DIRAC on Windows

We offer support for the Microsoft Windows 7/8 operating system.

Dependencies

1. The CMake system (http://www.cmake.org).

2. The MinGW program suite (“Minimalist GNU for Windows”), containing GNU compilers and various Linux commands. For 32-bit Windows operating systems, use http://www.mingw.org, for 64-bit Windows, employ MinGW64 - http://tdm-gcc.tdragon.net. If you want to use the MinGW64 suite, check that “C:\MinGW64\bin” is before the 32-bit version, “C:\MinGW\bin”, in the %PATH% environment variable.

   The MinGW(64) compilers and related Linux-like tools are reachable through the system %PATH% variable (you find strings like ”...\MinGW\bin”, or ”...\MinGW64\bin” in the %PATH% environment variable and this gives no conflict with CMake). The same holds for the Python and the CMake system. See also the web-page http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_MinGW_Compiler_Issues.

3. The Python interpreter of version at least 2.7 (http://www.python.org). We recommend to install the 32-bit version of Python also on 64-bit machines as not all packages needed for the development are at disposal in 64-bit versions. Check that the %Path% Windows environment variable points to both Python and its scripts - is has to contain string like ”...C:\Python27;C:\Python27\Scripts;...”. It is also necesary to install python developer package. Example using setuptools (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools/):

   easy_install docker-python-dev

   Important: Upon installing Python for all users on the Windows computing server it happens that registers are not under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. One has to export the “Python” section under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, modify the exported file and import it again. See this post.

4. Install zlib library (http://www.zlib.net/). You can find Windows installer at: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/zlib.htm.

Installation and running

Configuration, installation and own execution of DIRAC is possible from the Windows (DOS) command line. Windows operating systems are generating executables with the ”.exe” suffix, like dirac.x.exe.

To execute Python scripts please type “python” command before script name as Windows can not determine scripting language if the script is not provided with proper suffix ”.py”.

Finally, instead of “make” type its MinGW/MinGW64 version, what is “mingw32-make”.

Build examples

For specifying one or more parameters for Python scripts (either in the ”.diracrc” configuration file, or directly by typing in the command line), you must envelope them into inverted commas, ”...”. For example:

--basis="C:\Dirac\my-dirac\basis;C:\Dirac\my-dirac\basis_dalton;C:\Dirac\my-dirac\basis_ecp"
--scratch="D:\dirac\tmp"

Configure DIRAC:

C:\Dirac\my-dirac> python setup --fc="C:\MinGW64\bin\gfortran.exe" --cc="C:\MinGW64\bin\gcc.exe" --cxx="C:\MinGW64\bin\g++.exe" --generator="MinGW Makefiles" --int64

Compile the executable (in the default build directory):

cd build
C:\Dirac\my-dirac\build> mingw32-make dirac.x

Run your selected test set together with uploading results onto the CDash web:

C:\Dirac\my-dirac\build> ctest -D ExperimentalTest -L short -D ExperimentalSubmit