SpiNNer Command-Line Utilities

SpiNNer’s functions are broken down into a number of individual command-line tools, all starting with spinner-*. Each tool accepts arguments which describe the SpiNNaker system of interest and a complete listing of these can be found using the -h option.

Standard Arguments

All the SpiNNer commands accept a common set of arguments to specify the size of the system to be built.

All commands require that you specify the size of the system you’re working with:

--num-boards N or -n N
The number of boards to use. The ‘squarest’ possible system with this many boards will be created.
--triads W H or -t W H
The dimensions of system in terms of triads of boards.

You can also optionally specify how these boards should be ‘folded’ to reduce the maximum wire-length required when assembling such systems. These options are largely for backward compatibility: the tool will automatically select a sensible folding scheme.

When working with commands which deal with real-world physical dimensions, the exact dimensions and positions of sockets, boards, frames and cabinets can be defined using additional options (see spinner-wiring-guide -h, for example, for a list of these). The default values represent the dimensions of standard cabinets and frames and can generally be left unchanged.