A Quick Introduction to Multicore Processing Parent topic: A Quick Introduction to Multicore Processing

Setting up the OS image

  1. Log in as root.
  2. Go to the directory that holds the buildfile for your system's boot image (e.g., /boot/build).
  3. Create a copy of the buildfile. In this example, we'll call the copy my_multicore.build.
  4. Edit the copy (e.g., my_multicore.build).
  5. Search for procnto. The line might look like this: 
    PATH=/proc/boot:/bin:/usr/bin:/opt/bin \
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/proc/boot:/lib:/usr/lib:/lib/dll:/opt/lib \
  procnto-instr
    Note: In a real buildfile, you can't use a backslash (\) to break a long line into shorter pieces, but we've done that here, just to make the command easier to read.
  6. Change procnto to the appropriate multicore version; see /proc/boot to see which uniprocessor version you're using, and then add -smp to it. For more information, see procnto in the Utilities Reference. For example: 
    PATH=/proc/boot:/bin:/usr/bin:/opt/bin \
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/proc/boot:/lib:/usr/lib:/lib/dll:/opt/lib \
  procnto-smp-instr
    Note: Although the multiprocessing version of procnto has "SMP" in its name, it also supports BMP. You can even use bound and symmetric multiprocessing simultaneously on the same system.
  7. Save your changes to the buildfile.
  8. Generate a new boot image: 
    mkifs my_multicore.build my_multicore.ifs
  9. Put the new image in place. In order to ensure you can still boot your system if an error occurs, we recommend the following:
    • If you're using the Power-Safe filesystem (fs-qnx6.so), add your image to the ones in /.boot/ instead of overwriting an existing image.
    • If you're using the QNX 4 filesystem (fs-qnx4.so), copy your current boot image to /.altboot by doing the following: 
      cp /.altboot /.old_altboot
cp /.boot /.altboot
cp apsdma.ifs /.boot
  10. Reboot your system.
Parent topic: A Quick Introduction to Multicore Processing