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.
• 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.