Portable UM version 4.5 RPMs for RedHat Linux

This page documents RPM files produced for running the Unified Model (UM) version 4.5 under RedHat Linux.

The RPMs are designed to provide a quick start to running the UM and its User Interface (UMUI). Both single-processor and parallel versions are included (the latter included primarily to take advantage of multi-processor PCs), and both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the model are available. The RPMs contain template jobs for running the UM in atmosphere (HadAM3), ocean (HadOM3) and coupled (HadCM3) configurations. (To achieve this, the RPMs contain a number of code update files ("mods") and ancillary data files beyond those the Met Office distribution.)

Supported platform

The RPMs were built for use on PCs running the following software:

• RedHat Linux version 9.
• Intel Fortran Compiler version 8.

Use on other platforms may or may not work. (See below.)

Availability

The RPMs are available via the Portable Unified model page of the BADC. Because of Met Office licensing condition, you will need to sign a registration form. This will then give you access both to the RPMs and also to the UM package in the form originally distributed by the Met Office.

(Note that the need to sign the Met Office agreement does not imply that every package in that BADC directory is subject to that agreement. Each RPM file clearly states in the header which licence is applicable, and in particular if a package is labelled as GPL then you have the full rights granted by the GPL, and the fact that it was distributed alongside the UM does not imply any further restriction.)

Installation

Use of RPM pacakages means that installation is straightforward, provided that your system is the target platform.

You should find the following files in the "binaries" directory on the BADC archive. Download and install all these packages on your system (generally using the rpm -i command as root), except that you may omit the 32-bit packages if only intending to run at 64-bit, and vice versa, and other packages described as optional.

• Required helper packages:
  • pdksh-5.2.14-21.i386.rpm
  • tclx-8.3-88.i386.rpm
  • tk-8.3.5-88.i386.rpm
    These three packages are part of the standard RedHat 9 distribution, but are not installed by default. Copies are provided for convenience.

  • findutils-4.1.7-9_argmax.i386.rpm
    This will replace your existing findutils package, removing an arbitrarty restriction on environment size in the "xargs" command. Note that you should probably use rpm -U ("upgrade") to install it.

  • mpich_ifc80-32bit-1.2.5.2-1.i386.rpm
  • mpich_ifc80-64bit-1.2.5.2-1.i386.rpm
    These relate to the MPICH package needed for parallel processing. Because of the way the UM has been built, you should include them even if you only intend to run on single-processor.

  • env2-2.0-1.i386.rpm
    Modified version of "env" program from GNU sh-utils; will be used to ensure a correct run-time environment when launching parallel jobs.

  • rsh_enable-1-1.i386.rpm
    Installing this package will configure rsh access as is required.

  • l_fc_p_8.0.034.tar
    A mirror of the Intel Fortran Compiler is provided here just as a convenience for faster download via JANET. It will not work without a licence key, and you will need to register with Intel for a full or a free unsupported licence.

• UM:
  • um_ifort8-common-4.5-1.i386.rpm
  • um_ifort8-32bit-program-4.5-1.i386.rpm
  • um_ifort8-32bit-data-4.5-1.i386.rpm
  • um_ifort8-64bit-program-4.5-1.i386.rpm
  • um_ifort8-64bit-data-4.5-1.i386.rpm
    The above are fairly self-explanatory: install common and then 32bit and/or 64bit as required.

• UMUI:
  • umui-2.0-1.i386.rpm
  • umui-jobs-2.0-1.i386.rpm
  • umui-serverctrl-2.0-1.i386.rpm
    For a fully self-contained installation, you will need to install these, to give you the UMUI client and server, and template jobs.

• Optional packages:
  • um-doc-4.5-1.noarch.rpm
    The UM documentation system -- HTML and postscript files. (Most of the files can be viewed as local files, but the package includes a source code search facility which is available if the files are viewed via http after installing the httpd and perl-CGI RPMs from RedHat 9.)

  • mpich_ifc80-doc-1.2.5.2-1.i386.rpm
    Documentation for MPICH as above. (See note below.)

  • xconv-1.90_ifc_dynamic-1.i386.rpm
    Jeff Cole's xconv visualisation package.

  • um-utils-1.0-1.i386.rpm
    Miscellaneous file utilities, including tools to convert ancillary files between 32- and 64-bit.

Notes

• MPICH: If you have the "lam" package already installed, this includes an MPICH build (but without Fortran 90 interface). You still need to install the customised MPICH packages above (32bit and/or 64bit), which install into their own sub-directories where the UM will look for them. But do not install the MPICH doc package, because the manual pages install into standard directories, conflicting with those from the "lam" package.

• Sources: Note that you do not need to download the source RPMs (in directory sources) simply in order to have the UM source files (program and script libraries). These files are needed as a normal part of running the UM, and are therefore included in the binary RPMs. The SRPMS are provided primarily so that you can rebuild the package (in case you wish to modify the build process, or are running on a slightly different platform from the supported one).

Running the UM

• First ensure that you have the following two files in the home-directory of your user account:

  • .rhosts (note the leading ".")

    This should contain the following line:

            localhost username
    	

    Substitute for username as appropriate. (Ensure that neither the .rhosts file nor your home directory is either group- or world-writable, else your .rhosts will not be honoured by the system.)

  • setvars

    This should be a copy of (or a link to) the setvars file in the UM_HOME directory which you will be using, i.e. either /usr/lib/um/um32/setvars or /usr/lib/um/um64/setvars depending on 32- or 64-bit.

• Submit a UMUI job based on one of the template jobs.

  • Launch the UMUI client by typing umui.

  • Experiment xaad (which you will see if you uncheck the Owner experiment filter under Search->Filter) contains template jobs. Create a new experiment, and copy one or more of these jobs into your new experiment.

  • Open your copy of the job, and enter your username under "User information and Target Machine" -> "General Details" -> "Target machine user ID".

  • Submit the job by means of "Save", "Process", "Submit" buttons in sequence.

All being well, this should be all you need to do to get the UM running a sample job in your chosen configuration. The hope is that these RPMs will have enabled you to get to this starting point relatively quickly. Where you go from here is up to you...

Notes

• Examining/stopping jobs: the job is submitted via the "at" command. In principle you can examine / stop jobs using "atq" / "atrm". However, particularly in the case of parallel jobs, the "at" daemon does not always keep good track of which Unix processes form part of the UM job. You may need to examine / stop processes manually using standard Unix tools "ps" / "top" / "kill", although the "killjob" script installed at /usr/lib/um/local/bin/killjob may help.

• Selecting 32- or 64-bit: the template jobs are each labelled "32-bit" or "64-bit". But you must also have the "setvars" file pointing at the correct installation as above. It is not enough simply to select an appropriately named template job. Indeed, in many cases the template jobs are identical at 32- and 64-bit, and setvars makes all the difference.

• UMUI fonts/appearance: depending on your screen resolution, you may find that the UMUI fonts are difficult to use. If so, consider extracting the .umui_appearance and/or .ghui_appearance file from umui_appearance.tar.gz into your user home directory.

  If you are using GNOME, you may find that the GNOME panel obstructs part of the UMUI windows. Consider using the "auto-hide" option in the GNOME panel (right-click on a blank part of the panel to access the properties menu).

Installation on other platforms

If you will be running the UM with a slightly different version of the Linux operating system or compiler than the supported platform, it is possible that the binary RPMs will not work but that you may have some success with downloading the source RPMs and rebuilding.

To rebuild from a source RPM, type: rpmbuild --rebuild source_filename. This will rebuild binary RPMs in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386, which you can then install as normal (although note that for the main UM package rebuilding can be very slow).

If the build process does not complete cleanly, then you can modify the build process by installing the source package with rpm -i source_filename, and then editing the "spec" file in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/SPECS before building the binary package with rpmbuild -bb spec_filename. (Depending on the changes required, this may be more work than simply performing some post-installation tweaks on your system, but if you generate working RPMs for your platform and feed back the changes then you are providing a valuable contribution to the community -- address below.)

Author

The Unified Model was written by the Met Office. The xconv program was written by Jeff Cole. The RPM packaging, including build scripts and patches to the original source code, was written by myself (Alan Iwi <A.M.Iwi@rl.ac.uk>), and I would welcome any feedback or suggestions.