[MPICH] Porting the MPICH "back-end"

[Daniel Marques]

Hello.

I'm new to MPICH, so please excuse if any of these questions have
obvious answers or if my terminology is completely wrong.  I thank you
for your help in advance.

If I understand it correctly, MPICH is composed of a bunch of software
layers - the idea being that MPICH can be ported to a new platform by
providing a platform-specific implementation of one these lower layers
and placing the rest of the MPICH stack above it.  Some of (the
perhaps really outdated) information I read on the web makes it seem
that the lowest such levels are or can be, rather simple.

I'm interested in developing my own 'back-end' for MPICH (as a
research implementation for testing various coordination protocols,
etc.) and was wondering if there existed any resources describing the
architecture of MPICH and exactly how one would go around implementing
their own back end.  Any links, references to the code, pointers to
previous discussions, etc, will be most appreciated.

Thanks a lot!

Dan