lammps/doc/Section_start.txt

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:link(lws,http://lammps.sandia.gov)
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2. Getting Started :h3

This section describes how to build and run LAMMPS, for both new and
experienced users.

2.1 "What's in the LAMMPS distribution"_#2_1
2.2 "Making LAMMPS"_#2_2
2.3 "Making LAMMPS with optional packages"_#2_3
2.4 "Building LAMMPS as a library"_#2_4
2.5 "Running LAMMPS"_#2_5
2.6 "Command-line options"_#2_6
2.7 "Screen output"_#2_7
2.8 "Running on GPUs"_#2_8
2.9 "Tips for users of previous versions"_#2_9 :all(b)

:line

2.1 What's in the LAMMPS distribution :h4,link(2_1)

When you download LAMMPS you will need to unzip and untar the
downloaded file with the following commands, after placing the file in
an appropriate directory.

gunzip lammps*.tar.gz 
tar xvf lammps*.tar :pre

This will create a LAMMPS directory containing two files and several
sub-directories:
    
README: text file
LICENSE: the GNU General Public License (GPL)
bench: benchmark problems
doc: documentation
examples: simple test problems
potentials: embedded atom method (EAM) potential files
src: source files
tools: pre- and post-processing tools :tb(s=:)

If you download the Windows executable from the download page,
then you just get a single file:

lmp_windows.exe :pre

Skip to the "Running LAMMPS"_#2_5 section, to learn how to launch this
executable on a Windows box.

The Windows executable also only includes certain packages and
bug-fixes/upgrades listed on "this
page"_http://lammps.sandia.gov/bug.html up to a certain date, as
stated on the download page.  If you want something with more packages
or that is more current, you'll have to download the source tarball
and build it yourself, as described in the next section.

:line

2.2 Making LAMMPS :h4,link(2_2)

This section has the following sub-sections:

"Read this first"_#2_2_1
"Building a LAMMPS executable"_#2_2_2
"Common errors that can occur when making LAMMPS"_#2_2_3
"Editing a new low-level Makefile"_#2_2_4
"Additional build tips"_#2_2_5 :ul

:line

[{Read this first:}] :link(2_2_1)

Building LAMMPS can be non-trivial.  You will likely need to edit a
makefile, there are compiler options, additional libraries can be used
(MPI, FFT), etc.  Please read this section carefully.  If you are not
comfortable with makefiles, or building codes on a Unix platform, or
running an MPI job on your machine, please find a local expert to help
you.  Many compiling, linking, and run problems that users are not
really LAMMPS issues - they are peculiar to the user's system,
compilers, libraries, etc.  Such questions are better answered by a
local expert.

If you have a build problem that you are convinced is a LAMMPS issue
(e.g. the compiler complains about a line of LAMMPS source code), then
please send an email to the
"developers"_http://lammps.sandia.gov/authors.html.

If you succeed in building LAMMPS on a new kind of machine, for which
there isn't a similar Makefile for in the src/MAKE directory, send it
to the developers and we'll include it in future LAMMPS releases.

:line

[{Building a LAMMPS executable:}] :link(2_2_2)

The src directory contains the C++ source and header files for LAMMPS.
It also contains a top-level Makefile and a MAKE sub-directory with
low-level Makefile.* files for several machines.  From within the src
directory, type "make" or "gmake".  You should see a list of available
choices.  If one of those is the machine and options you want, you can
type a command like:

make linux
gmake mac :pre

Note that on a multi-processor or multi-core platform you can launch a
parallel make, by using the "-j" switch with the make command, which
will build LAMMPS more quickly.

If you get no errors and an executable like lmp_linux or lmp_mac is
produced, you're done; it's your lucky day.

:line

[{Common errors that can occur when making LAMMPS:}] :link(2_2_3)

(1) If the make command breaks immediately with errors that indicate
it can't find files with a "*" in their names, this can be because
your machine's make doesn't support wildcard expansion in a makefile.
Try gmake instead of make.  If that doesn't work, try using a -f
switch with your make command to use Makefile.list which explicitly
lists all the needed files, e.g.

make makelist
make -f Makefile.list linux
gmake -f Makefile.list mac :pre

The first "make" command will create a current Makefile.list with all
the file names in your src dir.  The 2nd "make" command (make or
gmake) will use it to build LAMMPS.

(2) Other errors typically occur because the low-level Makefile isn't
setup correctly for your machine.  If your platform is named "foo",
you will need to create a Makefile.foo in the MAKE sub-directory.  Use
whatever existing file is closest to your platform as a starting
point.  See the next section for more instructions.

(3) If you get a link-time error about missing libraries or missing
dependencies, then it can be because:

you are including a package that needs an extra library, but have not pre-built the necessary "package library"_#2_3_3
you are linking to a library that doesn't exist on your system
you are not linking to the necessary system library :ul

The first issue is discussed below.  The other two issue mean you need
to edit your low-level Makefile.foo, as discussed in the next
sub-section.

:line

[{Editing a new low-level Makefile.foo:}] :link(2_2_4)

These are the issues you need to address when editing a low-level
Makefile for your machine.  The portions of the file you typically
need to edit are the first line, the "compiler/linker settings"
section, and the "system-specific settings" section.

(1) Change the first line of Makefile.foo to list the word "foo" after
the "#", and whatever other options you set.  This is the line you
will see if you just type "make".

(3) The "compiler/linker settings" section lists compiler and linker
settings for your C++ compiler, including optimization flags.  You can
use g++, the open-source GNU compiler, which is available on all Unix
systems.  You can also use mpicc which will typically be available if
MPI is installed on your system, though you should check which actual
compiler it wraps.  Vendor compilers often produce faster code.  On
boxes with Intel CPUs, we suggest using the free Intel icc compiler,
which you can download from "Intel's compiler site"_intel.

:link(intel,http://www.intel.com/software/products/noncom)

If building a C++ code on your machine requires additional libraries,
then you should list them as part of the LIB variable.

The DEPFLAGS setting is what triggers the C++ compiler to create a
dependency list for a source file.  This speeds re-compilation when
source (*.cpp) or header (*.h) files are edited.  Some compilers do
not support dependency file creation, or may use a different switch
than -D.  GNU g++ works with -D.  If your compiler can't create
dependency files (a long list of errors involving *.d files), then
you'll need to create a Makefile.foo patterned after Makefile.storm,
which uses different rules that do not involve dependency files.

(3) The "system-specific settings" section has 4 parts.

(3.a) The LMP_INC variable is used to include options that turn on
system-dependent ifdefs within the LAMMPS code.

The read_data and dump commands will read/write gzipped files if you
compile with -DLAMMPS_GZIP.  It requires that your Unix support the
"popen" command.  Using one of the -DPACK_ARRAY, -DPACK_POINTER, and
-DPACK_MEMCPY options can make for faster parallel FFTs (in the PPPM
solver) on some platforms.  The -DPACK_ARRAY setting is the default.
If you use -DLAMMPS_XDR, the build will include XDR compatibility
files for doing particle dumps in XTC format.  This is only necessary
if your platform does have its own XDR files available.  See the
Restrictions section of the "dump"_dump.html command for details.

(3.b) The 3 MPI variables are used to specify an MPI library to build
LAMMPS with.

If you want LAMMPS to run in parallel, you must have an MPI library
installed on your platform.  If you use an MPI-wrapped compiler, such
as "mpicc" to build LAMMPS, you can probably leave these 3 variables
blank.  If you do not use "mpicc" as your compiler/linker, then you
need to specify where the mpi.h file (MPI_INC) and the MPI library
(MPI_PATH) is found and its name (MPI_LIB).

If you are installing MPI yourself, we recommend Argonne's MPICH 1.2
or 2.0 which can be downloaded from the "Argonne MPI
site"_http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/mpi.  LAM MPI should also work.  If
you are running on a big parallel platform, your system people or the
vendor should have already installed a version of MPI, which will be
faster than MPICH or LAM, so find out how to build and link with it.
If you use MPICH or LAM, you will have to configure and build it for
your platform.  The MPI configure script should have compiler options
to enable you to use the same compiler you are using for the LAMMPS
build, which can avoid problems that can arise when linking LAMMPS to
the MPI library.

If you just want LAMMPS to run on a single processor, you can use the
STUBS library in place of MPI, since you don't need an MPI library
installed on your system.  See the Makefile.serial file for how to
specify the 3 MPI variables.  You will also need to build the STUBS
library for your platform before making LAMMPS itself.  From the STUBS
dir, type "make" and it will hopefully create a libmpi.a suitable for
linking to LAMMPS.  If this build fails, you will need to edit the
STUBS/Makefile for your platform.

The file STUBS/mpi.cpp has a CPU timer function MPI_Wtime() that calls
gettimeofday() .  If your system doesn't support gettimeofday() ,
you'll need to insert code to call another timer.  Note that the
ANSI-standard function clock() rolls over after an hour or so, and is
therefore insufficient for timing long LAMMPS simulations.

(3.c) The 3 FFT variables are used to specify an FFT library which
LAMMPS uses when using the particle-particle particle-mesh (PPPM)
option in LAMMPS for long-range Coulombics via the
"kspace_style"_kspace_style.html command.

To use this option, you must have a 1d FFT library installed on your
platform.  This is specified by a switch of the form -DFFT_XXX where
XXX = INTEL, DEC, SGI, SCSL, or FFTW.  All but the last one are native
vendor-provided libraries.  FFTW is a fast, portable library that
should work on any platform.  You can download it from
"www.fftw.org"_http://www.fftw.org.  Use version 2.1.X, not the newer
3.0.X.  Building FFTW for your box should be as simple as ./configure;
make.  Whichever FFT library you have on your platform, you'll need to
set the appropriate FFT_INC, FFT_PATH, and FFT_LIB variables in
Makefile.foo.

If you examine src/fft3d.c and src.fft3d.h you'll see it's possible to
add other vendor FFT libraries via #ifdef statements in the
appropriate places.  If you successfully add a new FFT option, like
-DFFT_IBM, please send the LAMMPS developers an email; we'd like to
add it to LAMMPS.

If you don't plan to use PPPM, you don't need an FFT library.  In this
case you can set FFT_INC to -DFFT_NONE and leave the other 2 FFT
variables blank.  Or you can exclude the KSPACE package when you build
LAMMPS (see below).

(3.d) The several SYSLIB and SYSPATH variables can be ignored unless
you are building LAMMPS with one or more of the LAMMPS packages that
require these extra system libraries.  The names of these packages are
the prefixes on the SYSLIB and SYSPATH variables.  See the "section
below"_#2_3_4 for more details.  The SYSLIB variables list the system
libraries.  The SYSPATH variables are where they are located on your
machine, which is typically only needed if they are in some
non-standard place, that is not in your library search path.

That's it.  Once you have a correct Makefile.foo and you have
pre-built any other libraries it will use (e.g. MPI, FFT, package
libraries), all you need to do from the src directory is type one of
these 2 commands:

make foo
gmake foo :pre

You should get the executable lmp_foo when the build is complete.

:line

[{Additional build tips:}] :link(2_2_5)

(1) Building LAMMPS for multiple platforms.

You can make LAMMPS for multiple platforms from the same src
directory.  Each target creates its own object sub-directory called
Obj_name where it stores the system-specific *.o files.

(2) Cleaning up.

Typing "make clean-all" or "make clean-foo" will delete *.o object
files created when LAMMPS is built, for either all builds or for a
particular machine.

(3) Building for a Mac.

OS X is BSD Unix, so it should just work.  See the Makefile.mac file.

(4) Building for MicroSoft Windows.

The LAMMPS download page has an option to download a pre-built Windows
exeutable.  See below for instructions for running this executable on
a Windows box.

If the pre-built executable doesn't have the options you want, then
you should be able to build LAMMPS from source files on a Windows box.
I've never done this, but LAMMPS is just standard C++ with MPI and FFT
calls.  You can use cygwin to build LAMMPS with a Unix make; see
Makefile.cygwin.  Or you should be able to pull all the source files
into Visual C++ (ugh) or some similar development environment and
build it.  In the src/MAKE/Windows directory are some notes from users
on how they built LAMMPS under Windows, so you can look at their
instructions for tips.  Good luck - we can't help you on this one.

:line

2.3 Making LAMMPS with optional packages :h4,link(2_3)

This section has the following sub-sections:

"Package basics"_#2_3_1
"Including/excluding packages"_#2_3_2
"Packages that require extra LAMMPS libraries"_#2_3_3
"Additional Makefile settings for extra libraries"_#2_3_4 :ul

:line

[{Package basics:}] :link(2_3_1)

The source code for LAMMPS is structured as a large set of core files
which are always included, plus optional packages.  Packages are
groups of files that enable a specific set of features.  For example,
force fields for molecular systems or granular systems are in
packages.  You can see the list of all packages by typing "make
package".

The current list of standard packages is as follows:

asphere : aspherical particles and force fields
class2 : class 2 force fields
colloid : colloidal particle force fields
dipole : point dipole particles and force fields
dsmc : Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DMSC) pair style
gpu : GPU-enabled force field styles
granular : force fields and boundary conditions for granular systems
kspace : long-range Ewald and particle-mesh (PPPM) solvers
manybody : metal, 3-body, bond-order potentials
meam : modified embedded atom method (MEAM) potential
molecule : force fields for molecular systems
opt : optimized versions of a few pair potentials
peri : Peridynamics model and potential
poems : coupled rigid body motion
prd : parallel replica dynamics
reax : ReaxFF potential
xtc : dump atom snapshots in XTC format :tb(s=:)

There are also user-contributed packages which may be as simple as a
single additional file or many files grouped together which add a
specific functionality to the code.

The difference between a {standard} package versus a {user} package is
as follows.

Standard packages are supported by the LAMMPS developers and are
written in a syntax and style consistent with the rest of LAMMPS.
This means we will answer questions about them, debug and fix them if
necessary, and keep them compatible with future changes to LAMMPS.

User packages don't necessarily meet these requirements.  If you have
problems using a feature provided in a user package, you will likely
need to contact the contributor directly to get help.  Information on
how to submit additions you make to LAMMPS as a user-contributed
package is given in "this section"_Section_modify.html#package of the
documentation.

:line

[{Including/excluding packages:}] :link(2_3_2)

Any or all packages can be included or excluded independently BEFORE
LAMMPS is built.

The two exceptions to this are the "gpu" and "opt" packages.  Some of
the files in these packages require other packages to also be
included.  If this is not the case, then those subsidiary files in
"gpu" and "opt" will not be installed either.  To install all the
files in package "gpu", the "asphere" package must also be installed.
To install all the files in package "opt", the "kspace" and "manybody"
packages must also be installed.

You may wish to exclude certain packages if you will never run certain
kinds of simulations.  This will keep you from having to build
auxiliary libraries (see below) and will produce a smaller executable
which may run a bit faster.

By default, LAMMPS includes only the "kspace", "manybody", and
"molecule" packages.

Packages are included or excluded by typing "make yes-name" or "make
no-name", where "name" is the name of the package.  You can also type
"make yes-standard", "make no-standard", "make yes-user", "make
no-user", "make yes-all" or "make no-all" to include/exclude various
sets of packages.  Type "make package" to see the various options.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These make commands work by simply moving files back
and forth between the main src directory and sub-directories with the
package name, so that the files are seen or not seen when LAMMPS is
built.  After you have included or excluded a package, you must
re-build LAMMPS.

Additional make options exist to help manage LAMMPS files that exist
in both the src directory and in package sub-directories.  You do not
normally need to use these commands unless you are editing LAMMPS
files or have downloaded a patch from the LAMMPS WWW site.

Typing "make package-update" will overwrite src files with files from
the package directories if the package has been included.  It should
be used after a patch is installed, since patches only update the
master package version of a file.  Typing "make package-overwrite"
will overwrite files in the package directories with src files.
Typing "make package-check" will list differences between src and
package versions of the same files.  Again, type "make package" to see
the various options.

:line

[{Packages that require extra LAMMPS libraries:}] :link(2_3_3)

A few packages (standard or user) require that additional libraries be
compiled first, which LAMMPS will link to when it builds.  The source
code for these libraries are included in the LAMMPS distribution under
the "lib" directory.  Look at the README files in the lib directories
(e.g. lib/reax/README) for instructions on how to build each library.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are including a package in your LAMMPS build
that uses one of these libraries, then you must build the library
BEFORE building LAMMPS itself, since the LAMMPS build will attempt to
link with the library file.

Here is a bit of information about each library:

The "atc" library in lib/atc is used by the user-atc package.  It
provides continuum field estimation and molecular dynamics-finite
element coupling methods.  It was written primarily by Reese Jones,
Jeremy Templeton and Jonathan Zimmerman at Sandia.

The "gpu" library in lib/gpu is used by the gpu package.  It
contains code to enable portions of LAMMPS to run on a GPU chip
associated with your CPU.  Currently, only NVIDIA GPUs are supported.
Building this library requires NVIDIA Cuda tools to be installed on
your system.  See the "Running on GPUs"_#2_8 section below for more
info about installing and using Cuda.

The "meam" library in lib/meam is used by the meam package.
computes the modified embedded atom method potential, which is a
generalization of EAM potentials that can be used to model a wider
variety of materials.  This MEAM implementation was written by Greg
Wagner at Sandia.  It requires a F90 compiler to build.  The C++ to
FORTRAN function calls in pair_meam.cpp assumes that FORTRAN object
names are converted to C object names by appending an underscore
character. This is generally the case, but on machines that do not
conform to this convention, you will need to modify either the C++
code or your compiler settings.

The "poems" library in lib/poems is used by the poems package.
computes the constrained rigid-body motion of articulated (jointed)
multibody systems.  POEMS was written and is distributed by Prof Kurt
Anderson's group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

The "reax" library in lib/reax is used by the reax package.  It
computes the Reactive Force Field (ReaxFF) potential, developed by
Adri van Duin in Bill Goddard's group at CalTech.  This implementation
in LAMMPS uses many of Adri's files and was developed by Aidan
Thompson at Sandia and Hansohl Cho at MIT.  It requires a F77 or F90
compiler to build.  The C++ to FORTRAN function calls in pair_reax.cpp
assume that FORTRAN object names are converted to C object names by
appending an underscore character. This is generally the case, but on
machines that do not conform to this convention, you will need to
modify either the C++ code or your compiler settings. The name
conversion is handled by the preprocessor macro called FORTRAN in
pair_reax_fortran.h.  Different definitions of this macro can be
obtained by adding a machine-specific macro definition to the CCFLAGS
variable in your Makefile e.g. -D_IBM. See pair_reax_fortran.h for
more info.

As described in its README file, each library is built by typing
something like

make -f Makefile.g++ :pre

in the appropriate directory, e.g. in lib/reax.

You must use a Makefile that is a match for your system.  If one of
the provided Makefiles is not appropriate for your system you will
need to edit or add one.  For example, in the case of Fotran-based
libraries, your system must have a Fortran compiler, the settings for
which will be in the Makefile.

:line

[{Additional Makefile settings for extra libraries:}] :link(2_3_4)

After the desired library or libraries are built, and the package has
been included, you can build LAMMPS itself.  For example, from the
lammps/src directory you would type this, to build LAMMPS with ReaxFF.
Note that as discussed in the preceding section, the package library
itself, namely lib/reax/libreax.a, must already have been built, for
the LAMMPS build to be successful.

make yes-reax
make g++ :pre

Also note that simply building the library is not sufficient to use it
from LAMMPS.  As in this example, you must also include the package
that uses and wraps the library before you build LAMMPS itself.

As discussed in point (2.4) of "this section"_#2_2_4 above, there are
settings in the low-level Makefile that specify additional system
libraries needed by individual LAMMPS add-on libraries.  These are the
settings you must specify correctly in your low-level Makefile in
lammps/src/MAKE, such as Makefile.foo:

To use the gpu package and library, the settings for gpu_SYSLIB and
gpu_SYSPATH must be correct.  These are specific to the NVIDIA CUDA
software which must be installed on your system.

To use the meam or reax packages and their libraries which are Fortran
based, the settings for meam_SYSLIB, reax_SYSLIB, meam_SYSPATH, and
reax_SYSPATH must be correct.  This is so that the C++ compiler can
perform a cross-language link using the appropriate system Fortran
libraries.

To use the user-atc package and library, the settings for
user-atc_SYSLIB and user-atc_SYSPATH must be correct.  This is so that
the appropriate BLAS and LAPACK libs, used by the user-atc library,
can be found.

:line

2.4 Building LAMMPS as a library :h4,link(2_4)

LAMMPS can be built as a library, which can then be called from
another application or a scripting language.  See "this
section"_Section_howto.html#4_10 for more info on coupling LAMMPS to
other codes.  Building LAMMPS as a library is done by typing

make makelib
make -f Makefile.lib foo :pre

where foo is the machine name.  The first "make" command will create a
current Makefile.lib with all the file names in your src dir.  The 2nd
"make" command will use it to build LAMMPS as a library.  This
requires that Makefile.foo have a library target (lib) and
system-specific settings for ARCHIVE and ARFLAGS.  See Makefile.linux
for an example.  The build will create the file liblmp_foo.a which
another application can link to.

When used from a C++ program, the library allows one or more LAMMPS
objects to be instantiated.  All of LAMMPS is wrapped in a LAMMPS_NS
namespace; you can safely use any of its classes and methods from
within your application code, as needed.  See the sample code
examples/couple/c++_driver.cpp as an example.

When used from a C or Fortran program or a scripting language, the
library has a simple function-style interface, provided in library.cpp
and library.h.  See the sample code examples/couple/c_driver.cpp as an
example.

You can add as many functions as you wish to library.cpp and
library.h.  In a general sense, those functions can access LAMMPS data
and return it to the caller or set LAMMPS data values as specified by
the caller.  These 4 functions are currently included in library.cpp:

void lammps_open(int, char **, MPI_Comm, void **ptr);
void lammps_close(void *ptr);
int lammps_file(void *ptr, char *);
int lammps_command(void *ptr, char *); :pre

The lammps_open() function is used to initialize LAMMPS, passing in a
list of strings as if they were "command-line arguments"_#2_6 when
LAMMPS is run from the command line and a MPI communicator for LAMMPS
to run under.  It returns a ptr to the LAMMPS object that is created,
and which should be used in subsequent library calls.  Note that
lammps_open() can be called multiple times to create multiple LAMMPS
objects.

The lammps_close() function is used to shut down LAMMPS and free all
its memory.  The lammps_file() and lammps_command() functions are used
to pass a file or string to LAMMPS as if it were an input file or
single command read from an input script.

:line

2.5 Running LAMMPS :h4,link(2_5)

By default, LAMMPS runs by reading commands from stdin; e.g. lmp_linux
< in.file.  This means you first create an input script (e.g. in.file)
containing the desired commands.  "This section"_Section_commands.html
describes how input scripts are structured and what commands they
contain.

You can test LAMMPS on any of the sample inputs provided in the
examples directory.  Input scripts are named in.* and sample outputs
are named log.*.name.P where name is a machine and P is the number of
processors it was run on.

Here is how you might run one of the Lennard-Jones tests on a Linux
box, using mpirun to launch a parallel job:

cd src
make linux
cp lmp_linux ../examples/lj
cd ../examples/lj
mpirun -np 4 lmp_linux < in.lj.nve :pre

On a Windows machine, when you have downloaded the Windows executable
lmp_windows.exe, you do something different:

Get a command prompt by going to Start->Run... , then typing "cmd"
and OK. :ulb,l

Move to the directory where you have saved lmp_windows.exe
(e.g. by typing: cd "My Documents"). :l

At the command prompt, type "lmp_windows < in.lj", replacing in.lj
with the name of your LAMMPS input script. :l,ule

To run the Windows executable on multiple processors, you'll need
to download and install 
"MPICH2"_http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/projects/mpich2/downloads/index.php?s=downloads
for Windows, then using the mpiexec.exe
and smpd.exe files in same directory (or path) as the LAMMPS Windows 
executable, type something like this: 
"mpiexec -np 4 -localonly lmp_windows < in.lj".

The screen output from LAMMPS is described in the next section.  As it
runs, LAMMPS also writes a log.lammps file with the same information.

Note that this sequence of commands copies the LAMMPS executable
(lmp_linux) to the directory with the input files.  This may not be
necessary, but some versions of MPI reset the working directory to
where the executable is, rather than leave it as the directory where
you launch mpirun from (if you launch lmp_linux on its own and not
under mpirun).  If that happens, LAMMPS will look for additional input
files and write its output files to the executable directory, rather
than your working directory, which is probably not what you want.

If LAMMPS encounters errors in the input script or while running a
simulation it will print an ERROR message and stop or a WARNING
message and continue.  See "this section"_Section_errors.html for a
discussion of the various kinds of errors LAMMPS can or can't detect,
a list of all ERROR and WARNING messages, and what to do about them.

LAMMPS can run a problem on any number of processors, including a
single processor.  In theory you should get identical answers on any
number of processors and on any machine.  In practice, numerical
round-off can cause slight differences and eventual divergence of
molecular dynamics phase space trajectories.

LAMMPS can run as large a problem as will fit in the physical memory
of one or more processors.  If you run out of memory, you must run on
more processors or setup a smaller problem.

:line

2.6 Command-line options :h4,link(2_6)

At run time, LAMMPS recognizes several optional command-line switches
which may be used in any order.  For example, lmp_ibm might be
launched as follows:

mpirun -np 16 lmp_ibm -var f tmp.out -log my.log -screen none < in.alloy :pre

These are the command-line options:

-echo style :pre

Set the style of command echoing.  The style can be {none} or {screen}
or {log} or {both}.  Depending on the style, each command read from
the input script will be echoed to the screen and/or logfile.  This
can be useful to figure out which line of your script is causing an
input error.  The default value is {log}.  The echo style can also be
set by using the "echo"_echo.html command in the input script itself.

-partition 8x2 4 5 ... :pre

Invoke LAMMPS in multi-partition mode.  When LAMMPS is run on P
processors and this switch is not used, LAMMPS runs in one partition,
i.e. all P processors run a single simulation.  If this switch is
used, the P processors are split into separate partitions and each
partition runs its own simulation.  The arguments to the switch
specify the number of processors in each partition.  Arguments of the
form MxN mean M partitions, each with N processors.  Arguments of the
form N mean a single partition with N processors.  The sum of
processors in all partitions must equal P.  Thus the command
"-partition 8x2 4 5" has 10 partitions and runs on a total of 25
processors.

The input script specifies what simulation is run on which partition;
see the "variable"_variable.html and "next"_next.html commands.  This
"howto section"_Section_howto.html#4_4 gives examples of how to use
these commands in this way.  Simulations running on different
partitions can also communicate with each other; see the
"temper"_temper.html command.

-in file :pre

Specify a file to use as an input script.  This is an optional switch
when running LAMMPS in one-partition mode.  If it is not specified,
LAMMPS reads its input script from stdin - e.g. lmp_linux < in.run.
This is a required switch when running LAMMPS in multi-partition mode,
since multiple processors cannot all read from stdin.

-log file :pre

Specify a log file for LAMMPS to write status information to.  In
one-partition mode, if the switch is not used, LAMMPS writes to the
file log.lammps.  If this switch is used, LAMMPS writes to the
specified file.  In multi-partition mode, if the switch is not used, a
log.lammps file is created with hi-level status information.  Each
partition also writes to a log.lammps.N file where N is the partition
ID.  If the switch is specified in multi-partition mode, the hi-level
logfile is named "file" and each partition also logs information to a
file.N.  For both one-partition and multi-partition mode, if the
specified file is "none", then no log files are created.  Using a
"log"_log.html command in the input script will override this setting.

-screen file :pre

Specify a file for LAMMPS to write its screen information to.  In
one-partition mode, if the switch is not used, LAMMPS writes to the
screen.  If this switch is used, LAMMPS writes to the specified file
instead and you will see no screen output.  In multi-partition mode,
if the switch is not used, hi-level status information is written to
the screen.  Each partition also writes to a screen.N file where N is
the partition ID.  If the switch is specified in multi-partition mode,
the hi-level screen dump is named "file" and each partition also
writes screen information to a file.N.  For both one-partition and
multi-partition mode, if the specified file is "none", then no screen
output is performed.

-var name value :pre

Specify a variable that will be defined for substitution purposes when
the input script is read.  "Name" is the variable name which can be a
single character (referenced as $x in the input script) or a full
string (referenced as $\{abc\}).  The value can be any string.  Using
this command-line option is equivalent to putting the line "variable
name index value" at the beginning of the input script.  Defining an
index variable as a command-line argument overrides any setting for
the same index variable in the input script, since index variables
cannot be re-defined.  See the "variable"_variable.html command for
more info on defining index and other kinds of variables and "this
section"_Section_commands.html#3_2 for more info on using variables in
input scripts.

:line

2.7 LAMMPS screen output :h4,link(2_7)

As LAMMPS reads an input script, it prints information to both the
screen and a log file about significant actions it takes to setup a
simulation.  When the simulation is ready to begin, LAMMPS performs
various initializations and prints the amount of memory (in MBytes per
processor) that the simulation requires.  It also prints details of
the initial thermodynamic state of the system.  During the run itself,
thermodynamic information is printed periodically, every few
timesteps.  When the run concludes, LAMMPS prints the final
thermodynamic state and a total run time for the simulation.  It then
appends statistics about the CPU time and storage requirements for the
simulation.  An example set of statistics is shown here:

Loop time of 49.002 on 2 procs for 2004 atoms :pre

Pair   time (%) = 35.0495 (71.5267)
Bond   time (%) = 0.092046 (0.187841)
Kspce  time (%) = 6.42073 (13.103)
Neigh  time (%) = 2.73485 (5.5811)
Comm   time (%) = 1.50291 (3.06703)
Outpt  time (%) = 0.013799 (0.0281601)
Other  time (%) = 2.13669 (4.36041) :pre

Nlocal:    1002 ave, 1015 max, 989 min
Histogram: 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
Nghost:    8720 ave, 8724 max, 8716 min 
Histogram: 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Neighs:    354141 ave, 361422 max, 346860 min 
Histogram: 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 :pre

Total # of neighbors = 708282
Ave neighs/atom = 353.434
Ave special neighs/atom = 2.34032
Number of reneighborings = 42
Dangerous reneighborings = 2 :pre

The first section gives the breakdown of the CPU run time (in seconds)
into major categories.  The second section lists the number of owned
atoms (Nlocal), ghost atoms (Nghost), and pair-wise neighbors stored
per processor.  The max and min values give the spread of these values
across processors with a 10-bin histogram showing the distribution.
The total number of histogram counts is equal to the number of
processors.

The last section gives aggregate statistics for pair-wise neighbors
and special neighbors that LAMMPS keeps track of (see the
"special_bonds"_special_bonds.html command).  The number of times
neighbor lists were rebuilt during the run is given as well as the
number of potentially "dangerous" rebuilds.  If atom movement
triggered neighbor list rebuilding (see the
"neigh_modify"_neigh_modify.html command), then dangerous
reneighborings are those that were triggered on the first timestep
atom movement was checked for.  If this count is non-zero you may wish
to reduce the delay factor to insure no force interactions are missed
by atoms moving beyond the neighbor skin distance before a rebuild
takes place.

If an energy minimization was performed via the
"minimize"_minimize.html command, additional information is printed,
e.g.

Minimization stats:
  E initial, next-to-last, final = -0.895962 -2.94193 -2.94342
  Gradient 2-norm init/final= 1920.78 20.9992
  Gradient inf-norm init/final= 304.283 9.61216
  Iterations = 36
  Force evaluations = 177 :pre

The first line lists the initial and final energy, as well as the
energy on the next-to-last iteration.  The next 2 lines give a measure
of the gradient of the energy (force on all atoms).  The 2-norm is the
"length" of this force vector; the inf-norm is the largest component.
The last 2 lines are statistics on how many iterations and
force-evaluations the minimizer required.  Multiple force evaluations
are typically done at each iteration to perform a 1d line minimization
in the search direction.

If a "kspace_style"_kspace_style.html long-range Coulombics solve was
performed during the run (PPPM, Ewald), then additional information is
printed, e.g.

FFT time (% of Kspce) = 0.200313 (8.34477)
FFT Gflps 3d 1d-only = 2.31074 9.19989 :pre

The first line gives the time spent doing 3d FFTs (4 per timestep) and
the fraction it represents of the total KSpace time (listed above).
Each 3d FFT requires computation (3 sets of 1d FFTs) and communication
(transposes).  The total flops performed is 5Nlog_2(N), where N is the
number of points in the 3d grid.  The FFTs are timed with and without
the communication and a Gflop rate is computed.  The 3d rate is with
communication; the 1d rate is without (just the 1d FFTs).  Thus you
can estimate what fraction of your FFT time was spent in
communication, roughly 75% in the example above.

:line

2.8 Running on GPUs :h4,link(2_8)

A few LAMMPS "pair styles"_pair_style.html can be run on graphical
processing units (GPUs).  We plan to add more over time.  Currently,
they only support NVIDIA GPU cards.  To use them you need to install
certain NVIDIA CUDA software on your system:

Check if you have an NVIDIA card: cat /proc/driver/nvidia/cards/0
Go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_get.html
Install a driver and toolkit appopriate for your system (SDK is not necessary)
Run make in lammps/lib/gpu, editing a Makefile if necessary
Run lammps/lib/gpu/nvc_get_devices to list supported devices and properties :ul

GPU hardware :h4

When using GPUs, you are restricted to one physical GPU per LAMMPS
process.  This can be multiple GPUs on a single node or across
multiple nodes.  For each GPU pair style, the first two arguments (GPU
mode followed by GPU ID) control how GPUs are selected.  If you are
running on a single node, the mode is "one/node" and the parameter is
the ID of the first GPU to select:

pair_style lj/cut/gpu one/node 0 2.5 :pre

The ID is the GPU ID reported by the driver for CUDA enabled graphics
cards.  For multiple GPU cards on a node, an MPI process should be run
for each graphics card.  In this case, each process will grab the GPU
with ID equal to the process rank plus the GPU parameter.

For multiple nodes with one GPU per node, the mode is "one/gpu" and
the parameter is the ID of the GPU used on every node:

pair_style lj/cut/gpu one/gpu 1 2.5 :pre

In this case, MPI should be run with exactly one process per node.

For multiple nodes with multiple GPUs, the mode is "multi/gpu" and the
parameter is the number of GPUs per node:

pair_style lj/cut/gpu multi/gpu 3 2.5 :pre

In this case, LAMMPS will attempt to grab 3 GPUs per node and this
requires that the number of processes per node be 3. The first GPU
selected must have ID zero for this mode (in the example, GPUs 0, 1,
and 2 will be selected on every node).  An additional constraint is
that the MPI processes must be filled by slot on each node such that
the process ranks on each node are always sequential. This is a option
for the MPI launcher (mpirun/mpiexec) and will be the default on many
clusters.

GPU single vs double precision :h4

See the lammps/lib/gpu/README file for instructions on how to build 
the LAMMPS gpu library for single vs double precision.  The latter
requires that your GPU card supports double precision. The lj/cut/gpu
pair style does not support double precision.

:line

2.9 Tips for users of previous LAMMPS versions :h4,link(2_9)

The current C++ began with a complete rewrite of LAMMPS 2001, which
was written in F90.  Features of earlier versions of LAMMPS are listed
in "this section"_Section_history.html.  The F90 and F77 versions
(2001 and 99) are also freely distributed as open-source codes; check
the "LAMMPS WWW Site"_lws for distribution information if you prefer
those versions.  The 99 and 2001 versions are no longer under active
development; they do not have all the features of C++ LAMMPS.

If you are a previous user of LAMMPS 2001, these are the most
significant changes you will notice in C++ LAMMPS:

(1) The names and arguments of many input script commands have
changed.  All commands are now a single word (e.g. read_data instead
of read data).

(2) All the functionality of LAMMPS 2001 is included in C++ LAMMPS,
but you may need to specify the relevant commands in different ways.

(3) The format of the data file can be streamlined for some problems.
See the "read_data"_read_data.html command for details.  The data file
section "Nonbond Coeff" has been renamed to "Pair Coeff" in C++ LAMMPS.

(4) Binary restart files written by LAMMPS 2001 cannot be read by C++
LAMMPS with a "read_restart"_read_restart.html command.  This is
because they were output by F90 which writes in a different binary
format than C or C++ writes or reads.  Use the {restart2data} tool
provided with LAMMPS 2001 to convert the 2001 restart file to a text
data file.  Then edit the data file as necessary before using the C++
LAMMPS "read_data"_read_data.html command to read it in.

(5) There are numerous small numerical changes in C++ LAMMPS that mean
you will not get identical answers when comparing to a 2001 run.
However, your initial thermodynamic energy and MD trajectory should be
close if you have setup the problem for both codes the same.