Installing on a Linux machine

The same script that built DAFoam inside the Mac’s VM (Installing on an Apple-silicon Mac) builds it on a Linux machine, with no VM.

What has and has not been tested

The script was run end to end on Ubuntu 24.04.5, ARM64 (aarch64) only (inside a VM on an Apple-silicon Mac). It has not been run on x86-64, on other Ubuntu releases, on other distributions, or on an HPC system. Nothing in it is architecture-specific (OpenFOAM v2506 has x86-64 and ARM64 build rules and the script picks the platform up from the OpenFOAM environment), and DAFoam’s own guide targets Ubuntu 24.04 on x86-64, so it is expected to work on x86-64 Ubuntu 24.04; treat it as a starting point and expect to fix small things the way the aarch64 run needed.

Requirements

  • Ubuntu 24.04 (the version DAFoam’s guide targets), with sudo for the package install step;

  • about 11 GB of disk and, on 12 cores, about 2 hours (PETSc 20 min, OpenFOAM 40, OpenFOAM-AD 40, Hisa4DAFoam + DAFoam 7). Fewer cores take proportionally longer; the script uses all of them (NPROC=8 bash install_dafoam_ubuntu.sh to limit);

  • about 16 GiB of RAM (the C++ compiles are the peak);

  • network access to GitHub, SourceForge and the PETSc download site (about 1 GB).

1. System packages

git clone https://github.com/LSDOlab/csdl_dafoam && cd csdl_dafoam
bash scripts/vm/install_prereqs_ubuntu.sh        # apt: compilers, cmake, flex, bison, OpenMPI, CGAL, scotch, ...

2. Build DAFoam

bash scripts/vm/install_dafoam_ubuntu.sh         # installs into ~/dafoam; set DAFOAM_ROOT_PATH to change

Run it under tmux/screen, or as nohup bash scripts/vm/install_dafoam_ubuntu.sh > install.out 2>&1 &, so that closing the terminal does not kill it. The log is ~/dafoam/build.log; ~/dafoam/DONE appears on success and ~/dafoam/FAILED on failure. The script is resumable (finished stages are skipped): fix the problem and run it again. Every download is checked against a SHA-256 and the two sources that DAFoam only offers as branches are pinned to commits.

When it finishes, load the environment in every shell that will run DAFoam:

. ~/dafoam/loadDAFoam.sh
python -c "import dafoam; print(dafoam.__file__)" && which simpleFoam simpleFoamADR

3. Install csdl_dafoam

. ~/dafoam/loadDAFoam.sh
pip install -r requirements-verified.txt                      # csdl_alpha, modopt, idwarp-jax at the verified commits
pip install pyslsqp qpsolvers quadprog highspy jax pytest matplotlib
pip install -e . --no-deps
python -m csdl_dafoam.doctor                                  # all rows [ok] except the optional Fortran IDWarp

4. Verify and run

pytest -m dafoam                                              # real-solver tests, about 1 min on 1 rank
mpirun -np 4 python examples/airfoil_analysis.py
mpirun -np 4 python examples/airfoil_optimization.py

For the verified numbers to compare with (Euler-mode case, alpha = 3 deg): CL = 0.4706, CD = 0.011743 (117.4 counts). If your analysis prints values that differ in the third digit, something in the stack differs; those that match to 4 to 5 digits show the installation is equivalent.

Other systems

  • No sudo (HPC): skip install_prereqs_ubuntu.sh, load the cluster’s compiler, MPI, CMake, flex and bison modules instead, and point the script at them. DAFoam’s guide has an Intel-compiler variant (https://dafoam.github.io/installation-source-intel.html). The script’s PETSc configure flags and mpi4py build use the MPI wrappers on PATH.

  • Another distribution: install the packages in install_prereqs_ubuntu.sh under their local names; the build steps are distribution-independent.

  • OpenFOAM’s Allwmake fails at a link step with fftw: see “Problems met” in Installing on an Apple-silicon Mac; the script already handles it.

  • A conda install (environment.yml, recipes/) is described in Installation; those recipes are unbuilt and known to be incomplete, so prefer this script until they are fixed.