Functional reads can be satisfied by one of the following, in order:
1. Main memory (when the data is not present in the cache hierarchy);
2. Valid data block in cache;
3. Valid data block in coherence message;
4. Valid data block marked as Maybe_Stale;
Number 4 is not handled by the current implementation. A Maybe_Stale
block can be either truly stale or actually valid. When it is stale,
the memory read will be satisfied by either number 2 or number 3. When
it is valid, there will be no coherence message with valid data inside,
and the Maybe_Stale block will transition to a valid state after
receiving some kind of acknowledgement.
The main challenge to handle number 4 is how to know from which
Maybe_Stale block the data should be read from. For instance, in a two
level cache hierarchy, we might have a block marked as Maybe_Stale in
both L1 and L2. In this case, we should prioritize the cache controller
that is closest to the CPU. To define this priority, a new virtual
function 'functionalReadPriority' was added to the AbstractController
class.
Change-Id: I4774cd01aab7bb9ca53694cd9dc4f9416a8e4025
There are several parts to this PR to work towards #1349 .
(1) Make RubySystem::getBlockSizeBytes non-static by providing ways to
access the block size or passing the block size explicitly to classes.
The main changes are:
- DataBlocks must be explicitly allocated. A default ctor still exists
to avoid needing to heavily modify SLICC. The size can be set using a
realloc function, operator=, or copy ctor. This is handled completely
transparently meaning no protocol or config changes are required.
- WriteMask now requires block size to be set. This is also handled
transparently by modifying the SLICC parser to identify WriteMask
types and call setBlockSize().
- AbstractCacheEntry and TBE classes now require block size to be set.
This is handled transparently by modifying the SLICC parser to
identify these classes and call initBlockSize() which calls
setBlockSize() for any DataBlock or WriteMask.
- All AbstractControllers now have a pointer to RubySystem. This is
assigned in SLICC generated code and requires no changes to protocol
or configs.
- The Ruby Message class now requires block size in all constructors.
This is added to the argument list automatically by the SLICC parser.
(2) Relax dependence on common functions in
src/mem/ruby/common/Address.hh
so that RubySystem::getBlockSizeBits is no longer static. Many classes
already have a way to get block size from the previous commit, so they
simply multiple by 8 to get the number of bits. For handling SLICC and
reducing the number of changes, define makeCacheLine, getOffset, etc. in
RubyPort and AbstractController. The only protocol changes required are
to change any "RubySystem::foo()" calls with "m_ruby_system->foo()".
For classes which do not have a way to get access to block size but
still used makeLineAddress, getOffset, etc., the block size must be
passed to that class. This requires some changes to the SimObject
interface for two commonly used classes: DirectoryMemory and
RubyPrefecther, resulting in user-facing API changes
User-facing API changes:
- DirectoryMemory and RubyPrefetcher now require the cache line size as
a non-optional argument.
- RubySequencer SimObjects now require RubySystem as a non-optional
argument.
- TesterThread in the GPU ruby tester now requires the cache line size
as a non-optional argument.
(3) Removes static member variables in RubySystem which control
randomization, cooldown, and warmup. These are mostly used by the Ruby
Network. The network classes are modified to take these former static
variables as parameters which are passed to the corresponding method
(e.g., enqueue, delayHead, etc.) rather than needing a RubySystem object
at all.
Change-Id: Ia63c2ad5cf0bf9d1cbdffba5d3a679bb4d3b1220
(4) There are two major SLICC generated static methods:
getNumControllers()
on each cache controller which returns the number of controllers created
by the configs at run time and the functions which access this method,
which are MachineType_base_count and MachineType_base_number. These need
to be removed to create multiple RubySystem objects otherwise NetDest,
version value, and other objects are incorrect.
To remove the static requirement, MachineType_base_count and
MachineType_base_number are moved to RubySystem. Any class which needs
to call these methods must now have a pointer to a RubySystem. To enable
that, several changes are made:
- RubyRequest and Message now require a RubySystem pointer in the
constructor. The pointer is passed to fields in the Message class
which require a RubySystem pointer (e.g., NetDest). SLICC is modified
to do this automatically.
- SLICC structures may now optionally take an "implicit constructor"
which can be used to call a non-default constructor for locally
defined variables (e.g., temporary variables within SLICC actions). A
statement such as "NetDest bcast_dest;" in SLICC will implicitly
append a call to the NetDest constructor taking RubySystem, for
example.
- RubySystem gets passed to Ruby network objects (Network, Topology).
This patch adds RubyPrefetcherProxy, which provides means to inject
requests generated by the "classic" prefetchers into a SLICC prefetch
queue. It defines defines notifyPf* functions to be used by protocols
to notify a prefetcher. It also includes the probes required to
interface with the classic implementation.
AbstractController defines the accessor needed to snoop the caches.
A followup patch will add support for RubyPrefetcherProxy in the
CHI protocol.
Related JIRA:
https://gem5.atlassian.net/browse/GEM5-457https://gem5.atlassian.net/browse/GEM5-1112
Additional authors:
Tuan Ta <tuan.ta2@arm.com>
Change-Id: Ie908150b510f951cdd6fd0fd9c95d9760ff70fb0
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
A previous commit added BUILD_GPU guards to gpu coalescer models since
a related cache recorder commit added GPU support. This is no longer
needed since the cache recorder moved to using a vector of RubyPorts
instead of Sequencer/GPUCoalescer pointers. This commit removes
BUILD_GPU guards from the Ruby coalescer models
Change-Id: I23a7957d82524d6cd3483d22edfb35ac51796eca
Ruby was recently updated to support flushes and warmup for GPUs. Since
this support uses the GPUCoalescer, non-GPU builds face a compile time
issue. This is because GPU code is not built for non-GPU builds. This
commit addes "#if BUILD_GPU" guards around the GPU-related code in
common files like AbstractController.hh, CacheRecorder.*, RubySystem.cc,
GPUCoalescer.hh, and VIPERCoalescer.hh. This support allows GPU builds
to use flushing while non-GPU builds compile without problems
Change-Id: If8ee4ff881fe154553289e8c00881ee1b6e3f113
Generating these stats for all defined Events may generate too many
stats that are never used, which unnecessarily increases simulation
startup time and memory consumption.
This patch limits those stats to events with the "in_trans" and/or
"out_trans" properties. SLICC compiler then checks which combinations
of event+state are possible when generating the stats.
Also the possible level of detail for inTransLatHist was reduced.
Only the number of transactions for each event+initial+final state
combinations is now accounted. Latency histograms are only defined
per event type (similarly to outTransLatHist). This significantly
reduces the final file size for generated stats.
Change-Id: I29aaeb771436cc3f0ce7547a223d58e71d9cedcc
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Prior to this patch, when a memory controller was failing at sending a
response to AbstractController, it would not wakeup until the next
request. This patch gives the opportunity to Ruby models to notify
memory response buffer dequeue so that AbstractController can send a
retry request if necessary.
A dequeueMemRspQueue function has been added AbstractController to
automate the dequeue+notify operation.
Note that models that don't notify AbstractController will continue
working as before.
Change-Id: I261bb4593c126208c98825e54f538638d818d16b
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/67658
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Bobby Bruce <bbruce@ucdavis.edu>
Maintainer: Bobby Bruce <bbruce@ucdavis.edu>
AddrRangeMap::intersects doesn't support ranges with different
interleavings, thus the current implementation of the destination
seach won't work in cases when different machines map the same address
with different interleaving.
The fixed implementation uses a different AddrRangeMap for each mach
type.
Change-Id: Idd0184da343c46c92a4c86f142938902096c2b1f
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/63671
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Maintainer: Bobby Bruce <bbruce@ucdavis.edu>
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Apply the gem5 namespace to the codebase.
Some anonymous namespaces could theoretically be removed,
but since this change's main goal was to keep conflicts
at a minimum, it was decided not to modify much the
general shape of the files.
A few missing comments of the form "// namespace X" that
occurred before the newly added "} // namespace gem5"
have been added for consistency.
std out should not be included in the gem5 namespace, so
they weren't.
ProtoMessage has not been included in the gem5 namespace,
since I'm not familiar with how proto works.
Regarding the SystemC files, although they belong to gem5,
they actually perform integration between gem5 and SystemC;
therefore, it deserved its own separate namespace.
Files that are automatically generated have been included
in the gem5 namespace.
The .isa files currently are limited to a single namespace.
This limitation should be later removed to make it easier
to accomodate a better API.
Regarding the files in util, gem5:: was prepended where
suitable. Notice that this patch was tested as much as
possible given that most of these were already not
previously compiling.
Change-Id: Ia53d404ec79c46edaa98f654e23bc3b0e179fe2d
Signed-off-by: Daniel R. Carvalho <odanrc@yahoo.com.br>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/46323
Maintainer: Bobby R. Bruce <bbruce@ucdavis.edu>
Reviewed-by: Bobby R. Bruce <bbruce@ucdavis.edu>
Reviewed-by: Matthew Poremba <matthew.poremba@amd.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
As part of recent decisions regarding namespace
naming conventions, all namespaces will be changed
to snake case.
::Stats became ::statistics.
"statistics" was chosen over "stats" to avoid generating
conflicts with the already existing variables (there are
way too many "stats" in the codebase), which would make
this patch even more disturbing for the users.
Change-Id: If877b12d7dac356f86e3b3d941bf7558a4fd8719
Signed-off-by: Daniel R. Carvalho <odanrc@yahoo.com.br>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/45421
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
The patch is using the newly defined PARAMS macro to replace
custom params() getters in derived class.
The patch is also removing redundant _params:
Instead of creating yet another _params field, SimObject descendants
should use params() to expose the real type of SimObject::_params they
already have.
Change-Id: I43394cebb9661fe747bdbb332236f0f0181b3dba
Signed-off-by: Alexander Klimov <Alexander.Klimov@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/39900
Reviewed-by: Giacomo Travaglini <giacomo.travaglini@arm.com>
Maintainer: Giacomo Travaglini <giacomo.travaglini@arm.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
A single functionalRead may not be able to get the whole latest
copy of the block in protocols that have features such as:
- a cache line can be partially present and dirty in a controller
- a cache line can be transferred over the network using multiple
protocol-level messages
To support these cases, this patch adds an alternative function:
bool functionalRead(PacketPtr, WriteMask&)
Protocols that implement this function can partially update
the packet and use the WriteMask to mark updated bytes.
The top-level RubySystem:functionalRead then issues functionalRead
to controllers until the whole block is read.
This patch implements functionalRead(PacketPtr, WriteMask&) for all the
common messages and SimpleNetwork. A protocol-specific implementation
will be provided in a future patch.
The new interface is compiled only if required by the protocol (see
src/mem/ruby/system/SConscript). Otherwise the original interface is
used thus maintaining compatibility with previous protocols.
Change-Id: I4600d5f1d7cc170bd7b09ccd09bfd3bb6605f86b
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/31416
Reviewed-by: Matthew Poremba <matthew.poremba@amd.com>
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Adds additional stats to accounts for incoming and outgoing retries.
Calling incomingTransactionStart with retried==true indicates the
received request initiating the transaction is a retried request.
Calling outgoingTransactionEnd with retried==true indicates the request
was retried by the requester.
Change-Id: I22fd971d4997fce0c114b5ec030cbbf9b463d0c6
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/41158
Reviewed-by: Hoa Nguyen <hoanguyen@ucdavis.edu>
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
While the wakeUpBuffers/wakeUpAllBuffers check all message buffers,
wakeup_port wakes up only the messages stalled on the specified port
and address. Usage is the same as the stall_and_wait statement, e.g.:
wakeup_port(reqInPort, addr);
Change-Id: I57dc77d574c0016ca55786ce16a73061a1d37f2e
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/41155
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
The create() method on Params structs usually instantiate SimObjects
using a constructor which takes the Params struct as a parameter
somehow. There has been a lot of needless variation in how that was
done, making it annoying to pass Params down to base classes. Some of
the different forms were:
const Params &
Params &
Params *
const Params *
Params const*
This change goes through and fixes up every constructor and every
create() method to use the const Params & form. We use a reference
because the Params struct should never be null. We use const because
neither the create method nor the consuming object should modify the
record of the parameters as they came in from the config. That would
make consuming them not idempotent, and make it impossible to tell what
the actual simulation configuration was since it would change from any
user visible form (config script, config.ini, dot pdf output).
Change-Id: I77453cba52fdcfd5f4eec92dfb0bddb5a9945f31
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/35938
Reviewed-by: Gabe Black <gabeblack@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Daniel Carvalho <odanrc@yahoo.com.br>
Maintainer: Gabe Black <gabeblack@google.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Added mapAddressToDownstreamMachine that may be used by the protocols
to map an address to different target donwstream controller of the same
type.
These functions do not use the global mapping provided by the network
and map addresses to one of the controllers specified in the
downstream_destinations parameter.
This change facilitates reusing the same cache state-machine/controllers
to model different levels of the cache hierarchy.
Change-Id: I9a202e9461e0d2f16ed232ff8b60bbde2d15570d
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/31415
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Add incomingTransactionStart/End and outgoingTransactionStart/End
functions that can be called from the protocol to profile events
that initiate a transaction locally (e.g. an incoming request) and
remotely (e.g. outgoing requests). The generated stats will include
histograms of the latency for completing each type of transaction.
This assumes assumes the protocol uses different trigger events for
initiating incoming and outgoing transactions.
Change-Id: Ib528641b9676c68907b5989b6a09bfe91373f9c9
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/31421
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: John Alsop <johnathan.alsop@amd.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Adds support for device memories in the system and RubySystem classes.
Devices may register memory ranges with the system class and packets
which originate from the device MasterID will update the device memory
in Ruby. In RubySystem functional access is updated to keep the packets
within the Ruby network they originated from.
Change-Id: I47850df1dc1994485d471ccd9da89e8d88eb0d20
JIRA: https://gem5.atlassian.net/browse/GEM5-470
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/29653
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
AbstractController sends requests using a QueuedMasterPort which has an
implicit buffer which is unbounded. Remove this by changing the port to
a MasterPort and implement a retry mechanism for AbstractController.
Although the request remains in the MessageBuffer if a retry is needed,
the additional retry logic optimizes serviceMemoryQueue slightly and
prevents the DRAMCtrl retry stats from being incorrect due to multiple
calls to sendTimingReq.
Change-Id: I8c592af92a1a499a418f34cfee16dd69d84803ad
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/28387
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Nikos Nikoleris <nikos.nikoleris@arm.com>
Maintainer: Bradford Beckmann <brad.beckmann@amd.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
This patch addresses multiple cases:
- When a controller has read/write permissions while others have read
only permissions, the one with r/w permissions performs the read as
the others may have stale data
- When controllers only have lines with stale or busy access permissions,
a valid copy of the line may be in a message in transit in the network
or in a message buffer (not seen by the controller yet). In this case,
we forward the functional request accordingly.
- Sequencer messages should not accept functional reads
- Functional writes also update the packet data on the sequencer
outstanding request lists and the cpu-side response queue.
Change-Id: I6b0656f1a2b81d41bdcf6c783dfa522a77393981
Signed-off-by: Tiago Mück <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/22022
Tested-by: Gem5 Cloud Project GCB service account <345032938727@cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Reviewed-by: John Alsop <johnathan.alsop@amd.com>
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Calls to queueMemoryRead and queueMemoryWrite do not consider the size
of the queue between ruby directories and DRAMCtrl which causes infinite
buffering in the queued port between the two. This adds a MessageBuffer
in between which uses enqueues in SLICC and is therefore size checked
before any SLICC transaction pushing to the buffer can occur, removing
the infinite buffering between the two.
Change-Id: Iedb9070844e4f6c8532a9c914d126105ec98d0bc
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/27427
Tested-by: Gem5 Cloud Project GCB service account <345032938727@cloudbuild.gserviceaccount.com>
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Bradford Beckmann <brad.beckmann@amd.com>
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <power.jg@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Matt Sinclair <mattdsinclair@gmail.com>
Maintainer: Bradford Beckmann <brad.beckmann@amd.com>
Removed the icache/dcache hit latency parameters from the Sequencer.
They were replaced by the mandatory queue enqueue latency that is now
defined by the top-level cache controller. By default, the latency is
defined by the mandatory_queue_latency parameter. When the latency
depends on specific protocol states or on the request type, the protocol
may override the mandatoryQueueLatency function.
Change-Id: I72e57a7ea49501ef81dc7f591bef14134274647c
Signed-off-by: Tiago Muck <tiago.muck@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/18413
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Nikos Nikoleris <nikos.nikoleris@arm.com>
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <jason@lowepower.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <jason@lowepower.com>
MemObject doesn't provide anything beyond its base ClockedObject any
more, so this change removes it from most inheritance hierarchies.
Occasionally MemObject is replaced with SimObject when I was fairly
confident that the extra functionality of ClockedObject wasn't needed.
Change-Id: Ic014ab61e56402e62548e8c831eb16e26523fdce
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/c/public/gem5/+/18289
Tested-by: kokoro <noreply+kokoro@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Anthony Gutierrez <anthony.gutierrez@amd.com>
Maintainer: Gabe Black <gabeblack@google.com>
Ruby has no support for atomic_noncaching accesses, which prevents using
it with kvm-cpu. This patch fixes this by directly forwarding atomic
requests from the ruby port/sequencer to the corresponding directory
based on the destination address of the packet.
Change-Id: I0b4928bfda44fd9e5e48583c51d1ea422800da2d
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/5601
Reviewed-by: Andreas Sandberg <andreas.sandberg@arm.com>
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <jason@lowepower.com>
Reviewed-by: Bradford Beckmann <brad.beckmann@amd.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <jason@lowepower.com>
Maintainer: Bradford Beckmann <brad.beckmann@amd.com>
Previously the directory covered a flat address range that always
started from address 0. This change adds a vector of address ranges
with interleaving and hashing that each directory keeps track of and
the necessary flexibility to support systems with non continuous
memory ranges.
Change-Id: I6ea1c629bdf4c5137b7d9c89dbaf6c826adfd977
Reviewed-by: Andreas Sandberg <andreas.sandberg@arm.com>
Reviewed-on: https://gem5-review.googlesource.com/2903
Reviewed-by: Bradford Beckmann <brad.beckmann@amd.com>
Reviewed-by: Jason Lowe-Power <jason@lowepower.com>
Maintainer: Jason Lowe-Power <jason@lowepower.com>
Ruby's controller block_on behavior aimed to block MessageBuffer requests into
SLICC controllers when a Locked_RMW was in flight. Unfortunately, this
functionality only partially works: When non-Locked_RMW memory accesses are
issued to the sequencer to an address with an in-flight Locked_RMW, the
sequencer may pass those accesses through to the controller. At the controller,
a number of incorrect activities can occur depending on the protocol. In
MOESI_hammer, for example, an intermediate IFETCH will cause an L1D to L2
transfer, which cannot be serviced, because the block_on functionality blocks
the trigger queue, resulting in a deadlock. Further, if an intermediate store
arrives (e.g. from a separate SMT thread), the sequencer allows the request
through to the controller, and the atomicity of the Locked_RMW may be broken.
To avoid these problems, disallow the Sequencer from passing any memory
accesses to the controller besides Locked_RMW_Write when a Locked_RMW is in-
flight.
This patch eliminates the type Address defined by the ruby memory system.
This memory system would now use the type Addr that is in use by the
rest of the system.
Expose MessageBuffers from SLICC controllers as SimObjects that can be
manipulated in Python. This patch has numerous benefits:
1) First and foremost, it exposes MessageBuffers as SimObjects that can be
manipulated in Python code. This allows parameters to be set and checked in
Python code to avoid obfuscating parameters within protocol files. Further, now
as SimObjects, MessageBuffer parameters are printed to config output files as a
way to track parameters across simulations (e.g. buffer sizes)
2) Cleans up special-case code for responseFromMemory buffers, and aligns their
instantiation and use with mandatoryQueue buffers. These two special buffers
are the only MessageBuffers that are exposed to components outside of SLICC
controllers, and they're both slave ends of these buffers. They should be
exposed outside of SLICC in the same way, and this patch does it.
3) Distinguishes buffer-specific parameters from buffer-to-network parameters.
Specifically, buffer size, randomization, ordering, recycle latency, and ports
are all specific to a MessageBuffer, while the virtual network ID and type are
intrinsics of how the buffer is connected to network ports. The former are
specified in the Python object, while the latter are specified in the
controller *.sm files. Unlike buffer-specific parameters, which may need to
change depending on the simulated system structure, buffer-to-network
parameters can be specified statically for most or all different simulated
systems.
It was previously possible for a stalled message to be reordered after an
incomming message. This patch ensures that any stalled message stays in its
original request order.
