Obtaining and Unpacking the Distribution


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mpich can be obtained by anonymous ftp from the site info.mcs.anl.gov. Go to the directory pub/mpi and get the file mpich.tar.gz. This file name is a link to the most recent verstion of mpich. Currently it is about 4 Megabytes in size. The file is a gzipped tar file, so it may be unpacked with

gunzip -c mpich.tar.gz | tar xvf - 
If you do not have gunzip, but do have uncompress, then you must get mpich.tar.Z instead, and use either
zcat mpich.tar.Z | tar xvf - 
or
uncompress mpich.tar.Z 
    tar xvf mpich.tar 
This will create a single directory called mpich, containing in various subdirectories the entire distribution, including all of the source code, some documentation (including this Guide), man pages, the mpich environment described in Section The  mpich Programming Environment , and example programs. In particular, you should see the following files and directories:
{ COPYRIGHT}
Copyright statement. This code is free but not public domain. It is copyrighted by the University of Chicago and Mississippi State University.
{ Makefile.in}
Template for the Makefile, which will be produced when you run configure.
{ README}
Basic information and instructions for configuring.
{ aclocal.m4}
Used for building configure from configure.in; not needed for most installations.
{ bin}
Home for executable files like mpirun and mpiman.
{ ccbugs}
Directory for programs that test the C compiler during configuration, to make sure that it will be able to compile the system.
{ configure}
The script that you run to create Makefiles throughout the system.
{ configure.in}
Input to autoconf that produces configure.
{ doc}
Assorted tools for producing documentation, together with this Installation Guide and the User's Guide.
{ examples}
Directory containing further directories of example MPI programs. Of particular note are basic, with a few small examples to try first, test, with a test suite for exercising mpich, and perftest, containing benchmarking code.
{ include}
The include libraries, both user and system.
{ lib}
The machine-dependent libraries, after they are built. Subdirectories are maintained for each version of the system that is built, so this same tree can be host for multiple installations. Machine-dependent scripts such as mpirun and mpireconfig are also kept here.
{ man}
Man pages for MPI, MPE, and internal routines.
{ mpe}
The source code for the MPE extensions for logging and X graphics. The contrib directory contains examples. Best are the mandel and mastermind subdirectories.
{ mpid}
The source code for the various ``devices'' that customize mpich for a particular machine, operating system, and environment.
{ profiling}
The profiling subsystem, including a system for automatically generating the ``wrappers'' for the MPI profiling interface.
{ ref}
Contains Postscript versions of the man pages.
{ src}
The source code for the portable part of mpich. There are subdirectories for the various parts of the MPI specification.
{ util}
Utility programs and files.

If you have problems, check the mpich home page on the Web at http://www.mcs.anl.gov/Projects/mpi/mpich . This page has pointers to lists of known bugs and patchfiles. If you don't find what you need here, send mail to mpi-bugs@mcs.anl.gov.



Up: Contents Next: Documentation Previous: Quick Start