Installation Guide
Suite 6.0
September 2010
Copyright 1998 – 2010: EM Software & Systems-S.A. (Pty) Ltd 32 Techno Avenue, Technopark, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa Tel:+27-21-880-1880, Fax:+27-21-880-1936
CONTENTS i
Contents
1 Introduction 1-1
1.1 Using FEKO LITE instead of the full version . . . 1-1
1.2 Installing the full version after using FEKO LITE . . . 1-1
1.3 System requirements . . . 1-2
1.4 Display settings and graphics cards . . . 1-2
1.5 Contacting your distributor or EMSS . . . 1-3
1.6 Updates to the documentation . . . 1-3
2 MS Windows installation 2-1
2.1 Installing FEKO for Windows in graphical interactive mode . . . 2-1
2.2 Installing FEKO for Windows in silent mode using the installation . . . 2-4
2.3 Installing FEKO for Windows in silent mode using the MSI database . . . 2-5
2.4 Obtaining the FEKO licence file . . . 2-6
2.5 Domain-based authentication (SSPI) with parallel FEKO . . . 2-6
3 MS HPC Solution: Windows HPC Server installation 3-1
3.1 Installing FEKO for MS Windows HPC in silent mode . . . 3-1
3.2 Silent Mode using the Installation Executable . . . 3-1
3.3 Post-Installation Steps . . . 3-2
3.4 Starting Parallel FEKO . . . 3-2
4 UNIX/Linux workstation installations 4-1
4.1 Supported UNIX platforms . . . 4-1
4.2 Interactive UNIX installation . . . 4-1
5 Floating licences 5-1
5.1 Concept of floating licences and general comments . . . 5-1
5.2 Floating licence server installation and maintenance (Windows) . . . 5-2
5.3 Floating licence server installation and maintenance (UNIX) . . . 5-4
6 Setup for remote launching and farming 6-1
6.1 Remote launching using SSH . . . 6-1
6.2 Remote launching from Windows to Windows (simplified) . . . 6-2
6.2.1 Manual steps, if not selected during installation of FEKO . . . 6-3
6.2.2 Authentication aspects . . . 6-3
7 Adobe Reader installation 7-1
1
Introduction
This manual describes the installation procedures for FEKO on PCs and workstations, and also covers advanced topics such as floating licences and remote launching. You should be able to install the software successfully by following the on-screen installation instructions. However, it is recommended that you work through the applicable installation procedures described here. If you have technical questions, please contact your distributor (see section1.5).
The installation copies the FEKO manuals to the
doc
subdirectory. These manuals are in PDF format and a PDF viewer, for example the Adobe Reader, is required to view them. Installation of the Adobe Reader is discussed in section 7. On MS Windows systems the FEKO installation configures the GUI components to use the default PDF viewer, hence the PDF viewer should be installed before FEKO. (It is, of course, possible to configure the PDF viewer in the GUI compo-nents if it is installed/updated after installing FEKO, or if the installation detected an old version which is no longer available.)1.1
Using FEKO LITE instead of the full version
FEKO can be run in a mode calledFEKO LITE. This is a limited version of the FEKO suite. All the components of the suite, from the graphical user interfaces to the solver, are limited in capability when running in this mode. Note that the LITE version of FEKO is not an evaluation version! An evaluation licence will allow using an unlimited version of FEKO for 30 days. If you are considering the purchase of FEKO, please contact your distributor for an evaluation licence. A licence is required to run FEKO in LITE mode. If no licence is present, FEKO will run for a period of 30 days. The FEKO licence is stored in the file
secfeko.dat
in thelicense
subdirectory of the FEKO installation.A licence for the FEKO LITE mode can be requested from the FEKO web-site. The licence that will be provided will expire after 6 months, at which time a re-registration is required. Once the registration from is filled in, it will be submitted to the distributor for your region for processing. Once the request is processed, a licence file will be sent to you via email.
You can register your copy of FEKO LITE at
www.feko.info/register_lite
FEKO LITE is limited with respect to problem size and can therefore run only about half the examples in theFEKO Examples Guide. Similarly, only some of the examples in theFEKO Getting Started Manualcan be used without modifications. The FEKO LITE restrictions are available on the FEKO website1.
1.2
Installing the full version after using FEKO LITE
If you have an installation of FEKO LITE, switching to the full version is simple. (Note that the evaluation version is a full version which is limited only in the period for which it can be
INTRODUCTION 1-2
used.) In order to create a FEKO licence for a computer, some information about that computer is required. During the installation of FEKO, a
request
file should have been created in thelicense
subdirectory of the FEKO installation. If this licence request file is not there, then under MS Windows open the FEKO Licence Manager,secfeko_gui
, and execute from the menu the command Info→ Create request file. Under UNIX either runrequest.sh
or use the FEKO Licence Manager and use the menu itemInfo→ Create request file. If you are not able to create the request file, then please obtain the machine code information by using menu item Info →Machine code infoor by running
secfeko -m
in a console. Then send this information (licence request filerequest
or machine code information) by email or fax to your distributor. You will then receive a filesecfeko.dat
which you must copy to thelicense
subdirectory of the FEKO installation (overwrite any such existing file there).1.3
System requirements
The PC installation is for Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7 or Server 2003/2008 running on Intel Pentium/Xeon or AMD Athlon/Opteron or compatible processors. (Windows 98 and ME are no longer supported.) In addition to the 32-bit versions (SILVER licence category of FEKO), 64-bit Windows versions of FEKO are also available for AMD64, EM64T (Intel64), i.e. x86_64 architecture (requiring a GOLD licence category).
Depending on the specific installation options the Windows installation requires about 400 MByte free hard disk space.
The workstation installation is for any of the major UNIX workstation platforms, including HP, SUN and Linux. This then includes 32-bit IA32 Linux (SILVER licence category), x86_64 Linux for EM64T (Intel64) and AMD64 (GOLD licence category) and others like IA64 /Linux, IA64/ HP-UX, IBM and SUN (all requiring a PLATINUM licence category of FEKO).
1.4
Display settings and graphics cards
CADFEKO and POSTFEKO can be used with 256 colours, but a colour setting of at least 16 bits is recommended. In addition, practical use of these components require a screen resolution of 1024×768 or larger.
These components use OpenGL for rendering and this depends on the graphics card being used and the drivers installed for it. With a properly installed graphics card that supports 3D hard-ware rendering, a considerable speedup in visualisation should be seen. (See the graphics card’s documentation for information on OpenGL support.) Note that some cards only support OpenGL at a certain colour depth. A list of supported graphics cards that work with Hoops (Suite 6.0) are available at:
http://www.feko.info/GFXsupport
In addition, CADFEKO and POSTFEKO can be configured to allow accurate rendering on most graphics cards. In CADFEKO, select Options → Rendering from the main menu to open the
Rendering options dialog. In POSTFEKO, select Rendering options from the application menu to open the Rendering options dialog. Some cards may give better (but slower) results using software rendering. Face displacement allows a trade-off between edges appearing broken and supposedly hidden lines being visible. More detail is given in theFEKO User’s Manual.
1.5
Contacting your distributor or EMSS
You can find the distributor for your region at
http://www.feko.info/contact.htm
Alternatively, for technical questions, please send an email to
[email protected] for North America
[email protected] for Europe
[email protected] for all other regions or, for activation codes and licence queries, to
[email protected] for North America
[email protected] for Europe
[email protected] for all other regions
1.6
Updates to the documentation
Changes to the functionality of the code in this release with respect to the previous release of July 2009 (Suite 5.5) are indicated by adding a column in the margin. The changes are indicated in two ways:
Sections that have changed from those in the previous version of the manual. Sections that were newly added to this version of the manual.
MS WINDOWS INSTALLATION 2-1
2
MS Windows installation
Unless you install the 30-day unregistered version of FEKO LITE, FEKO requires a licence file (see section2.4). FEKO can only be installed on Windows machines (see section1.3) by a user with administrative rights. In addition, for the parallel version, you must have an account with the same username and password on all the PCs you want to use or use domain-based security. There are three different ways to install FEKO:
• Graphical interactive mode
• Silent mode using the installation executable
• Silent mode using the embedded Microsoft Installer database
Note that the silent installation does not perform all the necessary setup steps (some steps al-ways require user input). FEKO will be installed, but the configuration must be completed on all machines in the cluster. This can be done by editing the file
machines.feko
(located in%FEKO_HOME%
\mpi
\share
) and runningmpiregister.bat
(in%FEKO_HOME%
\mpi
\share
) on all the target machines. Note that it is only required to runmpiregister.bat
when the credentials have to be encrypted to the Windows registry.After completing the installation, the examples in the FEKO Getting Started Manual should be consulted for a step-by-step introduction to the basic operation of FEKO.
2.1
Installing FEKO for Windows in graphical interactive mode
(recom-mended)
There are two FEKO installations for MS Windows:
Platform Filename
32-bit Intel/AMD x86
feko_distrib_xx.yy_win32.exe
64-bit Intel EM64T or AMD x86_64
feko_distrib_xx.yy_win64.exe
where the
xx.yy
in the filename indicates the FEKO Suite number. The 64-bit installation auto-matically detects the platform and installs the correct version of the executables (different opti-mised executables are provided for AMD64 and EM64T). It is also, of course, possible to install the 32-bit version on a 64-bit system, but then the 32-bit limits (such as allocating a maximum of 2 GByte RAM) still apply.If you have downloaded the installation executable, copy it to a temporary directory on your hard drive and execute it.
If you have a FEKO DVD, insert it into your DVDROM drive. The FEKO installation program should start automatically. (If not, execute
startup.exe
in the root directory of the FEKO DVD.) Click Install 32-bit FEKO (SILVER licence) to install the 32-bit version or Install 64-bit FEKO (GOLD licence)for the 64-bit version. (The different licence categories relate to the pricing structure. If you are uncertain of your licence type, please contact your distributor.) Note that theInstall 64-bit FEKObutton will be disabled when running on a 32-bit system. If this button is disabled in error, the installation executable can be found in theinstalls
\windows
directory.• You must uninstall any existing versions of FEKO (prior to version 5.0) before continuing. If you have FEKO 5.0 or later installed, the installation will automatically upgrade your existing installation. (All user and licence files will be retained.) Please note that as of Suite 5.5 FEKO supports side-by-side concurrent FEKO installations on Windows. You will therefore be able to have 5.5 and later versions installed simultaneously. FEKO 5.4 or earlier will however still be removed upon installation of Suite 5.5 or later.
• If you already have FEKO Suite 5.5 or later installed on your computer, the Select up-grade configurationdialog will be shown. Select theInstall this version alongside all other versions to install this version of FEKO side-by-side with all other versions currently on the machine. If you want to remove all other versions, select theUpgrade to this version
option. You may also elect to manually choose which versions to keep or uninstall.
• If you have selected the option to manually choose which versions to keep or uninstall, the Select upgrade settings dialog will be shown. You will see a list of the current FEKO installations on the machine. Here you can select which versions should be automatically uninstalled by this installer. When you have finished and click Next the installer will try to uninstall all the selected versions. Please wait for these uninstallation actions to finish before proceeding.
• The Choose destination location page is used to select the folder where FEKO will be in-stalled. Because FEKO now supports side-by-side concurrent suite installations the default installation location is now
%ProgramFiles%
\FEKO
\xx.yy
wherexx.yy
is the suite num-ber. If you elect to always keep only one version of FEKO on your machine, you may remove thexx.yy
from the installation location.Note that if you are installing the 32-bit version of FEKO on a 64-bit system you cannot install it to the
%ProgramFiles%
folder, as this is reserved for 64-bit applications. If you have selected the%ProgramFiles%
folder the installer will automatically use the 32-bit%ProgramFiles(x86)%
folder.• TheSelect featurespage controls what is installed. FEKO (Solver and GUI)must be selected if this PC will be used to setup and solve FEKO models.
SelectInstall as FEKO LITEto install a limited version that can be used for 30 days without a licence. After 30 days you need to register FEKO LITE or switch to a full version. (See section2.4.)
If you purchased floating licences, you must install aFloating licence serveron one server in your network (see section5).
If you purchased a dongle you must also install the drivers for it. The FEKO installer now includes the drivers, so you no longer need to install the drivers separately. To install the drivers, selectDongle Drivers.
• TheChoose a scratch directorypage allows the user to determine where FEKO writes tem-porary files during the out-of-core solution. This should be a directory which can accommo-date very large files. This path is stored in the environment variable
FEKO_TMPDIR
which may be modified if the temporary files should be written to a different location (such as when a second hard disk is used to provide larger scratch space).• TheRemote execution of the FEKO solverpage allows you to specify whether the FEKO tem-porary directory (which you specified on the previous page) should be a shared directory or
MS WINDOWS INSTALLATION 2-3
not. If you enable sharing of the temporary folder, you will be able to use the current com-puter as a remote host. What this allows you to do is to build your model on one comcom-puter (where you maybe only have a Silver licence, or a less powerful CPU) and then run the FEKO solver on another computer (where you maybe have a Gold licence or a more pow-erful CPU). The temporary folder will be shared as \\
%COMPUTERNAME%
\feko_remote$
and have full permissions for ’Authenticated Users’. Guests or unauthenticated users will not have access by default.
Note that if you disable this option, you can still use remote launching using SSH (if SSH is available on the computer). Please refer to section6for more information about setting up remote launching via SSH.
• The Select parallel runs settings can be used to specify where parallel FEKO runs will be performed. If you intend to perform parallel runs only on the local machine, selectRun on local machine only. Selecting this option allows you to perform parallel FEKO runs on a multi-core CPU. The installer automatically inserts the detected number of cores/CPUs as a default number, but this may be changed if you wish to run a different number of parallel processes. If you have installed FEKO on a Windows cluster that is part of a Windows domain and you intend to perform parallel runs on the cluster, select Run on a Windows cluster, use Active Directory integration. If you have installed FEKO on a Windows cluster that isnotpart of a Windows domain and you intend to perform parallel runs on this cluster, select Run on a Windows cluster, encrypt credentials into registry. If you also have FEKO installed on a non-Windows cluster and you wish to perform parallel runs on that cluster, selectRun on a non-Windows cluster.
• Depending on your selection in the Select parallel runs settings dialog, when the Next
button is clicked you may see a file
[INSTALLDIR]
\mpi
\share
\machines.feko
being opened in Notepad. You may use this to enter the names of all the machines that you will be performing parallel runs on, as well as the number of parallel processes per machine. Use the formatMACHINE_NAME:PROCESSES
, e.g.clustermachine.mydomain:4
.• If you selected the optionRun on a Windows cluster, encrypt credentials into registryyou will see an additional console window that you must use to enter the user credentials that will be used for authentication on the cluster. The default username is the user that is performing the installation, but you may enter any valid username/password combination here. The credentials are encrypted and stored in the registry for use during parallel runs.
• FEKO can be configured by setting certain environment variables. (See the FEKO User’s Manualfor more details regarding changing
initfeko.bat
.) The installation already sets the most common of these.• During setup a number of examples are copied to the subdirectory
examples
under the FEKO installation. These may be used to test your FEKO installation and to provide exam-ples of the various FEKO features. (For more detail consult theExamples Guidewhich may be found in PDF format in thedoc
subdirectory of the FEKO installation directory.)If you have installed FEKO and would like to change any of the installation options such as adding or removing the floating licence server, simply run the FEKO installation again to modify the installation.
For parallel solver runs FEKO uses MPI (Message Passing Interface). Three MPI implementations are supported on Windows, namely Intel MPI, MPICH2 and MS-MPI. The installer sets Intel MPI
as the default on all systems except Windows HPC, where MS-MPI is used by default. This may be changed at any time by either setting the environment variable
FEKO_WHICH_MPI
or my modifying the value of the variableinitfeko_FEKO_WHICH_MPI
in the fileinitfeko.bat
located in the
%FEKO_HOME%
\bin
directory. Possible values for the variables are listed below.• Intel MPI: This is the recommended MPI implementation to use (default for most plat-forms). It supports SMP (Symmetrical Multi-Processing) and all communication protocols like Ethernet, GigaBit Ethernet, but also Myrinet or Infiniband through DAPL. Select Intel MPI by setting
FEKO_WHICH_MPI=11
.• MS-MPI: This MPI implementation is provided by Microsoft, and it provides tighter inte-gration with the Windows HPC (High-Performance Computing) job scheduler. Note that this is not available in general on Windows systems, as it is a part of the Microsoft HPC Server 2008 and Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. MS-MPI is selected by setting
FEKO_WHICH_MPI=13
.• MPICH2: This MPI implementation should normally not be used, and it is provided as fall-back if trouble with Intel MPI is observed (e.g. bad parallel performance of one solution phase). MPICH2 is selected by setting
FEKO_WHICH_MPI=1
.Advanced users might want to read the MPI documentation that is provided in the directory
mpi
\<mpi-version
>\doc
of the FEKO installation directory. For instance for Intel MPI addi-tional hints are given on how to install DAPL drivers for interconnects like Myrinet or Infiniband. Regarding the usage of the parallel FEKO version (i.e. how to run parallel FEKO, how to specify which nodes to be used and how many processes, how to set specific MPI options etc.), please refer to the corresponding section in theFEKO User’s Manual.2.2
Installing FEKO for Windows in silent mode using the installation
exe-cutable
The FEKO installer for Windows can also be installed in silent mode using the provided tion executable. This mode is used to install FEKO without manually going through the installa-tion dialogs.
• To use the installer in silent mode, a response file must first be created. The response file only needs to be created once, and can then be used on all the target machines. The FEKO DVD contains a template response file called
setup.iss
. This file is located in theinstalls
\windows
directory on the DVD. Copy this file to a temporary location on the target computer’s hard drive. This file contains the header information required by the installer when running in silent mode.• The next step is to run the installer in record mode. Launch the installer as follows:
feko_distrib_xx.yy_winNN.exe /r /f1"C:\Temp\setup.iss"
where
"C:
\Temp
\setup.iss"
specifies the absolute path to thesetup.iss
file. This will launch the installer in record mode and record all the steps followed (selecting installation directory, installed components etc.). Note that this will install FEKO on the computer that is used to create the response file.MS WINDOWS INSTALLATION 2-5
• The completed
setup.iss
file can now be copied to all the target machines along with the installation executable. To install FEKO in silent mode on a target machine, launch the installer as follows:feko_distrib_xx.yy_winNN.exe /s /f1"C:\Temp\setup.iss"
where
"C:
\Temp
\setup.iss"
specifies the absolute path to thesetup.iss
file. The installation will complete without any user input.2.3
Installing FEKO for Windows in silent mode using the MSI database
The last mechanism provided to install FEKO silently uses the embedded MSI file directly.
• The FEKO installer (
feko_distrib_xx.yy_winNN.exe
) contains a MSI database. This must first be extracted before it can be used. To extract the MSI database, launch the FEKO installer normally (i.e. by double-clicking it or just typingfeko_distrib_xx.yy_winNN.exe
at a command prompt). When the welcome screen is displayed, click the “Cancel” button and abort the installation. The FEKO MSI database can then be found under
%WINDIR%
\FEKO
Installations
\[GUID]
\. Copy this file to all the target machines. Note that FEKO is NOT installed on the machine that the file was extracted on.• On the target machines, open a command prompt and change directory to the location of the MSI database. Then launch the Windows installer as follows:
msiexec /i "FEKO x.y.msi" /qb+ [variables]
where
[variables]
may contain–
INSTALLDIR="C:
\FEKO"
: The path where FEKO must be installed. The default isC:
\%ProgramFiles%
\feko
.–
FEKO_USER_HOME="C:
\FEKO"
: The location of the FEKO user files. The default is%APPDATA%
\feko
. and must contain–
FEKO_TMPDIR="C:
\Temp"
: The path to the directory where FEKO will store tempo-rary files.–
FEKO_SILENT="1"
: This must be specified in silent MSI mode.–
ADDLOCAL="Default,..."
: The features to install. Specify any of the following items (along with "Default") in a comma-separated list:∗
FEKOKernel
∗
FEKOLITE
∗
FloatingLicence
Note that you must not specify
FEKOLITE
andFloatingLicence
together.– For 64-bit systems the architecture must be specified. For Intel Itanium, please spec-ify
TARGET_IS_IA64="1"
, for Intel EM64T specifyTARGET_IS_EM64T="1"
and for AMD64 specifyTARGET_IS_AMD64="1"
.2.4
Obtaining the FEKO licence file
The installation program should have created the file
request
in thelicense
subdirectory of the FEKO installation. If it does not exist, this file can be created by starting the FEKO Licence Manager,secfeko_gui
, and from the menu executing the commandInfo→Create request file. Edit the file — enter the information requested at the top thereof — and email or fax it to your distributor (see section 1.5). You will then receive a licence filesecfeko.dat
which must be placed in thelicense
subdirectory of the FEKO installation to activate your licence. (You can run an unregistered version of FEKO LITE — the GUI components will switch automatically if no licence is found — for a period of 30 days until you obtain this file. After 30 days you also need a licence file to run FEKO LITE.) If you are using floating licences the procedure is the same, but you may need to edit this file, see section5).If you want to switch to an evaluation version after running FEKO LITE, you need to create and send the
request
file to your distributor as mentioned above. Then overwrite the existing filesecfeko.dat
with the new one obtained from your distributor.2.5
Domain-based authentication (SSPI) with parallel FEKO
When running parallel FEKO involving multiple machines, the processes must be authenticated. FEKO on Windows uses MPI implementations which offer different possibilities for the authenti-cation. These are available in the GUI for each run. (Detailed explanation about these options are available in theFEKO User’s Manual.)
For machines in a Windows (Active Directory) Domain there is also the SSPI authentication method provided, which makes use of integrated domain mechanisms that do not need to have the encrypted username and password saved in the registry. However, there may be some config-uration settings required in the Active Directory and the member machines to prepare the domain and computers for this kind of authentication (please contact your domain administrator). Details about the required settings are given in the MPI documentation of Intel MPI (User Autho-rization — Active Directory Setup) and MPICH2 (Runtime Environment — Security) shipped in the directory
mpi
\<mpi-version
>\doc
of the FEKO installation directory.MS HPC SOLUTION: WINDOWS HPC SERVER INSTALLATION 3-1
3
MS HPC Solution: Windows HPC Server installation
The installation and configuration of FEKO on the Microsoft HPC solution "Windows HPC Server 2008" are detailed below.
Note: The first version of this platform was named "Windows CCS Server 2003" (Compute Cluster Server) which is now replaced by the version 2 of this product named "Windows HPC Server 2008" edition.
3.1
Installing FEKO for MS Windows HPC in silent mode
The silent mode using the installation executable (as available form the FEKO website) will be the preferred way of (un-)installing FEKO on Microsoft Windows HPC. With this option, additional steps will be performed which will ensure proper functionality. With the MSI-based option, these steps might have to be run manually after the (un-)installation has been completed.
3.2
Silent Mode using the Installation Executable
• First do an interactive installation on a node (preferably on some arbitrary test machine or the head node) and record all the settings into an answer file which is then is used to perform the unattended installation on all the cluster nodes (see section 2.2 for details). This setup is started using the following command (where xx.yy refers the major and minor version number for the current release):
feko_distrib_xx.yy_win64.exe /r /f1"C:\Temp\setup.iss"
Note that if the head node is not a compute node, then performing this interactive installa-tion (with recording the settings) is best done directly on the head node where FEKO then will also be available.
• Next the installation file
"feko_distrib_xx.yy_win64.exe"
and also the setup answer file"setup.iss"
have to be made available on some shared network location to be reach-able by all the cluster nodes in the following steps. For the following assuming the location to be\\server
\share
.• Then one can start the unattended installation on all the cluster nodes from the head node:
clusrun start /wait "\\server\share\feko_distrib_xx.yy_win64.exe" /s /sms /f1"\\server\share\setup.iss"
Theclusruntool is part of the Windows CCS/CCP toolset and readily available on the head node. The above command will install FEKO on all cluster nodes, that are configured and approved by the Windows Compute Cluster Administrator Management Console SnapIn. If FEKO will be installed on a subset or a computer group, then please see the documentation of theclusruntool for additional command line options to be added to the above command. Note that if the head node is not a compute node, thenclusrunmight not include the head node in the execution of this command. Thus one will have to make sure that FEKO was installed manually on this head node before starting the cluster installation (i.e. use the head node as described above for recording the setup answer file in the first step).
The duration of the last step will be quite long (according to the number of cluster nodes that have to be installed) and there will be no output available during this time, so please be patient. At the end there will be an output for each of the nodes. There should also not be any error messages displayed and preferably the return value must be 0 (zero) to indicate a successful installation.
Uninstalling FEKO is done in the very same way: On one node (again preferably the head node) start the uninstallation with recording to a setup an answer file (i.e.
uninstall.iss
). Then repeat the above steps using this uninstallation answer file.3.3
Post-Installation Steps
After the above procedure has been completed, FEKO is installed (on all nodes of the cluster) and all additional required resources are installed and configured. However, there are some additional steps, depending on the licensing scheme and the user authentication. Additionally this might also depend on how jobs will be submitted to the cluster (administrative policies, company policies, etc.).
Request File (for License Generation)
This file (
%FEKO_HOME%
\license
\request
) is only generated in the correct way if, dur-ing installation from the head node, this head node was also installed with FEKO (see above). Please check this file by opening in any text editor if it contains all the information for all the nodes of the cluster (including the head node). This file has to be submitted to EMSS for license generation.If that is not the case, then please run the following file:
%FEKO_HOME%
\bin
\request.bat
on the head node. This will then create the correct file with all information on the head node’s license subdirectory.FEKO License File
The FEKO license file (
secfeko.dat
) must be copied to all the nodes where FEKO is installed. you will receive this file from EMSS after you submitted the "request
" file containing all required information. This file has to be placed in the following directory:%FEKO_HOME%
\license
. The easiest way to do this is to place it on some share (e.g.\\
server
\share
) and then running the following command from the head node:clusrun copy "\\server\share\secfeko.dat" "%FEKO\_HOME%\license"
The user is now ready to run on parallel FEKO computations on this cluster.
3.4
Starting Parallel FEKO
There are many ways to submit a job to the HPC system. Maybe there are also company policies enforcing a special way of submitting, thus only the basic way will be discussed in this manual. The cluster administrators should then be able to incorporate this into their means of submitting jobs.
MS HPC SOLUTION: WINDOWS HPC SERVER INSTALLATION 3-3
• Jobs can be submitted from either the head node or from any machine having access to the cluster and having theWindows CCPtools installed.
• The machine from where a job is being submitted does not necessarily need to have FEKO installed (but mostly it will be there because of pre- and postprocessing).
• The model files must be accessible via network from the cluster nodes.
• The “real command” in the submitted job/task is then:
"<path to FEKO installation folder>\bin\runfeko.exe" "<modelname>" --use-job-scheduler
• All options (e.g. regarding which machines to use and how many nodes will participate in this run) have the to be specified when submitting/creating this job/task. This can be done in any way and has to be provided by the cluster administrator.
The following will discuss submitting/running a simple example from the command line: As an example, assume the following situation:
• FEKO is installed in
C:
\Program Files
\FEKO
\6.0
.• The model filename is
example_1.pre
.• The model is located on a shared network location at\\
server
\share
.• There are four nodes participating in the parallel run. The command to launch this would be (all in one line):
job submit /numprocessors:4-4 /jobname:FEKO_testjob_1 /workdir:\\server\share
/stdout:\\server\share\example_01.stdout /stdErr:\\server\share\example_01.stderr
"C:\Program Files\FEKO\6.0\bin\runfeko.exe" example_01 --use-job-scheduler
This then creates a task with one single job and runs this immediately (if resources are available) on this cluster. All information is being read from and written to the directory where the model is located. Also the normal output (
STDOUT
) and the error messages (STERR
) are redirected into files and will thus be available for later checking after the computation was completed.4
UNIX
/
Linux workstation installations
To install FEKO on a UNIX or Linux workstation (both parallel and sequential versions) the FEKO installation script must be executed, see below for detailed instructions. Note again that the pre-and post processing support components are currently only available on Windows pre-and Linux PCs.
4.1
Supported UNIX platforms
The UNIX platforms currently supported are summarised below. A parallel version of FEKO is available for all these platforms. For FEKO on other workstation platforms please contact your distributor, a port might be available or can maybe be made available. The indicated filename is relevant only if you are not installing directly from the FEKO DVD. The string
xx.yy
in the filename indicates the FEKO Suite version.Platform Filename
Linux (32-bit Intel/AMD x86)
feko_distrib_xx.yy_LINUX.tar.gz
Linux (64-bit on Intel Itanium IA64)
feko_distrib_xx.yy_LINUX_IA64.tar.gz
Linux (64-bit on Intel EM64T)
feko_distrib_xx.yy_LINUX_EM64T.tar.gz
Linux (64-bit on AMD x86_64)
feko_distrib_xx.yy_LINUX_AMD64.tar.gz
HP-UX (64-bit on Intel Itanium IA64)
feko_distrib_xx.yy_HP_IA64.tar.gz
HP-UX (64-bit on HP PA 2.0)
feko_distrib_xx.yy_HP.tar.gz
SUN Solaris (32- and 64-bit)
feko_distrib_xx.yy_SUN.tar.gz
IBM AIX (64-bit on PowerPC)
feko_distrib_xx.yy_IBM.tar.gz
4.2
Interactive UNIX installation
The following procedure can be used to install FEKO on a new workstation or to perform an update of an existing installation (in the case of an update, a backup of the old installation is created automatically). If you have technical questions, please contact your distributor (see section1.5).
• The default FEKO installation path is
/opt/feko/xx.yy
wherexx.yy
represent the ma-jor and minor suite versions. Of course any other directory can be specified during the interactive installation process. Make sure at this stage that you have write permissions on the directory where you want to install FEKO. In most situations, one might have to change to theroot
user, in particular if FEKO is to be installed in a global directory accessible by more than one user.• For the next step, we distinguish between three different situations:
a.) You have received FEKO on a DVD, and the workstation where you want to install FEKO has a DVDROM drive. Then you can install directly from the DVD. Load the DVD on this workstation and mount it. The command for this is system dependent, for example
UNIX / LINUX WORKSTATION INSTALLATIONS 4-2
mount /dev/hdc /mnt/dvddrom
(check for your system). It is assumed that the DVD has been mounted to
/mnt/dvdrom
, then simply execute the FEKO installation scriptcd /mnt/dvdrom/installs/unix sh ./INSTALL.SH
which will guide you step by step through the installation process.Note that the mount options may influence the case of file and directory names — please use
ls
to determine the case of the directory and file names if it is not the same as above. (The installation script will account for both cases.)b.) If you have received FEKO on a DVD, but cannot read the DVD from your worksta-tion, then copy the appropriate
*.tar.gz
file for your platform (see table in sec-tion4.1, e.g.feko_distrib_xx.yy_LINUX.tar.gz
for the FEKO Suitexx.yy
for Linux PCs) from the subdirectoryinstalls/unix/archives
on the DVD to a tem-porary directory on the workstation (you may temporarily need up to 390 MByte of disk space there). This can be done for instance by reading the DVD on a PC, and transferring the file via ftp (binary mode) to the workstation, or by using a shared network drive.c.) If you have not received FEKO on a DVD, but rather downloaded the installation file (e.g.
feko_distrib_xx.yy_LINUX.tar.gz
for Suitexx.yy
for Linux PCs) directly from the FEKO website, then put this file in a temporary directory on your workstation. In the following section it is assumed that this directory is/tmp
.Then proceed as follows (this is an example for 32-bit Linux PCs, substitute the correct filenames for your platform and note again that the GUI is available only for Linux, i.e. skip the second file if installing say on an HP workstation):
cd /tmp
gunzip c feko_distrib_xx.yy_LINUX.tar.gz | tar xf -cd feko_install
sh ./INSTALL.SH
This will start the installation script. The installation script will guide you step by step through the installation process.
Once the installation is finished, the temporary files in
/tmp/feko_install
can be deleted. Also see the instructions given to you online.• The section of the installation script that installs the parallel version of FEKO allows the user to select the type of interconnect and MPI (Message Passing Interface) version to be used, whether rsh (remote shell) or ssh (secure shell) should be used for remote operations, and also selecting the nodes in a cluster with the number of CPUs available on the nodes. For parallel clusters, the FEKO installation script will also automatically copy the FEKO installation to all nodes on the cluster if not available there via NFS or so (thus as opposed to Windows a separate installation on each node is not required).
Platform Filename
Linux (32-bit Intel/AMD x86) MPICH, Intel MPI
Linux (64-bit on Intel Itanium IA64) SGI MPT∗, MPICH, Intel MPI Linux (64-bit on Intel EM64T) MPICH, Intel MPI
Linux (64-bit on AMD x86_64) MPICH, Intel MPI HP-UX (64-bit on Intel Itanium IA64) HP-MPI
HP-UX (64-bit on HP PA 2.0) HP-MPI SUN Solaris (32- and 64-bit) MPICH IBM AIX (64-bit on PowerPC) IBM PE
The MPI versions marked with∗ must be installed and be available on the end user system (either part of the operating system, or licensed separately). For all other MPI implemen-tations, the complete run-time environment is part of the FEKO installation, no extra com-ponents need to be installed. If you are unsure about which MPI version to use, keep the default which is suggested during the FEKO installation. This is typically the best choice. For advanced users, it might be desirable to check the corresponding MPI documentation which is provided with FEKO in the directory
mpi/
<mpi-version
>/doc
of the FEKO installation directory ($FEKO_HOME
). For instance for Intel MPI additional hints are given on how to install DAPL drivers for interconnects like Myrinet or Infiniband (see also the corresponding comments in theinitfeko
file located in the$FEKO_HOME/bin
directory which is created during the FEKO installation).Regarding the usage of the parallel FEKO version (i.e. how to run parallel FEKO, how to specify which nodes to be used and how many processes, how to set specific MPI options etc.), please refer to the corresponding section in theFEKO User’s Manual.
• Note that before FEKO can be used on the workstation, certain environment variables must be set. To this end a shell script
initfeko
will be created during the installation, which can be found in thebin
subdirectory of the FEKO installation tree, e.g.$FEKO_HOME/bin
. See the instructions given on screen of how this file must be executed (it can, for example, be inserted into your personal startup file$HOME/.profile
or$HOME/.bash_profile
). This initialisation scriptinitfeko
is intended for the ksh, bsh, sh, and bash shells.A similar script
initfeko.csh
is created (also in the subdirectory$FEKO_HOME/bin
) for the C-Shell (i.e. csh, tcsh). For an automatic execution, please execute this script from the personal startup files$HOME/.login
or$HOME/.cshrc
.• The installation script will create a file
request
in the subdirectorylicense
under the FEKO installation directory (e.g.$FEKO_HOME/license/request
). Some updates will require a new licence file. (FEKO will then give a message if the licence file is no longer valid if you run it after the installation.) If this is the case, or if this is a new installation, please email or fax therequest
file to your distributor (see section1.5). You will then receive a filesecfeko.dat
with the licences for your workstation (or for a parallel machine for all nodes of the cluster). This file (secfeko.dat
) must be placed in thelicense
subdirectory of the FEKO installation directory. Also see detailed instructions with the full path for your specific setup in the filerequest
and on screen during the FEKO installation.The installer also allows the user to install dongle drivers or upgrade the installed dongle drivers. These drivers are only required if a dongle has been obtained and will be used on the particular machine.
UNIX / LINUX WORKSTATION INSTALLATIONS 4-4
A complete log of the installation process is also written during the installation. This log file will be located in your
/tmp
directory. Please include this file with your message to the FEKO Support team if the installation procedure is not successful.5
Floating licences
By default FEKO uses a node locked licence scheme. From FEKO Suite 4.2 onwards a floating licence scheme is also available, and from FEKO Suite 5.2 on multiple redundant floating licence servers are also supported. This whole section is only relevant if you purchased this separate licence option, otherwise it can be skipped.
5.1
Concept of floating licences and general comments
The concept of floating licences is quite simple. One or more (typically three) floating licence servers are chosen, which manage the FEKO licences. The server machines should be reliable machines running more or less permanently, without being rebooted too often. If a single floating licence server is used and this server cannot be reached, (e.g. while being rebooted) then FEKO cannot be used. Also, any FEKO jobs running at that time, even on remote client machines, will then be terminated. If multiple redundant floating licence servers are used, then individual servers can be rebooted without affecting the FEKO usage, provided that at any time a majority (so-called quorum) of floating licence servers is up and can be reached from the clients. So if three floating licence servers are used, two of these machines must be up and running, while the third can be shutdown or rebooted without affecting the usage of FEKO (both already running jobs will continue and starting new components is also possible).
At the time of installation (see separate details below for UNIX and Windows) only the
request
files of the floating licence servers need to be sent to your distributor in order to create a licence file
secfeko.dat
. The client machines can be chosen arbitrarily, but need to have a permanent network connection to the floating licence servers (i.e. a notebook computer cannot act as a client if FEKO is to be used on this while for instance travelling. For such cases, EMSS also offers special licences locked to a dongle).The obtained licence file
secfeko.dat
must be copied into the subdirectorylicense
of your FEKO installation. This must be done on all floating licence servers and also on all client ma-chines, so that they know which floating licence servers to contact (hostnames or IP addresses) and which TCP port to use for the communication. This information is in the header section of the licence file and can be edited:############### START USER EDITABLE SECTION ############### # Specify here your floating licence servers together with # the respective TCP port numbers that will be used for # communication between clients and servers. Leave the default # if you are unsure. If you get an error message that the port is # in use you will have to change it.
# For the hostnames you can use either the hostname or the IP # address (from each client you must be able to reach
# the server in this way, if you have problems try "ping" # with exactly the hostname or IP address you have specified # below after the SERVER keyword).
SERVER licsrv.emss.co.za PORT 11601
############### END USER EDITABLE SECTION ###############
Note that while you can edit the
SERVER
hostname or IP address, you cannot move the floating licence server to another machine without first having sent therequest
file of this machine to your distributor and having obtained a new valid licence filesecfeko.dat
for the new licence server machine. When using multiple redundant floating licence servers, a similar block existsFLOATING LICENCES 5-2
with the information for all the multiple redundant floating licence servers (three in the example below).:
############### START USER EDITABLE SECTION ############### # Specify here your floating licence servers together with # the respective TCP port numbers that will be used for # communication between clients and servers. Leave the default # if you are unsure. If you get an error message that the port is # in use you will have to change it.
# For the hostnames you can use either the hostname or the IP # address (from each client you must be able to reach
# the server in this way, if you have problems try "ping" # with exactly the hostname or IP address you have specified # below after the SERVER keyword).
SERVER1 licsrv1.emss.co.za PORT1 11602 SERVER2 licsrv2.emss.co.za PORT2 11602 SERVER3 licsrv3.emss.co.za PORT3 11602
############### END USER EDITABLE SECTION ###############
Arbitrary TCP ports can be selected, by default FEKO uses 11601. Note that when editing the port information, this must be the same on the client and the server side. Also when changing the port on the server side, don’t forget to restart the floating licence server so that this change comes into effect.
Such management tasks like restarting the floating licence server can be accomplished by a graph-ical utility
secfeko_gui
(see FEKO User’s Manual for details) or by using the command line utilitysecfeko
. Just typesecfeko
in a command or shell window to get a syntax overview. Restarting the floating licence server can be done for instance by using the command (if multiple redundant floating licence servers are used, then all of them will be restarted):secfeko -r
5.2
Floating licence server installation and maintenance
(Windows)
Under MS Windows, the floating licence server must be installed on a machine running Windows XP/Vista/7 or Server 2003/2008. Note that administrative rights are required during the instal-lation (the FEKO floating licence server
secfekod.exe
will be installed as a service under the SYSTEM account).Follow the standard installation instructions under Windows as outlined in section2.1. On the
Select features page, Floating licence server must be selected. You may or may not install the solver and GUI on the licence server, but you cannot install FEKO LITE and the floating licence server on the same PC.
If using multiple redundant floating licence servers, (see section5.1for the advantages) then this installation procedure must be repeated on all these machines.
A
request
file will be created during each FEKO installation. Please send these request files for each server (and not the ones of the client machines) to your distributor. See section2.4for details.Once you have obtained the FEKO licence file (
secfeko.dat
) and copied this into thelicense
subdirectory of your FEKO installation (all clients and servers), the floating licence servers must be started. Do this on each server either from a command window by typing
secfekod --start
or from the program menu under Settings→ Control Panel → Administrative Tools→ Services
and there in the list right click on the service FEKO floating licence managerand select Start. In a few cases this operation may not be successful. Then the licence server must be rebooted. From the service menu under Windows, the floating licence server can also be stopped in the same way. When using the command line interface, the corresponding call is
secfekod --stop
to stop the service. With
secfekod --remove
the floating licence server will be stopped if it is running, and the service removed (but it will not be removed from the hard disk). To install it again as a service, use
secfekod --install
A special logging option is supported where each floating licence server writes a log file (named
secfekod.log
) into thelicense
subdirectory of the FEKO installation. This log file allows usage tracking of floating licences and might be helpful for troubleshooting purposes. To activate this logging option, use the option-l
forsecfekod
. This must then be installed assecfekod -l --install
(use first
-l
followed by–install
, not the other way round). For troubleshooting purposes, it is also possible to run the floating licence server not as a service, but in an interactive mode (with direct error output to the console). To do so, start the server in a console window assecfekod -i
or with the described logging facility enabled use
secfekod -l -i
Note that this log file
secfekod.log
can become very large (even if the floating licence server is restarted new information will just be appended to a possibly already existing file), so one should activate this logging option only when required and deactivate again if no longer needed.Once you have obtained the licence file and started the floating licence server, it is a good idea to check its proper operation by starting
secfeko_gui
(seeFEKO User’s Manualfor more details on this). It should then connect to the floating licence servers and obtain a list of the floating licences and show their status (available versus in-use etc.).All error messages that the floating licence server encounters while running as a service (i.e. not the interactive mode described above) are written to the system event log facility, which can be viewed from theControl Panel → Administrative Tools→ Event Viewer→ Applications. In this event log the name
secfekod
is used as source, and not only errors are logged, but also startup and stop notices.All errors of the floating licence server are also written to a file
licence.error
in the sub-directorylicense
of the FEKO installation. The error descriptions should be relatively clear, in case of problems please contact FEKO Support (see section 1.5 for details) with a problem description and the error number (preferably send the completelicence.error
file as an e-mail attachment).FLOATING LICENCES 5-4
One potential problem should be mentioned here: Under Windows XP one can activate an inter-net connection firewall for inter-network connections under the advanced TCP/IP networking settings. If this firewall is active on the floating licence server, then in the default configuration, incoming connections to the chosen TCP port (see the comment on page 5-2, by default 11601) will be blocked and clients attempting to connect to the floating licence server will terminate with a suitable error message. In this case please configure the firewall so that incoming connections on this TCP port are allowed from your domain (add a specific service
secfekod
to the firewall settings, see the Windows documentation on how to do this).5.3
Floating licence server installation and maintenance (UNIX)
Under UNIX, perform a standard installation of FEKO on all the machines that shall act as floating licence servers and on all the client machines where FEKO shall be used, see section4.
A
request
file will be created during the FEKO installation, please send the request files of the servers (and not the ones of the client machines) to your distributor. See section2.4for details. Once you have obtained the FEKO licence filesecfeko.dat
and copied this into thelicense
subdirectory of your FEKO installation (on the server machines and also on all the client ma-chines), the floating licence servers must be started. To this end, three different startup scripts have been created during the FEKO installation process in the directory
$FEKO_HOME/bin
:secfekod_init.SuSE
for SuSE Linuxsecfekod_init.RedHat
for RedHat Linuxsecfekod_init.generic
a generic script e.g. for HP-UXPlease check the setting of the variable
FEKODIR
in the appropriate file for you to match the FEKO installation directly, and then copy this file to the general daemon startup directory such as/etc/init.d/
by using for instance for SuSE Linux the commandcp $FEKO_HOME/bin/secfekod.init_SuSE /etc/init.d/secfekod
Register this service by using the suitable system command, e.g.
insserv secfekod
for Linux, so that it will be started automatically the next time you boot your machine. For the first time now manually start the daemon using the command
/etc/init.d/secfekod start
This will start the floating licence server as a background process. This is the recommended way of operation, but
root
privileges will be required. Should this not be desired, one can also simply start the FEKO floating licence server in an interactive mode (use$FEKO_HOME/bin/secfekod
-i
) or as daemon (use$FEKO_HOME/bin/secfekod -d
) under any user account.A special logging option is supported where each floating licence server writes a log file (named
secfekod.log
) into thelicense
subdirectory of the FEKO installation. This log file allows usage tracking of floating licences and might be helpful for troubleshooting purposes. To activate this logging option, use the option-l
forsecfekod
, so this must then be installed assecfekod -l -d
in the daemon mode or as
secfekod -l -i
in the interactive mode. To permanently activate this logging feature, edit the corresponding startup script
secfekod_init
(see above) and add the command line option-l
there. Note that this log filesecfekod.log
can become very large (even if the floating licence server is restarted new information will just be appended to a possibly already existing file), so one should activate this logging option only when required and deactivate again if no longer needed.Once you have started the floating licence server, it is a good idea to check its proper operation by starting
secfeko_gui
(see FEKO User’s Manual for more details on this). It should then connect to the floating licence server and obtain a list of the floating licences and show their status (available versus in-use etc.).This utility
secfeko_gui
is yet not available for all UNIX platforms. If not available, use the commandsecfeko -p
to retrieve and display such licence usage information.
In case of any errors: In the interactive mode (see startup option
-i
mentioned above) error messages that the floating licence server encounters are written to the console tostderr
. When runningsecfekod
as a daemon (default and recommended), then all error messages are written to the system event log facility, typically this is the file/var/log/messages
. All startup and stop notices are also logged there.For the daemon mode, all errors of the floating licence server are also written to a file (named
licence.error
) in the sub-directorylicense
of the FEKO installation. The error descriptions should be relatively clear. In case of problems please contact FEKO Support (see section 1.5for details) with a problem description and the error number (preferably send the complete
licence.error
file as an e-mail attachment). In case of trouble, you might also use the logging option (see activation details above) to gain further insight and also send this log fileSETUP FOR REMOTE LAUNCHING AND FARMING 6-1
6
Setup for remote launching and farming
FEKO provides facilities for Remote launching and farming out of optimisation steps. This allows, for instance, for sequential or parallel jobs on a workstation or parallel cluster to be launched from a local desktop PC or for different optimisation steps to run concurrently on different pro-cessors within a cluster. The setup required for farming is the same as that required for re-mote launching. It is important to note that, though farming between the processors of a single multi-core machine is possible, this still requires that both the client and server setup for remote launching be available on the machine.
It is suggested that new users first install FEKO locally and familiarise themselves with FEKO. Then this section can be skipped. One can later come back to setup the remote launching if this is desired.
For the remote launching in FEKO, there is no need for the file systems to be shared, all the file copy operations are performed automatically. Also the progress of the remote run (including warning or error messages) can be monitored locally, similar to launching the job locally.
6.1
Remote launching using SSH
This remote launching is also cross platform, one can for instance launch a remote job from a Windows PC on a Linux cluster or on an HP workstation, but also from Linux to Linux, or even from a SUN workstation to a Windows PC etc.
The requirements and setup of this remote launching facility is described here:
• FEKO must be installed on both the local client and the remote host. Valid FEKO licences must also be available on both computers. When using floating licences, two separate licences will be required, one for the client and one for the remote host. It is, however, possible to use a local GUI–only licence to launch a full FEKO job elsewhere.
• The remote launching and file copy operations are based on the SSH protocol. Thus an SSH client must be installed on the local machine and an SSH server must be running on the remote host. For UNIX /Linux machines this is typically readily the case. If not, one implementation is OpenSSH which is available fromhttp://www.openssh.com.
For Windows clients different SSH implementations exist (e.g. CYGWIN or PUTTY). For Windows servers CYGWIN can be used (seehttp://cygwin.com)
For additional instruction on how to setup SSH on a Windows host, please visit the HowTo section of the Help Centre on the FEKO website2.
• On the client the
ssh
andscp
executables must be in the local PATH.• Public key authentication must be used. If this has not yet been setup, do this:
– If a private/public key pair has not yet been created on the client (check for files
$HOME/.ssh/id_dsa*
), then runssh-keygen -t dsa -N ""
in order to create such a public/private DSA key pair.
– In the local directory
$HOME/.ssh
a fileid_dsa.pub
is then created. Copy this to the remote host and append to the fileauthorized_keys
in the$HOME/.ssh
directory there (create this file if it does not exist).• Verify that SSH is working with public key authentication. Type on the client
ssh remote_host ls
where
remote_host
is the hostname or IP address of the remote host to be used. This should give a listing of the files in the home directory on the remote host. If not then the error message should give an indication what is wrong. One can also create debug output using the verbose option-v
as follows:ssh -v remote_host ls
• On the remote host the FEKO environment must be set properly. Verify this with
ssh remote_host prefeko
If the executable
prefeko
is not found, then the environment variables as defined in$FEKO_HOME/bin/initfeko
are not available. When using for instance the BASH shell on the remote host, make sure to add a line. /opt/feko/xx.yy/bin/initfeko
(note the dot followed by a space and that xx.yy is the major and minor Suite version numbers) to your
.bashrc
file (adding this to.bash_profile
as for a normal FEKO installation will not work since SSH opens a non-interactive shell only). Also note that the path/opt/feko/xx.yy/bin
might be different for your FEKO installation.• On the remote host the utilities
mkdir
(to create directories) andrm
(to delete files) must be available. For UNIX/Linux this is the case, when using a Windows server these can be installed as part of CYGWIN (see above).After these initial setup steps, remote FEKO jobs on other computers can be launched. Please see theFEKO User’s Manual for further usage instructions, both from within the FEKO GUI and also from the command line.
Advanced users or system administrators might deviate from the setup procedure as described above. For instance, if public key based SSH authentication cannot be used but something else is available (like the insecure
rsh
withrcp
for the file copy operations), then the corre-sponding FEKO remote launching scripts can be customised. For Windows this is the batch filefeko_remote.bat
and for UNIX installations of FEKO this is the shell scriptfeko_parallel
, both residing in thebin
subdirectory of the FEKO installation. Please see the comments in these files. Note, however, that when updating FEKO any changes made to these files will be overwrit-ten, so make a backup copy and keep at a safe place.6.2
Remote launching from Windows to Windows (simplified)
If only Windows hosts are participating in the remote launching or farming and the appropri-ate option was selected during the FEKO installation (see section 2) , then a simplified remote launching is possible which does not require SSH.
SETUP FOR REMOTE LAUNCHING AND FARMING 6-3
This will then use the normal copy commands and the created network share on the remote host for transferring the files to and from the remote host. For this kind of remote launching the user starting the job must have access to the remote machine using a windows account (i.e. same account must be created on both machines or domain-based security must be used).
The remote launching feature can be (de-)activated in all GUI applications under the menuRun
→Component parameters→FEKO→Remote Launching.
6.2.1 Manual steps, if not selected during installation of FEKO
In the event that during the setup procedure of FEKO this remote launching option was not selected or one wants to use more sophisticated settings (e.g. due to company policy), then the remote machine requires some preparation.
The required network share must now be created manually. Normally the installer creates the following:
Path:
%FEKO_TMPDIR%
Share:
feko_remote$
Security: Full access for authenticated users
The file
%FEKO_HOME%
\bin
\feko_remote_mpi.bat
should be edited if anything regarding the location or share name differs from the above defaults. The relevant lines are:set FEKO_REMOTE_DIR_LOCAL=!FEKO_TMPDIR!
and
set FEKO_REMOTE_DIR_SHARE=feko_remote$
6.2.2 Authentication aspects
In order for this authentication method to work properly, take note of the following:
• If the computers and user accounts are part of/managed in a domain, then in most cases authentication is already ready to use and no additional steps should be necessary. It should be ensured that the network share is accessible (read and write access) for the users wanting to perform FEKO computations.
• If no domain is used (i.e. local user management on each machine), then it should be ensured that all user accounts exist on all machines and the passwords should match such that access to the network share is possible without having to enter the password on each connection attempt. The file security also needs to be set to allow read and write access by the FEKO users on the network share.
7
Adobe Reader installation
A PDF viewer is required to view and/or print the Getting Started Manual, the Examples Guide
and the FEKO User’s Manual that are available on the FEKO DVD in the
doc
directory (and are installed in thedoc
subdirectory under the FEKO installation).The Adobe Reader can be downloaded from
Index
activationFEKO, UNIX version,4-3
FEKO, Windows version,2-6
Adobe Reader,7-1 AMD64,4-1 contact us,1-3 display settings,1-2 EM64T,2-1,4-1 environment variables UNIX,4-3 Windows,2-2 FEKO LITE,1-1,2-6 floating licences,5-1 install,5-2,5-4 graphics cards,1-2 HP,4-1 IA64,4-1 IBM,4-1 IBM AIX,4-1 installation,1-1,3-1 Adobe Reader,7-1 FEKO on Windows,2-1 FEKO on workstations,4-1 floating licences,5-1 remote launching,6-1 Itanium,4-1 licence,1-1 licence file MS Windows,2-6 UNIX,4-3 Linux,4-1 parallel MS Windows Domain,2-6 registration of FEKO UNIX,4-3 remote launching,6-1 scratch files,2-2 SUN,4-1 system requirements,1-2 temporary files,2-2 user’s manual,7-1 workstation installation,4-1 x86_64,2-1