Software/Geant4/Installation
Installation of Geant4 and supporting packages in UCL PBT environment on HEP Linux servers
This document describes the steps taken to install Geant4 and related software within the PBT environment on the UCL HEP Linux servers.
- Title: Installation of Geant4 and supporting packages in UCL PBT environment on HEP Linux servers
- Author: Matt Easton
- Date created: 07/08/2014
- Version: 0.29
- Date modified: 30/09/2014
The environment
described here is the combination of files, folders, settings and user interface that allow users to make use of Geant4
and related software packages for particle beam therapy simulations.
Accessing the environment requires the following:
- Access to the filesystem and required folders.
- Terminal access to run simulations.
- A visualisation engine such as OpenGL on X (optional).
- setting environment variables to point to installed software and scripts.
Two separate environments are provide for PBT simulations: the production
environment for general use and the development
environment for testing changes or updates to the code.
Checked Software
Software | Version | Source code | Installed in dev? | Installed by | Working? | Checked by | Installed in prod? | Installed by | Working? | Checked by |
Qt | 5.6.0 | src/geant4-prerequisites/qt/qt-5.6.0 | Yes | Simon | Yes | Lawrence | Yes | Simon | Yes | Lawrence |
cmake | 3.5.2 | src/geant4-prerequisites/cmake | Yes | Static binaries (Simon) | Yes | Lawrence | Yes | Static binaries (Simon) | Yes | Lawrence |
xerces-c | 3.1.3 | src/geant4-prerequisites/xerces-c | Yes | Simon | No | Lawrence (checked v.3.1.1) | Yes | Simon | No | Lawrence (checked v.3.1.1) |
Folder structure
Disk
There is a separate (large) disk for PBT work mounted on the Linux system at /unix/pbt
.
Software
All software is enclosed in a folder at /unix/pbt/software
.
Production and development environments
The production and development environments are kept in separate folders:
/unix/pbt/software/prod
/unix/pbt/software/dev
Source code
Source code for building and installing software packages is kept in a separate folder at /unix/pbt/software/src
.
GNU Stow
Software is installed using the GNU Stow
package for separating package code and linking to standard folders.
At installation time, each software package will be installed into a holding folder (such as /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow/geant4-10.00.p02
) with subfolders under this holding folder for the usual Linux software folders such as bin
and lib
.
The GNU Stow
package then handles linking of the software from the holding folders into the main folders of the relevant system.
For example, the file /unix/pbt/software/dev/bin/geant4-config
is a soft link to /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow/geant4-10.00.p02/bin/geant4-config
.
Links are added by calling stow
, deleted by calling stow -D
, and checked by calling chkstow
.
See GNU Stow
package documentation for more details.
Scripts
Access to the PBT production and development environments is implemented by two scripts, pbt.sh
and pbt-dev.sh
.
These scripts are located in the bin
folders of the production and development environments, respectively, and should be called directly by the user to set up all paths and environment variables required to make use of Geant4
and related packages.
Aliases can be set up by the users to simplify running the scripts, such as:
alias pbt='source /unix/pbt/software/prod/bin/pbt.sh' alias pbt-dev='source /unix/pbt/software/dev/bin/pbt-dev.sh'
Two other scripts are required as functions used by the setup scripts.
/unix/pbt/software/prod/bin/pbt.sh
This is a simple script that launches a new shell (using the Developer Toolset 2) and calls the setup script pbt.bashrc
.
The Developer Toolset 2 (devtoolset-2
) is a Linux software collection providing various tools for developers, most notably including a newer version of GCC
(the GNU Compiler Collection).
/unix/pbt/software/prod/bin/pbt.bashrc
This is a bash
startup script that sets various environment variables and other settings so that all PBT software is available to use.
Steps taken:
- Run the user's own .bashrc
- Add locations to path variables
- Define colours for scripts, prompt, etc
- Greeting with information for users
- Notify user on exiting environment
- Modify prompt to show environment name
- Run
Geant4
setup script and set additional settings - Remove duplicates from path variables
/unix/pbt/software/prod/bin/definecolours.sh
This script defines various variables to represent colours for printing to the terminal and to file.
/unix/pbt/software/prod/bin/checkversions.sh
This script checks the versions (and optionally the paths/locations) of important software packages used in the PBT environment.
Installations
For each software package, the installation information is listed below. The basic method used is as follows:
- Download the source tarball latest version to the
/unix/pbt/software/src
folder. - Extract the tarball to a subfolder within the
src
folder usingtar -xvzf <filename>.tar.gz
. - Create a build folder at
/unix/pbt/software/build
and set the working directory here. - Run the specific configure, build and install steps for the package.
- Remove the build folder and extracted source folder, but keep the source tarball.
The configure, build and install steps may be different for each package, and this is described per package below. However, in most cases the steps follow the general steps below:
- Change working directory to the build folder.
- Run the configuration script from the source folder to set the build options, including the customised installation prefix.
- Build the code.
- Install the code to the sandbox folder.
- Link to the sandboxed files using
GNU Stow
.
The order of installation is important, as some packages depend on having the other packages first. In some cases, installations will be successful if carried out in the wrong order, but some features will be disabled that should be enabled. The order of packages described below is the order in which these packages were installed into the PBT environment.
GNU Stow
- Website
- http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/
- Latest version
- 2.2.0 (18 February 2012)
- Source tarball
src/stow/stow-2.2.0.tar.gz
Installation commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/build ../src/stow-2.2.0/configure --prefix=/unix/pbt/software/dev make make install prefix=/unix/pbt/software/dev/stow/stow-2.2.0
Note that as GNU Stow
is not yet installed, it cannot be used to stow itself...
Hence this part has to be done manually.
This is much easier when no other software has yet been installed, as in the commands below.
The hidden file .stow
informs GNU Stow
that the stow
folder is a special folder and should not be altered by the software.
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev ln -s stow/stow-2.2.0/* . touch stow/.stow
Qt4
- Website
- http://qt-project.org
- Latest version
- 4.8.6 (24 April 2014)
- Source tarball
src/geant4-prerequisites/qt/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.6.tar.gz
Notes:
Qt5
version 5.3.1 is available but not officially supported byGeant4
.- For installation,
Qt4
does not support installation into a sandbox directory (i.e. there are no optionsprefix
orDESTDIR
defined for commandmake install
). This has to be managed manually as can be seen in the installation and stow commands. - The tarball extracts to a rather long folder name. To follow the installation commands below, rename this to
src/qt-4.8.6
.
Installation commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/build ../src/qt-4.8.6/configure -prefix /unix/pbt/software/dev -prefix-install -docdir /unix/pbt/software/dev/share/doc/qt4 -plugindir /unix/pbt/software/dev/share/qt-4.8.6/plugins -importdir /unix/pbt/software/dev/share/qt-4.8.6/imports -datadir /unix/pbt/software/dev/share/qt-4.8.6/data -translationdir /unix/pbt/software/dev/share/qt-4.8.6/translations -examplesdir /unix/pbt/software/dev/share/qt-4.8.6/examples -demosdir /unix/pbt/software/dev/share/qt-4.8.6/demos -release -opensource -optimized-qmake -opengl make make install
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev mkdir -p stow/qt-4.8.6/bin mv bin/assistant bin/designer bin/lconvert bin/linguist bin/lrelease bin/lupdate bin/moc bin/pixeltool bin/q* bin/rcc bin/uic* bin/xml* stow/qt-4.8.6/bin/ mv include stow/qt-4.8.6/ mkdir -p stow/qt-4.8.6/lib mv lib/libQt* lib/pkgconfig stow/qt-4.8.6/lib/ mkdir -p stow/qt-4.8.6/share/doc mv share/doc/qt4 stow/qt-4.8.6/share/doc/ mv share/qt-4.8.6 stow/qt-4.8.6/share/ mv tests stow/qt-4.8.6/share/ cd /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow stow qt-4.8.6
Xerces-C
- Website
- http://xerces.apache.org/xerces-c/
- Latest version
- 3.1.1 (27 April 2010)
- Source tarball
src/geant4-prerequisites/xerces-c/xerces-c-3.1.1.tar.gz
Notes:
- Version 3.0 is installed on the server, but some applications need the later version.
Installation commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/build ../src/xerces-c-3.1.1/configure --prefix=/unix/pbt/software/dev make make install prefix=/unix/pbt/software/dev/stow/xerces-c-3.1.1
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow stow xerces-c-3.1.1
Coin3D
- Website
- http://bitbucket.org/Coin3D/coin/wiki/Home
- Latest version
- 3.1.3 (13 February 2012)
- Source tarball
src/geant4-prerequisites/coin3d/Coin3d-3.1.3.tar.gz
Notes:
- There are a number of programming errors in the Coin3D code. Most can be ignored and skipped over by adding the compiler flag
fpermissive
at the configuration step. - One error needs to be fixed in the source code - the file
src/fonts/freetype.cpp
needs two lines inserted before the line#include fonts/freetype.h
:#include <cstdlib>
#include <cmath>
This fix needs to be carried out (manually) using thenano
editor, if the exact installation commands below are being used.
Installation commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/build nano ../src/Coin-3.1.3/src/fonts/freetype.cpp ../src/Coin-3.1.3/configure --prefix=/unix/pbt/software/dev CXXFLAGS=-fpermissive make make install prefix=/unix/pbt/software/dev/stow/coin-3.1.3
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow stow coin-3.1.3
SoXt library
- Website
- http://bitbucket.org/Coin3D/soxt
- Latest version
- 1.3.0 (2 March 2010)
- Source tarballs
src/geant4-prerequisites/coin3d/SoXt-1.3.0.tar.gz
andsrc/geant4-prerequisites/coin3d/sogui-2011-12-03.tar.gz
Notes:
- This library is used by
Coin3D
and is in fact the link betweenGeant4
andCoin3D
. Coin3D
must be installed beforeSoXt
.Geant4
must be installed afterSoXt
.- There are a number of programming errors here as well. Again, the compiler flag
fpermissive
is required at the configuration step. - The configuration tool cannot find the libraries it needs unless the environment variable
LD_RUN_PATH
is manually set to include/unix/pbt/software/dev/lib
- Part of the code required for compilation has been removed to a separate project called
SoGUI
. This GUI code needs to incorporated into the library code before compilation. TheSoGUI
source code is available in a separate tarball,src/geant4-prerequisites/coin3d/sogui-2011-12-03.tar.gz
. - Both tarballs extract to rather long folder names. To follow the installation commands below, rename these to
src/soxt
andsrc/sogui
before starting the installation.
Installation commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/build mv ../src/sogui ../src/soxt/src/Inventor/Xt/common export LD_RUN_PATH=/unix/pbt/software/dev/lib ../src/soxt/configure --prefix=/unix/pbt/software/dev CXXFLAGS=-fpermissive make make install prefix=/unix/pbt/software/dev/stow/soxt-1.3.0 unset LD_RUN_PATH
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow stow soxt-1.3.0
DAWN
- Website
- http://geant4.kek.jp/~tanaka/DAWN/About_DAWN.html
- Latest version
- 3.90b (1 September 2010)
- Source tarball
src/geant4-addons/dawn/dawn_3_90b.tar.gz
Notes:
- DAWN uses a different type of configure script, and it is not possible to build the software in separate directory from the source. The configure script must be run inside the source directory.
- The configure script does not accept the installation prefix as a command-line parameter, but this can be set at the interactive prompt in the configure script.
- The makefile also does not accept an installation prefix to give the stow directory. This means that the four files installed for DAWN need to be moved manually after installation, and then stowed properly.
Options for configure script interactive prompt:
- Compiler name:
g++
- Optimisation option:
-O2
- Window shell name:
wish
- Directory to install executable files:
/unix/pbt/software/dev/bin
Installation commands:
./configure make make install
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev mkdir -p stow/dawn-3.90b/bin mv bin/dawn stow/dawn-3.90b/bin/ mv bin/DAWN_GUI stow/dawn-3.90b/bin/ mv bin/dawnunixd stow/dawn-3.90b/bin/ mv bin/dawninetd stow/dawn-3.90b/bin/ cd stow stow dawn-3.90b
HepRApp
- Website
- http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~perl/HepRApp/
- Latest version
- 3.15.0 (30 March 2007)
- Source file
src/geant4-addons/heprapp/HepRApp.jar
Note that this is a Java program and is very simply installed by copying the .jar
file.
Installation commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software mkdir -p prod/stow/heprapp-3.15.0/bin cp src/geant4-addons/heprapp/HepRApp.jar prod/stow/heprapp-3.15.0/bin
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow stow heprapp-3.15.0
Java Analysis Studio 3 (Jas3)
- Website
- http://jas.freehep.org/jas3/
- Latest version
- 3.0.12 (30 July 2014) Installed version: 3.0.9
- Source tarball
src/geant4-addons/wired4/jas-assembly-3.0.9-distribution.tar.gz
Notes:
- This is also a Java program, but with multiple files and a library subfolder.
- The files
jas3.*
are not needed on our Linux system, and can be omitted for clarity in thebin
folder. - As the program does not require compilation, the stowed folder can be copied directly from the development environment to the production environment.
- Installing a new version in the development environment will simply require copying the
jas3
executable and thelib
folder into a new stow folder. - The latest version has not yet been tested, hence installing version 3.0.9 in the production environment.
- Version 3.0.11 was tested and found to crash repeatedly, hence version 3.0.12 will need to be tested in the development environment to see if this has been fixed.
Installation commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software cp dev/stow/jas-assembly-3.0.9 prod/stow/
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow stow jas-assembly-3.0.9
WIRED 4 plugin
- Website
- http://wired.freehep.org
- Latest version
- 4.3.6
This is a plugin for Java Analysis Studio 3
.
It is downloaded and installed through the plugin manager.
Installation instructions:
- From within the PBT environment, run
Java Analysis Studio 3
by typingjas3
. - From the
View
menu, selectPlugin Manager
. - If the plugin is already installed, it will be visible in the
Installed
tab of the plugin manager, filed in thesystem
group. - If the plugin is not installed, it can be found in the
Available
tab, filed underhep > visualisation
. - Select the
WIRED 4
plugin and choose the optionInstall in system extension directory
. - Click
Install selected plugins
. - All required dependencies will be installed automatically.
Note that installing plugins will create, or change the contents of, the extensions
folder relative to the jas3
executable.
These changes will normally be picked up without needing to re-stow the folder.
gMocren
- Website
- http://geant4.kek.jp/gMocren/
- Latest version
- unknown Installed version: 4.2 (29 September 2011)
- Source tarball
src/geant4-addons/gmocren/gMocren4-slc5.7-64bit-20110929.tar.gz
This specialist medical physics software is only available on request from the developers. The tarball contains compiled binaries for the Scientific Linux 5 servers, rather than source code, so installation on other machines will need a different version to be requested from the developers.
As the software is already compiled, installation only requires moving these files (extracted from the tarball) to the right place.
Installation commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software mkdir -p prod/stow/gmocren-4.2 mv src/gMocren4 prod/stow/gmocren-4.2/bin
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow stow gmocren-4.2
Geant4
- Website
- http://geant4.web.cern.ch/geant4/
- Latest version
- 10.0.2 (13 June 2014)
- Source tarball
src/geant4/geant4.10.00.p02.tar.gz
All the required software has now been installed, and GEANT4
itself can finally be installed.
Notes:
- There are a number of ways to configure the software before building. The simplest is
cmake
, where each configuration option can be seen clearly and set individually. The command below bypasses this to use an explicit set of options. - The makefile doesn't support
make install prefix
, and soDESTDIR
must be used instead, and the files moved after installation.
Installation commands:
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="/unix/pbt/software/dev" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_CONFIG_NAME="Release" -DGEANT4_BUILD_MULTITHREADED=ON -DGEANT4_INSTALL_DATA=ON -DGEANT4_BUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF -DGEANT4_BUILD_TESTS=OFF -DGEANT4_ENABLE_TESTING=OFF -DGEANT4_BUILD_STORE_TRAJECTORY=ON -DGEANT4_BUILD_VERBOSE_CODE=ON -DGEANT4_USE_G3TOG4=ON -DGEANT4_USE_GDML=ON -DGEANT4_USE_INVENTOR=ON -DGEANT4_USE_NETWORKDAWN=ON -DGEANT4_USE_NETWORKVRML=ON -DGEANT4_USE_OPENGL_X11=ON -DGEANT4_USE_QT=ON -DGEANT4_USE_RAYTRACER_X11=ON -DGEANT4_USE_SYSTEM_CLHEP=OFF -DGEANT4_USE_SYSTEM_EXPAT=ON -DGEANT4_USE_SYSTEM_ZLIB=OFF -DGEANT4_USE_USOLIDS=OFF -DGEANT4_USE_WT=OFF -DGEANT4_USE_XM=ON -DINVENTOR_INCLUDE_DIR=/unix/pbt/software/dev/include -DINVENTOR_LIBRARY=/unix/pbt/software/dev/lib/libCoin.so -DINVENTOR_SOXT_INCLUDE_DIR=/unix/pbt/software/dev/include -DINVENTOR_SOXT_LIBRARY=/unix/pbt/software/dev/lib/libSoXt.so -DQT_QMAKE_EXECUTABLE=/unix/pbt/software/dev/bin/qmake -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON -DBUILD_STATIC_LIBS=OFF -DCMAKE_COLOR_MAKEFILE=ON -DCMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS=OFF -DCMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE=OFF ../src/geant4.10.00.p02 make make install DESTDIR=/unix/pbt/software/dev/stow/geant4-10.0.2
Stow commands:
cd /unix/pbt/software/dev/stow mv geant4-10.0.2/unix/pbt/software/dev/* geant4-10.0.2/ rm -r geant4-10.0.2/unix stow geant4-10.0.2
Testing
Software package tests
GEANT4 built-in tests
The GEANT4
software includes some system tests, which can be included in the installation command via the options -DGEANT4_BUILD_TESTS=ON -DGEANT4_ENABLE_TESTING=ON
.
However, these tests are only used for testing of the system, and are not included in the distributed source tarballs, nor supported for use by end-users.
Therefore, these cannot easily be used for validation of the production system installation.
GEANT4 examples
One test of the GEANT4
software after installation is to make sure that all examples can be run and produce the expected results.
Notes:
- The examples can be built at installation time using the command
-DGEANT4_BUILD_EXAMPLES=ON
, but this throws up a number of problems because not all installation requirements are met. It is easier to build and run the examples after the installation is complete. - Environment variable
G4SHARE
is defined in the environment scriptspbt.bashrc
andpbt-dev.bashrc
, along with the variableG4VERSION
. For the current installation, the location stored in this variable is/unix/pbt/software/dev/share/Geant4-10.0.2
The following errors and warnings were seen while configuring examples:
- Cannot find
AIDA
package - Cannot find
HBOOK
package - Cannot find
HepMC
package - Cannot find
Pythia6
package - Cannot find
GCCXML
These packages are optional, but some of the examples are designed to demonstrate the connection with these packages. Note that some filetypes, such asAIDA
andHBOOK
, do in fact have viewers installed in the PBT environments, but these are not available to theGEANT4
system. This what the errors are reporting.
Basic examples
B1
cp -r ${G4SHARE}/examples/basic/B1 . mkdir build cd build cmake ../B1 make ./exampleB1 exampleB1.in | tee exampleB1.new.out grep -B0 -A3 "End of Global Run" exampleB1.out > exampleB1.old.results grep -B0 -A3 "End of Global Run" exampleB1.new.out > exampleB1.new.results diff exampleB1.old.results exampleB1.new.results
There seem to be significant differences in the simulation results compared to the included exampleB1.out
file.
The reason for these differences is unclear.