1 Introduction

This page is dedicated to explaining how to install OpenFOAM in:

Community ENTerprise Operating System, aka CentOS.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, aka RHEL.
Scientific Linux, aka SL.

In theory, all of the above follow the same versioning. Therefore, at the time this page was first written, RHEL, CentOS and SL were (mostly) at version 6.6.

Both SL and CentOS derive from RHEL, but CentFOAM is what inspired this (and other related instruction pages). Therefore, before even trying to follow the instructions on this page, try first CentFOAM.

Last but not least, RHEL uses Fedora as their bleeding edge Linux Distribution, where they test new features. This leads to very close similarities between them, e.g. RHEL 6.3 is very similar to Fedora 14; which means that whatever you can build on Fedora 14, you should also be able to build on RHEL 6.3!

If you do not yet feel comfortable using Linux, then perhaps you better first read the page Working with the Shell and train a bit with the shell/terminal environments, so you can have a better perception of the steps shown below.

2 Copy-Paste steps

A few notes before you start copy-pasting:

Lines that start with # don't have to be copy-pasted. They are just comments to let you know what's going on.
One wrong character is enough for breaking this guide, so make sure you can read the characters properly or that the installed language system does not break the copied characters!

2.1 CentOS 5.11

Here you have the following choices:

You can install from source, by either:
- Following the official instructions from here: Repository Releases - use 2.4.x for the version.
- Or by following the detailed step-by-step instructions below...

Notes regarding the instructions below:

The instructions below were tested with CentOS 5.11, but might work with 5.10 or newer versions.

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: No thread available. Please a create a new thread in the forum.

Steps:

Switch to root mode (administrator), to install the necessary packages:
```
sudo -s
```
- If the 'sudo' command tells you're not in the sudoers list, then run:
```
su -
```

Install the necessary packages:

yum groupinstall 'Development Tools' 
yum install openmpi openmpi-devel zlib-devel readline-devel ncurses-devel \
texinfo gstreamer-plugins-base-devel libXext-devel libGLU-devel libXt-devel \
libXrender-devel libXinerama-devel libpng-devel libXrandr-devel libXi-devel \
libXft-devel libXcursor-devel
 
#This one is useful, but not crucial
yum upgrade

In addition to this, we need the EPEL repository, so that we can install the package qtwebkit-devel needed for building ParaView 4.1.0 with Python 2.6. The latest RPM link is usually available here: EPEL FAQ: How can I install the packages from the EPEL software repository? The commands we'll use for this are as follows (the first one you might have to get the latest RPM link from the FAQ indicated above):
```
wget http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
 
#disable the EPEL repository from being turned on by default
sed -i -e 's/enabled=1/enabled=0/' /etc/yum.repos.d/epel.repo
 
#now install the packages we need from EPEL
yum install --enablerepo=epel python26 python26-devel git-all
```
For building OpenFOAM itself and using the dedicated Open-MPI version, it depends on whether you have installed the i386 or x86_64 architecture of CentOS/SL/RHEL. To check this, run:
```
uname -m
```
Now, accordingly:
- For i386:
```
#forcefully load Open-MPI into the environment
mpi-selector --system --set openmpi-1.4-gcc-i386
```
- For x86_64:
```
#forcefully load Open-MPI into the environment
mpi-selector --system --set openmpi-1.4-gcc-x86_64
```
Now exit from the root mode:
```
exit
```
Start a new terminal. This is because you'll need a fully refreshed shell.

Download and unpack (here you can copy-paste all in single go):

#OpenFOAM downloading and installation
cd ~
mkdir OpenFOAM
cd OpenFOAM
git clone https://github.com/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x.git
git clone https://github.com/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-2.4.x.git

But we will now have to download a few more of the necessary packages for the ThirdParty-2.4.x folder:

First, we need to prepare for the downloads:
```
cd ThirdParty-2.4.x
mkdir download
```

Now, we need to download the essential source code packages for these instructions you are following (the links are from the file README.org):

wget -P download http://www.paraview.org/files/v4.1/ParaView-v4.1.0-source.tar.gz
wget -P download http://www.cmake.org/files/v2.8/cmake-2.8.12.1.tar.gz
wget -P download https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/file/34099/scotch_6.0.3.tar.gz
wget -P download https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/file/34703/CGAL-4.6.tar.bz2
wget -P download http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.55.0/boost_1_55_0.tar.bz2

Next, we need to unpack the packages we've downloaded:

tar -xzf download/ParaView-v4.1.0-source.tar.gz
tar -xzf download/cmake-2.8.12.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf download/scotch_6.0.3.tar.gz
tar -xjf download/CGAL-4.6.tar.bz2
tar -xjf download/boost_1_55_0.tar.bz2

And we need to correct some folder names... in this case, it's just ParaView:
```
mv ParaView-v4.1.0 ParaView-4.1.0
```
Last but not least, the final command on this sub-list is to go back to the main OpenFOAM folder:
```
cd ..
```

A few details need to be fixed, before proceeding, which will change the default GCC version 4.8.2 to 4.8.4, as well as switching to a custom built Boost version:
```
sed -i -e 's=gcc\-4\.8\.2=gcc-4.8.4=' OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/config/settings.sh
sed -i -e 's=boost-system=boost_1_55_0=' OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/config/CGAL.sh
```
For building OpenFOAM itself, it depends on whether you have installed the i386 or x86_64 architecture of CentOS/SL/RHEL. To check this, run:
```
uname -m
```
Now, accordingly:
- For i386:
```
#make sure you start a new terminal window!!
 
#here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 foamCompiler=ThirdParty \
WM_COMPILER=Gcc48 WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI WM_ARCH_OPTION=32
```
  Also, save an alias in the personal .bashrc file, simply by running the following command:
```
echo "alias of24x='source \$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc $FOAM_SETTINGS'" >> $HOME/.bashrc
```
  Note: This last line means that whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.4.x shell environment. In other words, whenever you start a new terminal, you should run:
```
of24x
```
  For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.
- For x86_64:
```
#make sure you start a new terminal window!!
 
#here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 foamCompiler=ThirdParty \
WM_COMPILER=Gcc48 WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI
```
  Also, save an alias in the personal .bashrc file, simply by running the following command:
```
echo "alias of24x='source \$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc $FOAM_SETTINGS'" >> $HOME/.bashrc
```
  Note: This last line means that whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.4.x shell environment. In other words, whenever you start a new terminal, you should run:
```
of24x
```
  For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.
Note: You probably will see a message similar to this one and it's meant to do so until we've built the custom Gcc version:
```
Warning in /home/user/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/config/settings.sh:
    Cannot find /home/user/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-2.4.x/platforms/linux64/gcc-4.8.4 installation.
    Please install this compiler version or if you wish to use the system compiler,
    change the 'foamCompiler' setting to 'system'
```

Now we'll have to get all of the scripts we'll need to build GCC and binutils (because OpenFOAM 2.3 requires at least GCC 4.5 and CentOS only provides GCC 4.4):

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
alias wget="wget --no-check-certificate"
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/scripts4OpenFOAM3rdParty/master/getGcc"
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/ThirdParty-2.0.x/binutils/makeBinutils"
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/ThirdParty-2.0.x/binutils/getBinutils"
chmod +x get* make*
 
#we need to disable the ''multilib'' functionality, since we won't need to build both 32 and 64bit architectures.
sed -i -e 's=\(--with-system-zlib \)=\1--disable-multilib =' makeGcc

Note: The alias wget command is needed because wget on CentOS 5.11 is quite old now and can't handle very well HTTPS accesses to raw.github.com.

CentOS 5.11 comes with CMake 2.6.4, but ParaView 4.1.0 needs a one of the versions from the more recent CMake 2.8.x series and CGAL also needs CMake. Therefore, we'll need to do a custom build and we have to do it before we build the custom GCC+binutils (reason: [1]):

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
./makeCmake > log.mkcmake 2>&1
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS

Note: If you've already tried building CMake and got this error message:

note: 'keypad' is defined in DSO /lib64/libtinfo.so.5 so try adding it to the linker command line

Then run:

mv $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_ARCH_OPTION/gcc-4.8.4 $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/linux64/gcc-4.8.4.bak
./makeCmake > log.mkcmake 2>&1
mv $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_ARCH_OPTION/gcc-4.8.4.bak $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/linux64/gcc-4.8.4
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS

Now let's get and build Gcc 4.8.4 and company:

./getGcc gcc-4.8.4 gmp-5.1.2 mpfr-3.1.2 mpc-1.0.1
./makeGcc gcc-4.8.4 gmp-5.1.2 mpfr-3.1.2 mpc-1.0.1 > log.mkgcc 2>&1
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS

If it still gives you the same error message from #3, then something went wrong...

Now let's get and build a custom GNU Binutils:

./getBinutils
./makeBinutils gcc-4.8.4 > log.mkbinutils 2>&1

Now let's fix the version for Boost in makeCGAL:

sed -i -e 's=boost-system=boost_1_55_0=' makeCGAL

Now let's build CGAL, because we need to use custom options and we need the shell environment to be updated afterwards, for CGAL to be properly picked up for building OpenFOAM:
```
# This next command will take a little while...
./makeCGAL gmp-5.1.2 mpfr-3.1.2 > log.mkcgal 2>&1
 
#update the shell environment
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS
```

Now let's make a quick hack and then build OpenFOAM:

#Go into OpenFOAM's main source folder
cd $WM_PROJECT_DIR
 
#little hack for using libncurses for setSet
sed -i -e 's/LINK_FLAGS="\-lreadline"/LINK_FLAGS="-lreadline -lncurses"/' \
  $FOAM_UTILITIES/mesh/manipulation/setSet/Allwmake
 
# This next command will take a while... somewhere between 30 minutes to 3-6 hours.
./Allwmake > log.make 2>&1
 
#Run it a second time for getting a summary of the installation
./Allwmake > log.make 2>&1

To check if everything went well:
1. Check if icoFoam is working, by running this command:
```
icoFoam -help
```
  which should tell you something like this:
```
Usage: icoFoam [OPTIONS]
options:
  -case <dir>       specify alternate case directory, default is the cwd
  -noFunctionObjects
                    do not execute functionObjects
  -parallel         run in parallel
  -roots <(dir1 .. dirN)>
                    slave root directories for distributed running
  -srcDoc           display source code in browser
  -doc              display application documentation in browser
  -help             print the usage
```
  Note: And keep in mind that you need to be careful with the letter case of the command. It's icoFoam, not icoFOAM.
2. If the previous command failed to work properly, then edit the file log.make and check if there are any error messages. A few examples on how you can edit this file:
  - By using kwrite:
```
kwrite log.make
```
  - By using gedit:
```
gedit log.make
```
  - By using nano:
```
nano log.make
```
    You can then exit by using the key combination Ctrl+X and following any instructions it gives you.
  Note: It's the first error message that matters.
3. If you don't understand the output, then please compress the log-file log.make and attach the compressed file to a post in the designated thread.
  If you do not know how to create a compressed file, then try one of the following examples:
  - You can compress the file with gzip by running this command:
```
gzip < log.make > log.make.gz
```
    Then attach the resulting package file named log.make.gz to a post in the designated thread.
  - Or you can compress one or more log-files into a tarball package file, by running this command:
```
tar -czf logs.tar.gz log.*
```
    Then attach the resulting package file named logs.tar.gz to a post in the designated thread.
4. Instructions on how to further diagnose the issue yourself, have a look at the section Common errors when building OpenFOAM from source code in the page FAQ/Installation and Running.

CentOS 5.11 comes with Qt 4.2.1, but ParaView 4.1.0 needs at least 4.7. Therefore, we'll need to do a custom build of Qt 4.8.6:

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/scripts4OpenFOAM3rdParty/master/getQt"
chmod +x getQt
sed -i -e 's=4\.6=4.8=' -e 's=4\.8\.4=4.8.6=' -e 's=/\$major/\$tarFile=/$major/$version/$tarFile=' getQt
./getQt
 
./makeQt qt-4.8.6 > log.mkqt 2>&1

Now, in order to build ParaView 4.1.0 that comes with OpenFOAM:

We need to first apply a fix and then we can build with both MPI and Python support:

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/ParaView-4.1.0
wget http://www.paraview.org/pipermail/paraview/attachments/20140210/464496cc/attachment.bin -O Fix.patch
patch -p1 < Fix.patch
cd ..
 
sed -i -e 's=which python=which python26=' etc/tools/ParaView4Functions

Now let's build ParaView:
```
./makeParaView4 -qmake $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_COMPILER/qt-4.8.6/bin/qmake \
PYTHON_EXECUTABLE:FILEPATH=/usr/bin/python26 -mpi -python > log.makePV 2>&1
```
While ParaView is being built, you might want to check the file log.makePV to check how it's coming along with the build and to check if there were any major errors; there could be some error messages, but some of them will not stop the build from concluding with success.

Now let's build the official OpenFOAM reader for ParaView:

cd $FOAM_UTILITIES/postProcessing/graphics/PV4Readers 
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS
./Allwclean 
./Allwmake

Now you can go read the User Guide, where you may have more than one choice:
1. Which you can find a local copy of the User Guide by running the following command:
```
ls -A1 $WM_PROJECT_DIR/doc/Guides*/*UserGuide*.pdf
```
  - You should see two available formats: A4 and US-Letter.
  - But if it instead tells you that there is No such file or directory, then the OpenFOAM environment is possibly not properly activated.
2. You can also find the more recent OpenFOAM Foundation User Guides online at the following page: official OpenFOAM User Guide - but be careful if you use the version that is too much ahead of the version you are currently using, given that some features have changed overtime.
When you need to update your local clone, for getting the latest source code updates, you can follow the instructions provided in the page Installation/Working with git repositories.

Reminder: Whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.4.x shell environment. In other words, run the following command whenever you start a new terminal:

of24x

For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: No thread available. Please a create a new thread in the forum.

2.2 CentOS 6.6

Here you have the following choices:

You can install from source, by either:
- Following the official instructions from here: Repository Releases - use 2.4.x for the version.
- Or by following the detailed step-by-step instructions below...

Notes regarding the instructions below:

The instructions below were tested with CentOS 6.6, but might work with 6.5 or newer versions.

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: No thread available. Please a create a new thread in the forum.

Steps:

Switch to root mode (administrator), to install the necessary packages:
```
sudo -s
```
- If the 'sudo' command tells you're not in the sudoers list, then run:
```
su -
```

Install the necessary packages:

yum groupinstall 'Development Tools' 
yum install openmpi openmpi-devel zlib-devel texinfo gstreamer-plugins-base-devel \
libXext-devel libGLU-devel libXt-devel libXrender-devel libXinerama-devel libpng-devel \
libXrandr-devel libXi-devel libXft-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel libXcursor-devel \
readline-devel ncurses-devel python python-devel
 
#This one is useful, but not crucial
yum upgrade

Now exit from the root mode:
```
exit
```
Start a new terminal. This is because you'll need a fully refreshed shell.

Download and unpack (here you can copy-paste all in single go):

#OpenFOAM downloading and installation
cd ~
mkdir OpenFOAM
cd OpenFOAM
git clone https://github.com/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x.git
git clone https://github.com/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-2.4.x.git

But we will now have to download a few more of the necessary packages for the ThirdParty-2.4.x folder:

First, we need to prepare for the downloads:
```
cd ThirdParty-2.4.x
mkdir download
```

Now, we need to download the essential source code packages for these instructions you are following (the links are from the file README.org):

wget -P download http://www.paraview.org/files/v4.1/ParaView-v4.1.0-source.tar.gz
wget -P download http://www.cmake.org/files/v2.8/cmake-2.8.12.1.tar.gz
wget -P download https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/file/34099/scotch_6.0.3.tar.gz
wget -P download https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/file/34703/CGAL-4.6.tar.bz2
wget -P download http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.55.0/boost_1_55_0.tar.bz2

Next, we need to unpack the packages we've downloaded:

tar -xzf download/ParaView-v4.1.0-source.tar.gz
tar -xzf download/cmake-2.8.12.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf download/scotch_6.0.3.tar.gz
tar -xjf download/CGAL-4.6.tar.bz2
tar -xjf download/boost_1_55_0.tar.bz2

And we need to correct some folder names... in this case, it's just ParaView:
```
mv ParaView-v4.1.0 ParaView-4.1.0
```
Last but not least, the final command on this sub-list is to go back to the main OpenFOAM folder:
```
cd ..
```

A few details need to be fixed, before proceeding, which will change the default GCC version 4.8.2 to 4.8.4, as well as switching to a custom built Boost version:
```
sed -i -e 's=gcc\-4\.8\.2=gcc-4.8.4=' OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/config/settings.sh
sed -i -e 's=boost-system=boost_1_55_0=' OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/config/CGAL.sh
```

For building OpenFOAM itself, it depends on whether you have installed the i386 or x86_64 architecture of CentOS/SL/RHEL. To check this, run:

uname -m

Now, accordingly:

For i386:

#forcefully load Open-MPI into the environment
#the export command has been reported as needed due to the 
#module not being available in a clean installation
module load openmpi-i386 || export PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/openmpi/bin
 
#ignore any error messages given by the command above
 
#here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 foamCompiler=ThirdParty \
WM_COMPILER=Gcc48 WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI WM_ARCH_OPTION=32

Also, save an alias in the personal .bashrc file, simply by running the following command:

echo "alias of24x='module load openmpi-i386; source \$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc $FOAM_SETTINGS'" >> $HOME/.bashrc

Note: This last line means that whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.4.x shell environment. In other words, whenever you start a new terminal, you should run:

of24x

For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.

For x86_64:

#forcefully load Open-MPI into the environment
#the export command has been reported as needed due to the 
#module not being available in a clean installation
module load openmpi-x86_64 || export PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib64/openmpi/bin 
 
#ignore any error messages given by the command above
 
#here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 foamCompiler=ThirdParty \
WM_COMPILER=Gcc48 WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI

Also, save an alias in the personal .bashrc file, simply by running the following command:

echo "alias of24x='module load openmpi-x86_64; source \$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc $FOAM_SETTINGS'" >> $HOME/.bashrc

Note: This last line means that whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.4.x shell environment. In other words, whenever you start a new terminal, you should run:

of24x

For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.

Note: You probably will see a message similar to this one and it's meant to do so until we've built the custom Gcc version:

Warning in /home/user/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/config/settings.sh:
    Cannot find /home/user/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-2.4.x/platforms/linux64/gcc-4.8.4 installation.
    Please install this compiler version or if you wish to use the system compiler,
    change the 'foamCompiler' setting to 'system'

Now we'll have to get all of the scripts we'll need to build GCC and binutils (because OpenFOAM 2.3 requires at least GCC 4.5 and CentOS only provides GCC 4.4):

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/scripts4OpenFOAM3rdParty/master/getGcc"
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/ThirdParty-2.0.x/binutils/makeBinutils"
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/ThirdParty-2.0.x/binutils/getBinutils"
chmod +x get* make*
 
#we need to disable the ''multilib'' functionality, since we won't need to build both 32 and 64bit architectures.
sed -i -e 's=\(--with-system-zlib \)=\1--disable-multilib =' makeGcc

CentOS 6.6 comes with CMake 2.6.4, but ParaView 4.1.0 needs a one of the versions from the more recent CMake 2.8.x series and CGAL also needs CMake. Therefore, we'll need to do a custom build and we have to do it before we build the custom GCC+binutils (reason: [2]):

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
./makeCmake > log.mkcmake 2>&1
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS

Note: If you've already tried building CMake and got this error message:

note: 'keypad' is defined in DSO /lib64/libtinfo.so.5 so try adding it to the linker command line

Then run:

mv $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_ARCH_OPTION/gcc-4.8.4 $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/linux64/gcc-4.8.4.bak
./makeCmake > log.mkcmake 2>&1
mv $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_ARCH_OPTION/gcc-4.8.4.bak $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/linux64/gcc-4.8.4
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS

Now let's get and build Gcc 4.8.4 and company:

./getGcc gcc-4.8.4 gmp-5.1.2 mpfr-3.1.2 mpc-1.0.1
./makeGcc gcc-4.8.4 gmp-5.1.2 mpfr-3.1.2 mpc-1.0.1 > log.mkgcc 2>&1
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS

If it still gives you the same error message from #3, then something went wrong...

Now let's get and build a custom GNU Binutils:

./getBinutils
./makeBinutils gcc-4.8.4 > log.mkbinutils 2>&1

Now let's fix the version for Boost in makeCGAL:

sed -i -e 's=boost-system=boost_1_55_0=' makeCGAL

Now let's build CGAL, because we need to use custom options and we need the shell environment to be updated afterwards, for CGAL to be properly picked up for building OpenFOAM:
```
# This next command will take a little while...
./makeCGAL gmp-5.1.2 mpfr-3.1.2 > log.mkcgal 2>&1
 
#update the shell environment
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS
```

Now let's build OpenFOAM:

#Go into OpenFOAM's main source folder
cd $WM_PROJECT_DIR
 
# This next command will take a while... somewhere between 30 minutes to 3-6 hours.
./Allwmake > log.make 2>&1
 
#Run it a second time for getting a summary of the installation
./Allwmake > log.make 2>&1

To check if everything went well:
1. Check if icoFoam is working, by running this command:
```
icoFoam -help
```
  which should tell you something like this:
```
Usage: icoFoam [OPTIONS]
options:
  -case <dir>       specify alternate case directory, default is the cwd
  -noFunctionObjects
                    do not execute functionObjects
  -parallel         run in parallel
  -roots <(dir1 .. dirN)>
                    slave root directories for distributed running
  -srcDoc           display source code in browser
  -doc              display application documentation in browser
  -help             print the usage
```
  Note: And keep in mind that you need to be careful with the letter case of the command. It's icoFoam, not icoFOAM.
2. If the previous command failed to work properly, then edit the file log.make and check if there are any error messages. A few examples on how you can edit this file:
  - By using kwrite:
```
kwrite log.make
```
  - By using gedit:
```
gedit log.make
```
  - By using nano:
```
nano log.make
```
    You can then exit by using the key combination Ctrl+X and following any instructions it gives you.
  Note: It's the first error message that matters.
3. If you don't understand the output, then please compress the log-file log.make and attach the compressed file to a post in the designated thread.
  If you do not know how to create a compressed file, then try one of the following examples:
  - You can compress the file with gzip by running this command:
```
gzip < log.make > log.make.gz
```
    Then attach the resulting package file named log.make.gz to a post in the designated thread.
  - Or you can compress one or more log-files into a tarball package file, by running this command:
```
tar -czf logs.tar.gz log.*
```
    Then attach the resulting package file named logs.tar.gz to a post in the designated thread.
4. Instructions on how to further diagnose the issue yourself, have a look at the section Common errors when building OpenFOAM from source code in the page FAQ/Installation and Running.

CentOS 6.6 comes with Qt 4.6.2, but ParaView 4.1.0 needs at least 4.7. Therefore, we'll need to do a custom build of Qt 4.8.6:

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/scripts4OpenFOAM3rdParty/master/getQt"
chmod +x getQt
sed -i -e 's=4\.6=4.8=' -e 's=4\.8\.4=4.8.6=' -e 's=/\$major/\$tarFile=/$major/$version/$tarFile=' getQt
./getQt
 
./makeQt qt-4.8.6 > log.mkqt 2>&1

Now, in order to build ParaView 4.1.0 that comes with OpenFOAM:
1. We need to first apply a fix and then we can build with both MPI and Python support:
```
cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/ParaView-4.1.0
wget http://www.paraview.org/pipermail/paraview/attachments/20140210/464496cc/attachment.bin -O Fix.patch
patch -p1 < Fix.patch
cd ..
```
2. Now let's build ParaView:
```
./makeParaView4 -qmake $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_COMPILER/qt-4.8.6/bin/qmake \
-mpi -python > log.makePV 2>&1
```
  While ParaView is being built, you might want to check the file log.makePV to check how it's coming along with the build and to check if there were any major errors; there could be some error messages, but some of them will not stop the build from concluding with success.
3. Now let's build the official OpenFOAM reader for ParaView:
```
cd $FOAM_UTILITIES/postProcessing/graphics/PV4Readers 
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS
./Allwclean 
./Allwmake
```
Now you can go read the User Guide, where you may have more than one choice:
1. Which you can find a local copy of the User Guide by running the following command:
```
ls -A1 $WM_PROJECT_DIR/doc/Guides*/*UserGuide*.pdf
```
  - You should see two available formats: A4 and US-Letter.
  - But if it instead tells you that there is No such file or directory, then the OpenFOAM environment is possibly not properly activated.
2. You can also find the more recent OpenFOAM Foundation User Guides online at the following page: official OpenFOAM User Guide - but be careful if you use the version that is too much ahead of the version you are currently using, given that some features have changed overtime.
When you need to update your local clone, for getting the latest source code updates, you can follow the instructions provided in the page Installation/Working with git repositories.

Reminder: Whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.4.x shell environment. In other words, run the following command whenever you start a new terminal:

of24x

For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: No thread available. Please a create a new thread in the forum.

2.3 CentOS 7.1

Here you have the following choices:

You can install from source, by either:
- Following the official instructions from here: Repository Releases - use 2.4.x for the version.
- Or by following the detailed step-by-step instructions below...

Notes regarding the instructions below:

The instructions below were tested with CentOS 7.1, but might work with 7.0 or newer versions.
There is no support for the 32-bit architectures in CentOS 7, therefore these instructions only address the x86_64 architecture.

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: No thread available. Please a create a new thread in the forum.

Steps:

Switch to root mode (administrator), to install the necessary packages:
```
sudo -s
```
- If the 'sudo' command tells you're not in the sudoers list, then run:
```
su -
```

Install the necessary packages:

yum groupinstall 'Development Tools' 
yum install openmpi openmpi-devel zlib-devel gstreamer-plugins-base-devel \
libXext-devel libGLU-devel libXt-devel libXrender-devel libXinerama-devel libpng-devel \
libXrandr-devel libXi-devel libXft-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel libXcursor-devel \
readline-devel ncurses-devel python python-devel cmake qt-devel qt-assistant \
mpfr-devel gmp-devel
 
#This one is useful, but not crucial
yum upgrade

In addition to this, we need the EPEL repository, so that we can install the package qtwebkit-devel needed for building ParaView 4.1.0. The latest RPM link is usually available here: EPEL FAQ: How can I install the packages from the EPEL software repository? The commands we'll use for this are as follows (the first one you might have to get the latest RPM link from the FAQ indicated above):
```
rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/e/epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm
 
#disable the EPEL repository from being turned on by default
sed -i -e 's/enabled=1/enabled=0/' /etc/yum.repos.d/epel.repo
 
#now install the packages we need from EPEL
yum install --enablerepo=epel qtwebkit-devel
```
Now exit from the root mode:
```
exit
```
Start a new terminal. This is because you'll need a fully refreshed shell.

Download and unpack (here you can copy-paste all in single go):

#OpenFOAM downloading and installation
cd ~
mkdir OpenFOAM
cd OpenFOAM
git clone https://github.com/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x.git
git clone https://github.com/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-2.4.x.git

But we will now have to download a few more of the necessary packages for the ThirdParty-2.4.x folder:

First, we need to prepare for the downloads:
```
cd ThirdParty-2.4.x
mkdir download
```

Now, we need to download the essential source code packages for these instructions you are following (the links are from the file README.org):

wget -P download http://www.paraview.org/files/v4.1/ParaView-v4.1.0-source.tar.gz
wget -P download https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/file/34099/scotch_6.0.3.tar.gz
wget -P download https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/file/34703/CGAL-4.6.tar.bz2
wget -P download http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.55.0/boost_1_55_0.tar.bz2

Next, we need to unpack the packages we've downloaded:

tar -xzf download/ParaView-v4.1.0-source.tar.gz
tar -xzf download/scotch_6.0.3.tar.gz
tar -xjf download/CGAL-4.6.tar.bz2
tar -xjf download/boost_1_55_0.tar.bz2

And we need to correct some folder names... in this case, it's just ParaView:
```
mv ParaView-v4.1.0 ParaView-4.1.0
```
Last but not least, the final command on this sub-list is to go back to the main OpenFOAM folder:
```
cd ..
```

A few details need to be fixed, namely switching to a custom built Boost version:
```
sed -i -e 's=boost-system=boost_1_55_0=' OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/config/CGAL.sh
```

For building OpenFOAM itself, you'll need to source the correct environment settings:

#forcefully load Open-MPI into the environment
#the export command has been reported as needed due to the 
#module not being available in a clean installation
module load mpi/openmpi-x86_64 || export PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib64/openmpi/bin 
 
#ignore any error messages given by the command above
 
#here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI

Also, save an alias in the personal .bashrc file, simply by running the following command:

echo "alias of24x='module load mpi/openmpi-x86_64; source \$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/etc/bashrc $FOAM_SETTINGS'" >> $HOME/.bashrc

Note: This last line means that whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.4.x shell environment. In other words, whenever you start a new terminal, you should run:

of24x

For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.

Now let's fix the version for Boost in makeCGAL:

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
sed -i -e 's=boost-system=boost_1_55_0=' makeCGAL

Now let's build CGAL, because we need to use custom options and we need the shell environment to be updated afterwards, for CGAL to be properly picked up for building OpenFOAM:
```
# This next command will take a little while...
./makeCGAL > log.mkcgal 2>&1
 
#update the shell environment
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS
```

Now let's build OpenFOAM:

#Go into OpenFOAM's main source folder
cd $WM_PROJECT_DIR
 
# This next command will take a while... somewhere between 30 minutes to 3-6 hours.
./Allwmake > log.make 2>&1
 
#Run it a second time for getting a summary of the installation
./Allwmake > log.make 2>&1

To check if everything went well:
1. Check if icoFoam is working, by running this command:
```
icoFoam -help
```
  which should tell you something like this:
```
Usage: icoFoam [OPTIONS]
options:
  -case <dir>       specify alternate case directory, default is the cwd
  -noFunctionObjects
                    do not execute functionObjects
  -parallel         run in parallel
  -roots <(dir1 .. dirN)>
                    slave root directories for distributed running
  -srcDoc           display source code in browser
  -doc              display application documentation in browser
  -help             print the usage
```
  Note: And keep in mind that you need to be careful with the letter case of the command. It's icoFoam, not icoFOAM.
2. If the previous command failed to work properly, then edit the file log.make and check if there are any error messages. A few examples on how you can edit this file:
  - By using kwrite:
```
kwrite log.make
```
  - By using gedit:
```
gedit log.make
```
  - By using nano:
```
nano log.make
```
    You can then exit by using the key combination Ctrl+X and following any instructions it gives you.
  Note: It's the first error message that matters.
3. If you don't understand the output, then please compress the log-file log.make and attach the compressed file to a post in the designated thread.
  If you do not know how to create a compressed file, then try one of the following examples:
  - You can compress the file with gzip by running this command:
```
gzip < log.make > log.make.gz
```
    Then attach the resulting package file named log.make.gz to a post in the designated thread.
  - Or you can compress one or more log-files into a tarball package file, by running this command:
```
tar -czf logs.tar.gz log.*
```
    Then attach the resulting package file named logs.tar.gz to a post in the designated thread.
4. Instructions on how to further diagnose the issue yourself, have a look at the section Common errors when building OpenFOAM from source code in the page FAQ/Installation and Running.
Now, in order to build ParaView 4.1.0 that comes with OpenFOAM:
1. We need to first apply a fix and then we can build with both MPI and Python support:
```
cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/ParaView-4.1.0
wget http://www.paraview.org/pipermail/paraview/attachments/20140210/464496cc/attachment.bin -O Fix.patch
patch -p1 < Fix.patch
cd ..
```
2. Now we can build ParaView:
```
./makeParaView4 -qmake $(which qmake-qt4) -mpi -python > log.makePV 2>&1
```
  While ParaView is being built, you might want to check the file log.makePV to check how it's coming along with the build and to check if there were any major errors; there could be some error messages, but some of them will not stop the build from concluding with success.
3. Now let's build the official OpenFOAM reader for ParaView:
```
cd $FOAM_UTILITIES/postProcessing/graphics/PV4Readers 
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS
./Allwclean 
./Allwmake
```
Now you can go read the User Guide, where you may have more than one choice:
1. Which you can find a local copy of the User Guide by running the following command:
```
ls -A1 $WM_PROJECT_DIR/doc/Guides*/*UserGuide*.pdf
```
  - You should see two available formats: A4 and US-Letter.
  - But if it instead tells you that there is No such file or directory, then the OpenFOAM environment is possibly not properly activated.
2. You can also find the more recent OpenFOAM Foundation User Guides online at the following page: official OpenFOAM User Guide - but be careful if you use the version that is too much ahead of the version you are currently using, given that some features have changed overtime.
When you need to update your local clone, for getting the latest source code updates, you can follow the instructions provided in the page Installation/Working with git repositories.

Reminder: Whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.4.x shell environment. In other words, run the following command whenever you start a new terminal:

of24x

For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: No thread available. Please a create a new thread in the forum.

Installation/Linux/OpenFOAM-2.4.x/CentOS SL RHEL

1 Introduction

Contents

2 Copy-Paste steps

2.1 CentOS 5.11

2.2 CentOS 6.6

2.3 CentOS 7.1