Compile required software

If you do not have access to the required software in binary form - either via a package manager or a module environment - you have to compile the missing pieces or everything yourself.

We provide recipes to build all required software. These recipes can be used on Linux, macOS and Windows Services for Linux. They are tested with several Linux distributions including Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 & 7, Ubuntu 18, 20 and 21, openSUSE leaf 15, macOS 10.12 - 10.15 as well as with the Windows Services for Linux.

The OPAL Tool-chain Builder

The OPAL Tool-chain Builder (OTB) is a collection of recipes to build all required software you need to compile OPAL - including a recipe to compile OPAL itself.

Run the following command to download the recipes:

git clone git@gitlab.psi.ch:OPAL/build-recipes.git

git clone https://gitlab.psi.ch/OPAL/build-recipes.git

Setting up the environment

First change into the directory you used in the above Git command. In the following we assume that you are in this directory.

To setup the build environment, you have to source the file setup.sh. The syntax is:

source setup [--prefix OTB_PREFIX] [CONFIG_FILE]

If you source setup.sh without arguments,

${HOME}/OPAL will be used as installation directory.
Open MPI will be used.
The default versions defined in the build recipes will be used.
GCC will be used on Linux (and WSL).
Clang will be used on macOS.

With the option --prefix OTB_PREFIX a root directory for all to be installed files can be defined.will be used.

The configuration file can be used

to override the default toolchain for the OS.
to override the default versions of the software packages
to select a MPI implementation (open-mpi or MPICH)
to define a list of recipies which must be executed
to define a list of symbolic links in $OTB_PREFIX, which are created by setup.sh.

For more details please see the configurarion files in the config sub-directory.

After sourcing setup.sh the following environment variable are set (among others):

OTB_PREFIX: Installation prefix for all software we have to compile and install. In the following instructions we use ${HOME}/OPAL.
OTB_DOWNLOAD_DIR: This is the directory where we store downloaded files. In this instruction we use ${PREFIX}/tmp/Downloads.
OTB_SRC_DIR: This is the directory where we unpack and compile software. Here we use ${PREFIX}/tmp/src.
NJOBS: The number of parallel make jobs. This number depends on the number of core on your system. We use getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN to get the number of cores (including hyperthreading). The number of parallel make jobs is set to 10, if we have more cores.
OTB_RECIPES (optional): Array with recipes to be executed. This might be set in a configuration file. This environment variable is set in the configuration files we provide. It can be used to compile everything in one step with the following command:

for recipe in "${OTB_RECIPES[@]}"; do ${recipe} || break; done

Compiling the tool-chain

Compiling GCC

Compile GCC only if really required!

On macOS use Clang provided by Xcode are a GCC provided by a package manager!

./010-build-gmp
./020-build-mpfr
./030-build-mpc
./040-build-gcc

Compiling CMake

Before compiling CMake, check whether it is installed on your system and if whether the version fulfil the requirements.

./050-build-cmake

Everything else

./060-build-openmpi
./070-build-zlib
./080-build-hdf5
./090-build-gsl
./100-build-h5hut
./110-build-boost
./200-build-parmetis
./210-build-openblas
./220-build-trilinos
./230-build-amrex
./240-build-MITHRA
./300-build-gtest

OPAL itself

./400-build-OPAL

macOS: Using the tool-chain and Macports, Homebrew or …

Most of the required packages are available via Macports, Homebrew or another package manager. If you want to use them, you should know what you are doing.

If you are using one of this package managers, it is recommended to use a GCC provided by it - in case you do not want to use Clang.

Other packages which are uncritical are

cmake
openmpi
mpich