HPC/Applications/matlab
Introduction
Before going any further, consider using GNU Octave instead of MATLAB for all but the most demanding or vendor-specific tasks:
- To start octave:
octave
- GNU Octave Documentation
- Differences between Octave and MATLAB in the WikiBook MATLAB Programming (slightly out of date).
- Why/when should I prefer MATLAB over Octave? – Discussion at stackoverflow.com.
- Alternatively, consider using a general-purpose scripting language.
- Users with Python with NumPy, available as module "numpy" on Carbon. See also NumPy for Matlab Users.
- Users who like a stonger Unix flavor should look at Perl.
Licensing
MATLAB on Carbon is available but subject to extremely limiting license terms.
Most of the information conveyed here concerns licensing, a thoroughly unloved necessity of high-profile commercial software. Running MATLAB is restricted to:
- Argonne employees (including consultants and students),
- on node clogin5 only,
- by one user at a time,
- not remotely, except for a certain number of users per year.
Toolboxes
We have the following toolboxes installed:
- Curve_Fitting_Toolbox
- Image_Toolbox
- Optimization_Toolbox
- Distrib_Computing_Toolbox
- Statistics_Toolbox
Request access
To request access to MATLAB on Carbon, send an email.
Running MATLAB
- To get started, load the "matlab" module as described at HPC/Module Setup.
- Then choose how to run the application:
- GUI
matlab
- Command line
- For basic calculations, you could save some startup time by simply using the text interface.
matlab -nojvm
Troubleshooting
Access
To run MATLAB on Carbon, you must be a member of the "matlab" group. You could still load the "matlab" module if you are not, but it will not enable anything.
- To inspect your current group membership, run:
groups
- The word "matlab" must show.
Running on a host that is not licensed
License checkout failed. License Manager Error -9 The hostid of your computer ("001122334455 001122334466") does not match the hostid of the license file (001122334400).
Solution: log in to clogin5 and retry. If you use the Mega SSH gateway, review the updated instructions for Linux/Mac/Cygwin or PuTTY on Windows on how to configure and use port forwarding to reach a specific login node.
License in use
License checkout failed. License Manager Error -9 This error may occur when: -The hostid of this computer does not match the hostid in the license file. -A Designated Computer installation is in use by another user. If no other user is currently running MATLAB, you may need to activate.
Solution: Send a support request.