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Question:

How to trigger a checkpoint

Answer:

Checkpoints can be triggered in 3 ways:
  1. By providing the "-C< file-name> " and "-A< integer-number>" flags to mosrun. This will perform a periodic checkpoint every "integer-number" of minutes and the checkpointed file will be saved to the files "file-name.1", "file-name.2", etc. Read the mosrun manual for details.
  2. By using the "migrate < pid> checkpoint" command to perform a checkpoint at a specific time externally to the program. Read the migrate command manual for details.
  3. From within the program, by using the MOSIX checkpoint interface.
The MOSIX checkpoint interface is documented in "man MOSIX". It contains the following files in the proc file system:

  /proc/self/checkpoint
  /proc/self/checkpointfile
  /proc/self/checkpointlimit
  /proc/self/checkpointinterval

These pseudo-files allow the process to modify its checkpoint parameters and to trigger a checkpoint operation.