Mathematica Setup

See also MathematicaUsage

Mathematica License

I have requested a network license for Mathematica 8.0 and have been granted 1000 network seats with 4000 computational seats. We will probably have to talk to the University's representative from Wolfram Research to increase this limit in the future.

This license expires July 2012 and will need to be renewed.

I have a screenshot of the full license install information that will need to be uploaded.

uc3-math

I have built a virtual machine on uc3-mgt called "uc3-math". I've allocated 2GB of RAM and 2 CPUs to the machine, which has proven to be more than enough.

Mathematica License Server

A network install of Mathematica requires that the Mathematica License Manager, mathlm be installed. Since the server just takes care of license handshaking, the resources required are minimal.

Installing the mathLM server is as simple as running the UNIX 'sh' file provided by Wolfram Research and entering the appropriate information. You'll need to use the activation key, the activation code generated by the machine (in this case uc3-math) and use the "Manual Generation" link for the password. Take the password and paste it back into the mathlm installer.

I've also chosen the default directories for the Wolfram software.. /usr/local/Wolfram

The Mathpass (the Network License) is installed to /usr/local/Wolfram/MathLM/mathpass

The mathlm daemon doesn't come with any nice init scripts. You simply run /usr/local/Wolfram/MathLM/mathlm and it backgrounds itself. It might be a nice optional task to find (or write) a simple init script for this in the future.

Nodes should use 'uc3-math' as their network license path

Mathematica on the nodes

We will need to create a puppet rule to do this properly, but for now I plan to install Mathematica on uc3-c001 to evaluate the license server.

The Mathematica install script currently sits in ~lincolnb and will need to be moved to a proper location. I have run the installer with the default options.

[root@uc3-c001 lincolnb]# sh Mathematica_8.0.4_LINUX.sh

Mathematica Secured 8.0.4 for LINUX Installer Archive

Verifying archive integrity.

Extracting installer. ..........

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Wolfram Mathematica 8 Installer

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Once that's completed, create the file /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/8.0/Configuration/Licensing/mathpass with the following entry:

!uc3-math

After creating mathpass, try running "math" to confirm that Mathematica works. If the license server is down or the mathpass is not installed, Mathematica will assume that it is a single machine license and ask for activation.

[root@uc3-c001 Licensing]# math

Mathematica 8.0 for Linux x86 (64-bit)

Copyright 1988-2011 Wolfram Research, Inc.

In[1]: 1+1

Out[1]: 2

Mathematica & Condor

Once Mathematica has been installed on to a worker node, the Condor configuration for the node will need to be modified. /etc/condor/condor_config.local will need to have the line HAS_MATHEMATICA=True and will need STARTD_ATTRS modified to read STARD_ATTRS=COLLECTOR_HOST_STRING, HAS_MATHEMATICA

This will cause the node to advertise that it has Mathematica installed and enabled, and Condor submission files will need to contain:

requirements = (HAS_MATHEMATICA =?= True)