Setup Tutorial

Introduction

Here you will find a step by step guide to downloading, configuring, and running the Einstein Toolkit. You may use this tutorial on a workstation or laptop, or on a supported cluster. Configuring the Einstein Toolkit on an unsupported cluster is beyond the scope of this tutorial. If you find something that does not work, please feel free to edit the wiki or mail users@einsteintoolkit.org.

Prerequisites

When using the Einstein Toolkit on a laptop or workstation you will need a number of packages installed in order to download, compile and use the Einstein Toolkit components. On a Debian, Ubuntu, Linux-Mint, Fedora, Mac OS, Windows 10 based system, install them as follows:

# Debian (stretch, buster)
su -c 'apt-get install build-essential libopenmpi-dev openmpi-bin gfortran git subversion curl gnuplot gnuplot-x11'
# Ubuntu (16.04.2, 17.04)
sudo apt-get install build-essential mpich2? python libmpich2?-dev gfortran git subversion curl gnuplot gnuplot-x11
# Fedora (FC 25, 26)
sudo yum -y install mpich2 python mpich2-devel gsl gsl-devel libjpeg-devel hdf5 hdf5-mpich-devel gcc gcc-c++ gcc-gfortran patch numactl-devel numactl hwloc subversion git openssl-devel lapack-static

# MacOS+MacPorts (Yosemite)
# Install MacPorts first, then do
sudo port install subversion git gnuplot szip jpeg gcc46 fftw fftw-3 gsl openssl hdf5 +fortran +gcc46 -universal zlib openmpi +gcc46
# MacOS+Homebrew (Sierra) 
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
brew tap homebrew/science
brew install subversion gnuplot subversion gcc fftw gsl hdf5 --with-fortran hwloc jpeg openssl pkg-config szip open-mpi

# Windows10+LinuxSubsystem (Anniversary Update)
# Make sure to install the Linux Subsystem and you are effectively
# running a Ubuntu Linux systems but have to install a separate X11 server as 
# well as making sure that the system can resolve its own hostname
# (last tested with Windows 10 Anniversary Update)
sudo apt-get install build-essential mpich2? python libmpich2?-dev gfortran git subversion curl gnuplot gnuplot-x11
echo "127.0.0.1 $(hostname)" | sudo tee --append /etc/hosts
echo "export DISPLAY=:0.0" >>$HOME/.bashrc
export DISPLAY=:0.0
curl -o /mnt/c/Users/$USER/Downloads/vcxsrv-64.1.19.2.0.installer.exe -L https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/vcxsrv/vcxsrv/1.19.2.0/vcxsrv-64.1.19.2.0.installer.exe
chmod a+x /mnt/c/Users/$USER/Downloads/vcxsrv-64.1.19.2.0.installer.exe
# the next two lines work in Windows Creators Update (version 1703), on older
# versions you will have to install manually using the file in your
# "Downloads" folder then start VcXsrv from the start menu
/mnt/c/Users/$USER/Downloads/vcxsrv-64.1.19.2.0.installer.exe
/mnt/c/Program\ Files/VcXsrv/vcxsrv.exe &

Installing in addition packages for (Debian package names so your mileage may vary)

pkg-config libfftw3-dev libgsl0-dev libatlas-base-dev libjpeg-dev libssl-dev libhdf5-serial-dev libhwloc-dev hwloc-nox

can speed up the compilation, since Cactus will try and use the system provided versions rather than compile its own. Once you have downloaded the Einstein Toolkit, you can inspect the option list files in simfactory/mdb/optionlists/ which often contain a list of recommended packages at the top of the files.

Please make sure all required packages are correctly installed before proceeding with the next step.

Download

A script called GetComponents is used to fetch the components of the Einstein Toolkit. GetComponents serves as convenient wrapper around lower level tools like git and svn to download the codes that make up the Einstein toolkit from their individual repositories. You may download and make it executable as follows:

curl -O -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gridaphobe/CRL/ET_2017_06/GetComponents
chmod a+x GetComponents

GetComponents accepts a thorn list as an argument. To check out the needed components:

./GetComponents --parallel https://bitbucket.org/einsteintoolkit/manifest/raw/ET_2017_06/einsteintoolkit.th

This thornlist checks out the entire Einstein Toolkit, including Cactus, the Simulation Factory, the Einstein Toolkit thorns, and Kranc.

Configure and build

The recommended way to compile the Einstein Toolkit is to use the Simulation Factory ("SimFactory").

Configuring SimFactory for your machine

The ET depends on various libraries, and needs to interact with machine-specific queueing systems and MPI implementations. As such, it needs to be configured for a given machine. For this, it uses SimFactory. Generally, configuring SimFactory means providing an optionlist, for specifying library locations and build options, a submit script for using the batch queueing system, and a runscript, for specifying how Cactus should be run, e.g. which mpirun command to use.

Laptop/workstation operating systems

SimFactory contains general support for specific operating systems commonly used on workstations or laptops. Currently this list includes Linux/Ubuntu, Linux/Debian, Linux/Fedora, MacOS/Homebrew, MacOS/MacPorts, Windows10/BashTerminal.