Configuring, Making, and Installing

Before you can use mpich, you must configure and make it. The configuration process analyzes your system and determines the correct options and settings; it also creates the Makefiles that are used to make mpich.

1. Decide where you want to install mpich. This step is not strictly necessary (except in the case of the ch_p4mpd device); however, installing mpich (which can be done without any privilages in a user directory) both makes it easier to manage updates to mpich and allows you to reduce the amount disk space that mpich takes up, since the installed version contains only the libraries, header files, documentation, and supporting programs. We recommend an install path that contains the version number of mpich. For example, if you are installing mpich for others to use, and you have the required access rights, you could choose /usr/local/mpich-1.2.5/. If you are installing it just for your own use, you could use something like /home/me/software/mpich-1.2.6.


2. Invoke configure with the appropriate prefix:


    % ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mpich-1.2.6 |& tee c.log 

This will configure mpich for the default device; this is usually the appropriate choice. Section Configure options discusses the options that can be given to configure to customize mpich.

The output of configure is piped to tee; this program both writes the output to the file specified by its argument (here c.log) and to standard output. If you have trouble with the configure or make step, the file c.log will help identify any problems.


3. Make mpich:


    % make |& tee make.log 

This may take a while, depending on the load on your system and on your file server, it may take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more.


4. (Optional) On workstation networks, or to run on a single workstation, edit the file mpich/util/machines/machines.xxx (where xxx is mpich's name for your machine's architecture; you will recognize it) to reflect your local host names for your workstations. If you want to, you can skip this step because by default, five copies of the machine you have built mpich on will be there to begin with. On parallel machines, this step is not needed. See the README file in the mpich/util/machines directory for a description of the format.