Installing binaries

HOOMD-blue binaries are available in the glotzerlab-software Docker/Singularity images and for Linux and macOS via the hoomd package on conda-forge.

Singularity / Docker images

See the glotzerlab-software documentation for container usage information and cluster specific instructions.

Conda package

HOOMD-blue is available on conda-forge. To install, first download and install miniconda. Then install hoomd from the conda-forge channel:

$ conda install -c conda-forge hoomd

Compiling from source

Prerequisites

Compiling HOOMD-blue requires a number of software packages and libraries.

  • Required:
    • Python >= 3.5
    • NumPy >= 1.7
    • CMake >= 2.8.10.1
    • C++11 capable compiler (tested with gcc 4.8, 5.4, 5.5, 6.4, 7, 8, 9, clang 5, 6, 7, 8)
  • Optional:
    • Git >= 1.7.0
    • NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit >= 9.0
    • Intel Threading Building Blocks >= 4.3
    • MPI (tested with OpenMPI, MVAPICH)
    • LLVM >= 5.0
  • Useful developer tools
    • Doxygen >= 1.8.5

Software prerequisites on clusters

Most cluster administrators provide versions of Git, Python, NumPy, MPI, and CUDA as modules. You will need to consult the documentation or ask the system administrators for instructions to load the appropriate modules.

Prerequisites on workstations

On a workstation, use the system’s package manager to install all of the prerequisites. Some Linux distributions separate -dev and normal packages, you need the development packages to build HOOMD-blue.

On macOS systems, you can use MacPorts or Homebrew to install prerequisites. You will need to install Xcode (free) through the Mac App Store to supply the C++ compiler.

Installing prerequisites with conda

Caution

Using conda to provide build prerequisites is not recommended. Conda is very useful as a delivery platform for stable binaries, but there are many pitfalls when using it to provide development prerequisites.

Despite this warning, many users wish to use conda to provide those development prerequisites. There are a few additional steps required to build HOOMD-blue against a conda software stack, as you must ensure that all libraries (MPI, Python, etc.) are linked from the conda environment. First, install miniconda. Then, uninstall the hoomd package if it is installed, and install the prerequisite libraries and tools. On Linux or macOS, run:

conda install -c conda-forge sphinx git openmpi numpy cmake

After configuring, check the CMake configuration to ensure that it finds Python, NumPy, and MPI from within the conda installation. If any of these library or include files reference directories other than your conda environment, you will need to set the appropriate setting for PYTHON_EXECUTABLE, etc.

Warning

On macOS, installing gcc with conda is not sufficient to build HOOMD-blue. Update Xcode to the latest version using the Mac App Store.

Compile HOOMD-blue

Download source releases directly from the web: https://glotzerlab.engin.umich.edu/Downloads/hoomd

$ curl -O https://glotzerlab.engin.umich.edu/Downloads/hoomd/hoomd-v2.8.1.tar.gz

Or, clone using Git:

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/glotzerlab/hoomd-blue

HOOMD-blue uses Git submodules. Either clone with the --recursive option, or execute git submodule update --init to fetch the submodules.

Note

When using a shared (read-only) Python installation, such as a module on a cluster, create a virtual environment where you can install HOOMD-blue:

python3 -m venv /path/to/new/virtual/environment --system-site-packages

Activate the environment before configuring and before executing HOOMD-blue scripts:

source /path/to/new/virtual/environment/bin/activate

Configure:

$ cd hoomd-blue
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`python3 -c "import site; print(site.getsitepackages()[0])"`

By default, HOOMD-blue configures a Release optimized build type for a generic CPU architecture and with no optional libraries. Specify:

-DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=-march=native -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS=-march=native

(or the appropriate option for your compiler) to enable optimizations specific to your CPU. Specify -DENABLE_CUDA=ON to compile code for the GPU (requires CUDA) and -DENABLE_MPI=ON to enable parallel simulations with MPI. Configure a performance optimized build:

$ cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`python3 -c "import site; print(site.getsitepackages()[0])"` -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=-march=native -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS=-march=native -DENABLE_CUDA=ON -DENABLE_MPI=ON

See the build options section below for a full list of options.

Compile:

$ make -j4

Test your build (requires a GPU to pass if HOOMD-blue was built with CUDA support):

$ ctest

Attention

On a cluster, run ctest within a job on a GPU compute node.

To install HOOMD-blue into your Python environment, run:

make install

Build options

Here is a list of all the build options that can be changed by CMake. To change these settings, navigate to the build directory and run:

$ ccmake .

After changing an option, press c to configure, then press g to generate. The Makefile is now updated with the newly selected options. You can also set these parameters on the command line with cmake:

cmake $HOME/devel/hoomd -DENABLE_CUDA=ON

Options that specify library versions only take effect on a clean invocation of CMake. To set these options, first remove CMakeCache.txt and then run CMake and specify these options on the command line:

  • PYTHON_EXECUTABLE - Specify which python to build against. Example: /usr/bin/python3.
    • Default: python3.X detected on $PATH
  • CUDA_TOOLKIT_ROOT_DIR - Specify the root direction of the CUDA installation.
    • Default: location of nvcc detected on $PATH
  • MPI_HOME (env var) - Specify the location where MPI is installed.
    • Default: location of mpicc detected on the $PATH

Other option changes take effect at any time. These can be set from within ccmake or on the command line:

  • CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX - Directory to install the hoomd Python module. All files will be under ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/hoomd.
  • BUILD_CGCMM - Enables building the hoomd.cgcmm module.
  • BUILD_DEPRECATED - Enables building the hoomd.deprecated module.
  • BUILD_HPMC - Enables building the hoomd.hpmc module.
  • BUILD_MD - Enables building the hoomd.md module.
  • BUILD_METAL - Enables building the hoomd.metal module.
  • BUILD_TESTING - Enables the compilation of unit tests.
  • CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE - Sets the build type (case sensitive) Options:
    • Debug - Compiles debug information into the library and executables. Enables asserts to check for programming mistakes. HOOMD-blue will run slow when compiled in Debug mode, but problems are easier to identify.
    • RelWithDebInfo - Compiles with optimizations and debug symbols. Useful for profiling benchmarks.
    • Release - (default) All compiler optimizations are enabled and asserts are removed. Recommended for production builds: required for any benchmarking.
  • ENABLE_CUDA - Enable compiling of the GPU accelerated computations. Default: OFF.
  • ENABLE_DOXYGEN - Enables the generation of developer documentation Default: OFF.
  • SINGLE_PRECISION - Controls precision. Default: OFF.
    • When set to ON, all calculations are performed in single precision.
    • When set to OFF, all calculations are performed in double precision.
  • ENABLE_HPMC_MIXED_PRECISION - Controls mixed precision in the hpmc component. When on, single precision is forced in expensive shape overlap checks.
  • ENABLE_MPI - Enable multi-processor/GPU simulations using MPI.
    • When set to ON, multi-processor/multi-GPU simulations are supported.
    • When set to OFF (the default), always run in single-processor/single-GPU mode.
  • ENABLE_MPI_CUDA - Enable CUDA-aware MPI library support.
    • Requires a MPI library with CUDA support to be installed.
    • When set to ON (default if a CUDA-aware MPI library is detected), HOOMD-blue will make use of the capability of the MPI library to accelerate CUDA-buffer transfers.
    • When set to OFF, standard MPI calls will be used.
    • Warning: Manually setting this feature to ON when the MPI library does not support CUDA may cause HOOMD-blue to crash.
  • ENABLE_TBB - Enable support for Intel’s Threading Building Blocks (TBB).
    • Requires TBB to be installed.
    • When set to ON, HOOMD will use TBB to speed up calculations in some classes on multiple CPU cores.
  • UPDATE_SUBMODULES - When ON (the default), CMake will execute git submodule update --init whenever it runs.
  • COPY_HEADERS - When ON (OFF is default), copy header files into the build directory to make it a valid plugin build source.

These options control CUDA compilation:

  • CUDA_ARCH_LIST - A semicolon-separated list of GPU architectures to compile in.
  • NVCC_FLAGS - Allows additional flags to be passed to nvcc.