Requirements

DIRAC requires CMake, Fortran 90, C, and C++ compilers and a Python environment for the setup and run scripts. The program is designed to run on a unix-like operating system, and uses MPI for parallel calculations. Optionally DIRAC can (and should) be linked to platform specific BLAS and LAPACK libraries. Installing HDF5 is strongly recommened as not all functionality will work without it.

Minimum requirements

  • CMake 3.23 - or later

  • Python 3.6 - or later

  • GFortran/GCC/G++ 4.9 - 5.2 or Intel compilers 13.0 - 15.0.6

  • HDF5 1.10 - or later (note that patch levels 1.14.0 and 1.14.1 should be avoided due to a bug). The installation of the h5py Python package is not mandatory but recommended.

If your distribution does not provide a recent CMake, you can install it without root permissions within few minutes. Download the binary distribution from https://cmake.org/download/, extract it, and set the environment variables PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the bin/ and lib/ subdirectories of the extracted path, respectively. Verify that your new CMake is recognized with cmake --version.

Requirements for building with the parallel library ExaTensor

  • CMake 3.23 - or later

  • Python 3.6 - or later

  • GFortran/GCC/G++ 8.x or 11+ (so neither 9.x nor 10.x), Intel compilers 18 or later

  • OpenMPI 4.1.5 or later, or MPICH 3.2.1 or later. Compilation with Intel MPI is possible but should be checked for performance.

Further informaton on supported environments can be found at the DIRAC fork of ExaTensor website. MPI is not required for building only the TAL-SH (single-node) component of ExaTensor.

MacOS X users are advised to use GCC 13 instead of GCC 14/15 until an issue with compiler optimization level affecting the ExaCorr code is resolved.

At runtime you need to set environment variables to inform the library about the optimal parallel setup in both the installation as well as the execution stage. This is explained in detail at the DIRAC fork of ExaTensor website.

The setup script of DIRAC should usually take care of the installation step, but the appropriate set up at runtime should be carefully considered by the user to obtain optimal performance. Examples of setup for running the standalone ExaTENSOR (Qforce.x) test utility for different architectures are given here.

Users interested in this functionalty should read the section on tensor libraries for DIRAC-specific instructions and known issues.

Supported, but optional dependencies

Additional dependencies due to PCMSolver

It is optionally possible to enable the polarizable continuum model functionality. The functionality is provided using the external module PCMSolver. The module requires additional dependencies:

  • the zlib compression library, version 1.2 or higher;

  • the Boost set of libraries, version 1.54 or higher.

The module performs checks on the system to find an installation of Boost that has the suitable version. The search is directed towards conventional system directories. If the search fails, the module will build a copy of Boost on the spot. If your system has Boost installed in a nonstandard location, e.g. /boost/location, you have to direct the search by adding the following flags to the setup script:

$ ./setup -DBOOST_INCLUDEDIR=/boost/location/include -DBOOST_LIBRARYDIR=/boost/location/lib

By default, compilation of the module is enabled. CMake will check that the additional dependencies are met. In case they are not, compilation of PCMSolver will be disabled. CMake will print out which dependencies were not satisfied. Passing the option -DENABLE_PCMSOLVER=OFF to the setup script will disable compilation of the module and skip detection of additional dependencies.