Make pytest-xdist work on TPU and update Cloud TPU CI.

This change also marks multiaccelerator test files in a way pytest can
understand (if pytest is installed).

By running single-device tests on a single TPU chip, running the test
suite goes from 1hr 45m to 35m (both timings are running slow tests).

I tried using bazel at first, which already supported parallel
execution across TPU cores, but somehow it still takes 2h 20m! I'm not
sure why it's so slow. It appears that bazel creates many new test
processes over time, vs. pytest reuses the number of processes
initially specified, and starting and stopping the TPU runtime takes a
few seconds so that may be adding up. It also appears that
single-process bazel is slower than single-process pytest, which I
haven't looked into yet.

.github/workflows/cloud-tpu-ci-nightly.yml

@@ -53,7 +53,12 @@ jobs:
       - name: Run tests
         env:
           JAX_PLATFORMS: tpu,cpu
-        run: python -m pytest --tb=short tests examples
+        run: |
+          # Run single-accelerator tests in parallel
+          JAX_ENABLE_TPU_XDIST=true python -m pytest -n=4 --tb=short \
+            -m "not multiaccelerator" tests examples
+          # Run multi-accelerator across all chips
+          python -m pytest -m "multiaccelerator" --tb=short tests
       - name: Send chat on failure
         # Don't notify when testing the workflow from a branch.
         if: ${{ failure() && github.ref_name == 'main' }}

conftest.py

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 """pytest configuration"""
 
+import os
 import pytest
 
 
@@ -24,3 +25,35 @@ def add_imports(doctest_namespace):
   doctest_namespace["lax"] = jax.lax
   doctest_namespace["jnp"] = jax.numpy
   doctest_namespace["np"] = numpy
+
+
+# A pytest hook that runs immediately before test collection (i.e. when pytest
+# loads all the test cases to run). When running parallel tests via xdist on
+# Cloud TPU, we use this hook to set the env vars needed to run multiple test
+# processes across different TPU chips.
+#
+# It's important that the hook runs before test collection, since jax tests end
+# up initializing the TPU runtime on import (e.g. to query supported test
+# types). It's also important that the hook gets called by each xdist worker
+# process. Luckily each worker does its own test collection.
+#
+# The pytest_collection hook can be used to overwrite the collection logic, but
+# we only use it to set the env vars and fall back to the default collection
+# logic by always returning None. See
+# https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/how-to/writing_hook_functions.html#firstresult-stop-at-first-non-none-result
+# for details.
+#
+# The env var JAX_ENABLE_TPU_XDIST must be set for this hook to have an
+# effect. We do this to minimize any effect on non-TPU tests, and as a pointer
+# in test code to this "magic" hook. TPU tests should not specify more xdist
+# workers than the number of TPU chips.
+def pytest_collection() -> None:
+  if not os.environ.get("JAX_ENABLE_TPU_XDIST", None):
+    return
+  # When running as an xdist worker, will be something like "gw0"
+  xdist_worker_name = os.environ.get("PYTEST_XDIST_WORKER", "")
+  if not xdist_worker_name.startswith("gw"):
+    return
+  xdist_worker_number = int(xdist_worker_name[len("gw"):])
+  os.environ.setdefault("TPU_VISIBLE_CHIPS", str(xdist_worker_number))
+  os.environ.setdefault("ALLOW_MULTIPLE_LIBTPU_LOAD", "true")

pytest.ini

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 [pytest]
 markers =
+    multiaccelerator: indicates that a test can make use of and possibly requires multiple accelerators
     SlurmMultiNodeGpuTest: mark a test for Slurm multinode GPU nightly CI
 filterwarnings =
     error
@@ -19,7 +20,7 @@ filterwarnings =
     # numpy uses distutils which is deprecated
     ignore:The distutils.* is deprecated.*:DeprecationWarning
     ignore:`sharded_jit` is deprecated. Please use `pjit` instead.*:DeprecationWarning
-    # Print message for compilation_cache_test.py::CompilationCacheTest::test_cache_read/write_warning 
+    # Print message for compilation_cache_test.py::CompilationCacheTest::test_cache_read/write_warning
     default:Error reading persistent compilation cache entry for 'jit__lambda_'
     default:Error writing persistent compilation cache entry for 'jit__lambda_'
 doctest_optionflags = NUMBER NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE

tests/array_test.py

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 """Tests for GlobalDeviceArray."""
 
+import contextlib
 import os
 import unittest
 from absl.testing import absltest
@@ -43,6 +44,11 @@ config.parse_flags_with_absl()
 
 prev_xla_flags = None
 
+with contextlib.suppress(ImportError):
+  import pytest
+  pytestmark = pytest.mark.multiaccelerator
+
+
 # Run all tests with 8 CPU devices.
 def setUpModule():
   global prev_xla_flags

tests/pjit_test.py

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
+import contextlib
 import os
 import re
 from functools import partial, lru_cache
@@ -57,6 +58,11 @@ config.parse_flags_with_absl()
 
 prev_xla_flags = None
 
+with contextlib.suppress(ImportError):
+  import pytest
+  pytestmark = pytest.mark.multiaccelerator
+
+
 def setUpModule():
   global prev_xla_flags
   prev_xla_flags = os.getenv("XLA_FLAGS")

tests/pmap_test.py

@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
 
 
 from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
+import contextlib
 from functools import partial
 import itertools as it
 import gc
@@ -55,6 +56,11 @@ config.parse_flags_with_absl()
 
 prev_xla_flags = None
 
+
+with contextlib.suppress(ImportError):
+  import pytest
+  pytestmark = pytest.mark.multiaccelerator
+
 compatible_shapes = [[(3,)], [(3, 4), (3, 1), (1, 4)], [(2, 3, 4), (2, 1, 4)]]
 
 def all_bdims(*shapes, pmap):

tests/remote_transfer_test.py

@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
 """Tests for cross host device transfer."""
 
 from absl.testing import absltest
+import contextlib
 import unittest
 import numpy as np
 
@@ -24,6 +25,10 @@ from jax.config import config
 
 config.parse_flags_with_absl()
 
+with contextlib.suppress(ImportError):
+  import pytest
+  pytestmark = pytest.mark.multiaccelerator
+
 
 class RemoteTransferTest(jtu.JaxTestCase):
 

tests/xmap_test.py

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
+import contextlib
 import functools
 import itertools as it
 import os
@@ -55,6 +56,11 @@ from jax.ad_checkpoint import checkpoint
 from jax.config import config
 config.parse_flags_with_absl()
 
+with contextlib.suppress(ImportError):
+  import pytest
+  pytestmark = pytest.mark.multiaccelerator
+
+
 # TODO(mattjj): de-duplicate setUpModule and tearDownModule with pmap_test.py
 # Run all tests with 8 CPU devices.
 def setUpModule():