How To Install and Configure Matlab on remote Linux client

Step 1. Configure your linux desktop to use EASE authentication

Follow the EASE instructions to configure your desktop

https://www.ease.ed.ac.uk/admindocs/configuring.html

Step 2. Create a Kerberos ticket

Create a Kerberos5 ticket for the realm EASE.ED.AC.UK on your desktop 

$ kinit
Password for ywan@EASE.ED.AC.UK: (type your EASE password here)
 
$ klist
Ticket cache: FILE:/tmp/krb5cc_349593
Default principal: ywan@EASE.ED.AC.UK

Valid starting     Expires            Service principal
11/07/07 10:47:40  11/07/07 20:47:40  krbtgt/EASE.ED.AC.UK@EASE.ED.AC.UK
        renew until 11/08/07 10:47:26

Step 3. Test passwordless login

Execute a command remotely on eddie via SSH 

$ ssh eddie.ecdf.ed.ac.uk hostname

If you get the result of either frontend01 or frontend02 without a password prompt, your passwordless login is successful. If you get asked for your password, something has gone wrong. Check if your kerberos tickets are valid.

Step 4. Access shared directory

ECDF systems team will provide you a disk share (using Samba or NFS) which you can mount to your desktop. You need root previlige to mount a disk, ask for help from your school computing officers

In the following sample, we have a Samba share named is_iti_ug which is created for user ywan. To mount it to /exports/work/is_iti_ug on local desktop, do: 

# mount -t cifs //nas01.ecdf.ed.ac.uk/is_iti_ug /exports/work/is_iti_ug -o user=ywan -o domain=ED
Password: (type user ywan's EASE password here)

Note: you'll need a local user account and group with exactly same uid and gid as on eddie to access your files in shared directory.

If you cannot access your shared directory, contact science support at:

Step 5. Install Matlab and Distributed Computing Toolbox

To submit Matlab jobs to eddie, you need install Matlab plus the Distributed Computing Toolbox on your desktop. The version we have tested is 3.1 R2007a. You may need administrator privileges to install Matlab, ask your school computing officer for help. You'll also need a license file for installation, which should have been given to you by Mathworks when you purchased your licenses.

Note: Matlab and the Distributed Computing Toolbox (DCT) are served by different licenses. You will need buy a seperate DCT license if you were a traditional Matlab user.

You can ask for installation files and trial licenses from Mathworks through the following link:

http://www.mathworks.com/products/distribtb/tryit.html

The following instructions show how to install Matlab and the Distributed Computing Toolbox on a Windows desktop:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/product/DM/installation/ver_current/instructions/s3_PTu.pdf

Step 6. Start Matlab

After installation, you can start Matlab on your desktop.

First, you need set the path of Matlab license file, by default it is located in ${matlab_root}/etc/license.dat 

$ export MLM_LICENSE_FILE=/home/ywan/matlab/etc/license.dat

Then start Matlab with: 

$ /home/ywan/matlab/bin/matlab

Note: The above commands assume Matlab has been installed at /home/ywan/matlab, replace it by your install location.

You should see the familiar Matlab user interface. In the command window prompt, type: 

>> help findResource

If you see help info for this function, that means the Distributed Computing Toolbox has been installed.

Step 7. Matlab Configuration

To enable Matlab and the Distributed Computing Toolbox to cooperate with the Matlab Distributed Computing Engine on eddie, you need install the following files:

For Matlab distributed jobs:

For Matlab parallel jobs:

Step 8. Submit jobs to eddie

It's time to verify all above work by running a Matlab job. The following two samples show how to submit a Matlab distributed job and a Matlab Parallel job to eddie, and retrieve results from a client session.

How To Install and Configure Matlab on a Linux client (last edited 2007-11-12 17:34:43 by Yuan WAN)