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Quick Start Guide for SST 16.0.x

Quick Start Guide for SST 16.0.x

Welcome to SST

SST is an open source, cross platform simulation platform that provides a framework to connect multiple simulated hardware objects including CPUs, network, memory, etc. Simulations using the toolkit can be run either single node, or run on multiple nodes via MPI. The toolkit provides a parallel discrete event core as well as several programming interfaces including classes to manage random number generation, statistics handling, simulation output and efficient memory pooling for simulation events. The most recent performance evaluation has shown that SST can scale to simulate beyond 1.5M objects and operate efficiently on simulations up to 128 dual-processor nodes.

This quick start guide is intended to get the user up and running with SST as quickly as possible. It is intended for users with intermediate knowledge in the operation of Unix/Linux/OSX environments.

It is strongly recommend that new users refer to the Detailed SST Build and Install Instructions when building SST for the first time.

The SST Release Matrix identify what operating systems, compiler and external component combinations have been tested and proven to work with SST.

NOTE: Using combinations other than what is identified in the Release Matrix may cause build failures and/or unexpected results.

A detailed list of elements provided with the SST distribution are available from the SST Elements Documentation pages.

If you encounter difficulties, refer to the Detailed SST Build and Install Instructions or go to the SST Support page

SST Dependencies

SST has a few dependencies that are required for building.

Python is required.
OpenMPI is recommended but not required. If building without OpenMPI, you will need to configure SST-Core with the --disable-mpi option.

Note that:

The instructions provided below assume that these required components are installed in their default system locations.
Other external dependencies may be optionally installed depending upon the users needs. Refer to Instructions for Additional External SST Components for more information.

Building and Installing SST

Basic Build and Install

Obtain SST-Core 16.0.x and SST-Elements 16.0.x tarfiles from the SST Downloads Page
Extract each tarfile to a unique development directory (i.e., $HOME/mysst/sst-core and $HOME/mysst/sst-elements).
Determine where you will install SST-Core and SST-Elements (i.e., $HOME/install/sst-core and $HOME/install/sst-elements)
Change directory to the SST-Core development directory.
```
$ cd $HOME/mysst/sst-core
```

Configure SST-Core

$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/install/sst-core <additional common configure options defined below>

Compile SST-Core
```
$ make
```
Install SST-Core
```
$ make install
```
Change directory to the SST-Elements development directory.
```
$ cd $HOME/mysst/sst-elements
```

Configure SST-Elements

$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/install/sst-elements --with-sst-core=$HOME/install/sst-core <additional common configure options defined below>

Compile SST-Elements
```
$ make
```
Install SST-Elements
```
$ make install
```
Verify SST Operation with a very simple sanity test (Note: Path to sst executable must be properly setup.)
```
$ sst --version
```
Run the tests

$ sst-test-core
$ sst-test-elements (NOTE: This will take a long time to run. Try 'sst-test-elements -w "*simpleComponent*"' for a shorter test.)

SST-Core Configuration Options

All available configuration options for SST-Core can be displayed using $ ./configure --help.

Some commonly used options for SST-Core are:

--prefix=<Install path> - Sets the installation directory for SST-Core. This is typically required.
CC=<Path to C compiler>
CXX=<Path to C++ compiler>
MPICC=<Path to MPIC compiler>
MPICXX=<Path to MPIC++ compiler>

An Example SST-Core configuration:

$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/local/sstcore-16.0.0
              CC=`which gcc` CXX=`which g++` MPICC=`which mpicc` MPICXX=`which mpicxx`

SST-Elements Configuration Options

All available configuration options for SST-Elements can be displayed using $ ./configure --help.

The most common configure options for SST-Elements are:

--prefix=<Install path> - Sets the installation directory for SST-Elements.
--with-sst-core=<Path to SST-Core Installation> - Identifies where the SST-Core is installed.

An Example SST-Elements configuration:

$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/local/sstelements-16.0.0
              --with-sst-core=$HOME/local/sstcore-16.0.0

Other Build Information

Adding additional external components to SST-Elements usually requires configuring SST-Elements with additional parameters, as in $ ./configure --with-<component name>.
- Run $ ./configure --help for more details on configure options.
If a new element (or a new configure-related file) is added to the source code, it will be necessary to completely rebuild the configuration script (run $ ./autogen.sh then configure as described above) to add the new element into the build system.
To clone the latest project source code on the devel branch (from GitHub):
- Using Git
  - git clone -b devel https://github.com/sstsimulator/sst-core.git
  - git clone -b devel https://github.com/sstsimulator/sst-elements.git
- The build process is the same as described above, except the user must run $ ./autogen.sh before running the configure file. Running autogen requires that autotools have been installed.
- Note: The devel branch is under active development and is tested nightly. Code in the devel branch may be non-functional at any time.
Additional information on running and creating components for SST may be found at sst-simulator.org
Developers and researchers are encouraged to be part of SST Development.
- Feel free to submit Pull Requests following our Core Contributing Guidelines and Element Contributing Guidelines.
- Contact SST Support for more information or to volunteer to help out.