOCATING a VSAM file other than using IDCAMS, except in 3270 screens. I think I’ve seen that LzLabs has 3270 capabilities for this sort of stuff, but I’m not inclined to try to figure out how to use it. I’d rather use our much more intuitive GUI or do it in script with JCL like this.

Copy a DATASET.

Here is some JCL to copy an (INLINE) dataset into the VSAM file created above

//COPY2VS EXEC PGM=IDCAMS
//TARGET DD DSN=PJOOT.XXXXX005,DISP=(OLD,KEEP,KEEP)
//INLINEDD DD DATA,DCB=(BLKSIZE=240,LRECL=240,RECFM=F)
a
brown
fox
quick
/*
//SYSIN DD *
REPRO -
  INFILE(INLINEDD) -
  OUTFILE(TARGET)
/*
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSOUT   DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSTERM  DD SYSOUT=*

There are two quirks that are noteworthy here.

  1. The VSAM file requires the input be sorted, which is why the words from ‘a quick brown fox’ are in the explicitly sorted order above.
  2. The VSAM file was created with RECORDSIZE 240, so the input file had to be forced to LRECL=240 to match.

Omission of either sort or the LRECL matching causes the VSAM load to fail.

This was the first time that I’d seen this specific INLINE DD syntax, with explicit parameters.  The way I’d seen it before was how SYSIN was specified above with ‘NAME DD *’, ending with C “comment start” /* sequence.  It turns out the default end of file delimiter can also be specified, for example, this also works:

//INLINEDD DD DATA,DLM=@@,DCB=(BLKSIZE=240,LRECL=240,RECFM=F)
a
brown
fox
quick
@@

Cat a file to spool

Because IDCAMS can copy files, this can also be used to cat a file to SPOOL if desired.  Here’s an example:

//CATVS JOB
//CATVS EXEC PGM=IDCAMS
//TARGET DD DSN=PJOOT.XXXXX005,DISP=(OLD,KEEP,KEEP)
//SYSIN DD *
REPRO -
  INFILE(TARGET) -
  OUTFILE(SYSOUT)
/*
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSOUT   DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSTERM  DD SYSOUT=*

If I include a step like this, I’m able to see the file contents in our nice GUI spool browser along with the JCL script and all the other output.

peeking into relocation of function static in shared library

February 27, 2017 C/C++ development and debugging. , , , , , , , ,

Here’s GUI (TUI) output of a function with a static variable access:

B+ |0x7ffff7616800 <st32>           test   %edi,%edi                                                                                                                     |
   |0x7ffff7616802 <st32+2>         je     0x7ffff7616811 <st32+17>                                                                                                      |
   |0x7ffff7616804 <st32+4>         mov    %edi,%eax                                                                                                                     |
   |0x7ffff7616806 <st32+6>         bswap  %eax                                                                                                                          |
   |0x7ffff7616808 <st32+8>         mov    %eax,0x200852(%rip)        # 0x7ffff7817060 <st32.yst32>                                                                        |
   |0x7ffff761680e <st32+14>        mov    %edi,%eax                                                                                                                     |
   |0x7ffff7616810 <st32+16>        retq                                                                                                                                 |
  >|0x7ffff7616811 <st32+17>        mov    0x200849(%rip),%edi        # 0x7ffff7817060 <st32.yst32>                                                                        |
   |0x7ffff7616817 <st32+23>        bswap  %edi                                                                                                                          |
   |0x7ffff7616819 <st32+25>        mov    %edi,%eax                                                                                                                     |
   |0x7ffff761681b <st32+27>        retq                                                                                                                                 |
   |0x7ffff761681c <_fini>          sub    $0x8,%rsp                                                                                                                     |
   |0x7ffff7616820 <_fini+4>        add    $0x8,%rsp                                                                                                                     |
   |0x7ffff7616824 <_fini+8>        retq                                                                                                                                 |
   |0x7ffff7616825                  add    %al,(%rcx)                                                                                                                    |
   |0x7ffff7616827 <x16+1>          add    (%rcx),%al                                                                                                                    |
   +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

The associated code is:

int st32( int v ) {
    static int yst32 = 0x1a2b3c4d;

    if ( v ) {
        yst32 = v;
    }

    return yst32;
}

The object code dump (prior to relocation) just has zeros in the offset for the variable:

$ objdump -d g.bs.o | grep -A12 '<st32>'
0000000000000050 <st32>:
  50:   85 ff                   test   %edi,%edi
  52:   74 0d                   je     61 <st32+0x11>
  54:   89 f8                   mov    %edi,%eax
  56:   0f c8                   bswap  %eax
  58:   89 05 00 00 00 00       mov    %eax,0x0(%rip)        # 5e <st32+0xe>
  5e:   89 f8                   mov    %edi,%eax
  60:   c3                      retq   
  61:   8b 3d 00 00 00 00       mov    0x0(%rip),%edi        # 67 <st32+0x17>
  67:   0f cf                   bswap  %edi
  69:   89 f8                   mov    %edi,%eax
  6b:   c3                      retq

The linker has filled in the real offsets in question, and the dynamic loader has collaborated to put the data segment in the desired location.

The observant reader may notice bwsap instructions in the listings above that don’t make sense for x86_64 code. That is because this code is compiled with an LLVM pass that performs byte swapping at load and store points, making it big endian in a limited fashion.

The book Linkers and Loaders has some nice explanation of how relocation works, but I wanted to see the end result first hand in the debugger. It turned out that my naive expectation that the sum of $rip and the constant relocation factor is the address of the global variable (actually static in this case) is incorrect. Check that out in the debugger:

(gdb) p /x 0x200849+$rip
$1 = 0x7ffff781705a

(gdb) x/10 $1
0x7ffff781705a <gy+26>: 0x22110000      0x2b1a4433      0x00004d3c      0x00000000
0x7ffff781706a: 0x00000000      0x00000000      0x00000000      0x30350000
0x7ffff781707a: 0x20333236      0x64655228

My magic value 0x1a2b3c4d looks like it is 6 bytes into the $rip + 0x200849 location that the disassembly appears to point to, and that is in fact the case:

(gdb) x/10 $1+6
0x7ffff7817060 <st32.yst32>:      0x4d3c2b1a      0x00000000      0x00000000      0x00000000
0x7ffff7817070 <y32>:   0x00000000      0x00000000      0x32363035      0x52282033
0x7ffff7817080: 0x48206465      0x34207461

My guess was the mysterious offset of 6 required to actually find this global address was the number of bytes in the MOV instruction, and sure enough that MOV is 6 bytes long:

(gdb) disassemble /r
Dump of assembler code for function st32:
   0x00007ffff7616800 <+0>:     85 ff   test   %edi,%edi
   0x00007ffff7616802 <+2>:     74 0d   je     0x7ffff7616811 <st32+17>
   0x00007ffff7616804 <+4>:     89 f8   mov    %edi,%eax
   0x00007ffff7616806 <+6>:     0f c8   bswap  %eax
   0x00007ffff7616808 <+8>:     89 05 52 08 20 00       mov    %eax,0x200852(%rip)        # 0x7ffff7817060 <st32.yst32>
   0x00007ffff761680e <+14>:    89 f8   mov    %edi,%eax
   0x00007ffff7616810 <+16>:    c3      retq
=> 0x00007ffff7616811 <+17>:    8b 3d 49 08 20 00       mov    0x200849(%rip),%edi        # 0x7ffff7817060 <st32.yst32>
   0x00007ffff7616817 <+23>:    0f cf   bswap  %edi
   0x00007ffff7616819 <+25>:    89 f8   mov    %edi,%eax
   0x00007ffff761681b <+27>:    c3      retq
End of assembler dump.

So, it appears that the %rip reference in the disassembly is really the value of the instruction pointer after the instruction executes, which is curious.

Note that this 4 byte relocation requires the shared library code segment and the shared library data segment be separated by no more than 4G. The linux dynamic loader has put all the segments back to back so that this is the case. This can be seen from /proc/PID/maps for the process:

$ ps -ef | grep maindl
pjoot    17622 17582  0 10:50 pts/3    00:00:00 /home/pjoot/workspace/pass/global/maindl libglobtestbs.so

$ grep libglob /proc/17622/maps
7ffff7616000-7ffff7617000 r-xp 00000000 fc:00 2492653                    /home/pjoot/workspace/pass/global/libglobtestbs.so
7ffff7617000-7ffff7816000 ---p 00001000 fc:00 2492653                    /home/pjoot/workspace/pass/global/libglobtestbs.so
7ffff7816000-7ffff7817000 r--p 00000000 fc:00 2492653                    /home/pjoot/workspace/pass/global/libglobtestbs.so
7ffff7817000-7ffff7818000 rw-p 00001000 fc:00 2492653                    /home/pjoot/workspace/pass/global/libglobtestbs.so

We’ve got a read-execute mmap region, where the code lies, and a read-write mmap region for the data. There’s a read-only segment which I presume is for read only global variables (my shared lib has one such variable and we have one page worth of space allocated for read only memory).

I wonder what the segment that has none of the read, write, nor execute permissions set is?