Building and Running LHCb Software on Windows

https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/LHCb/WindowsDevEnv

Contents

1. Prerequisites
   1. For Standalone Machines
   2. For the CERN Terminal Server
   3. For both standalone machines and terminal server
2. Define Environment Variables
3. Software access
   1. Install a software release
   2. Map network drive
4. Available Commands at the DOS Prompt
5. Building LHCb Software on Windows in Command Line Mode
6. Using Visual Studio .NET
   

Prerequisites

For Standalone Machines

You will need to set up on your PC the following software :-

For the CERN Terminal Server

• Install the appropriate remote desktop software
  • Installation instructions can be found from here for Windows, Mac and linux users.
    • Note - rdesktop has already been installed on lxplus.
    
    
• Register your CERN NICE account for TS access 
  • This can also be done from here, by following the registration link.

• Start a session on the terminal server cerntsdev01.cern.ch.
• For linux the application to use is "rdesktop". A useful set of options (for a British keyboard) is

• Connection Problems ?
  
• If you experience problems connecting to the Terminal Server from outside CERN, it is possible that your local network is blocking connections through the RDP port 3389. Symptoms are, for example with rdesktop :-

• If this happens, you should speak to your local system administrator to see if access can be granted. If this is not possible, one solution which works very well is to start a VNC session on lxplus, and run rdesktop from there. See this page for details on how to use VNC.
  

For both standalone and TS sessions, once you performed the prerequisites as above :-

• Configure SSH access to the CVS repository
  • Detailed instructions can be found here.
  • NOTE For Terminal Server users : TS users can not use the "Scheduled Tasks", as described in the notes, since this requires administrator rights. A work around for this is to create a desktop short cut :-
    • Create a new shortcut on your desktop (right click on the desktop)
    • Add the command "C:\Program Files\PuTTY\pageant.exe" <path-to-private-key>
    • Where <path-to-private-key> is the complete path to your private ssh key.
  • Double clicking this new icon will start up pagent and add you key.

• Create a .emacs file in your HOME area (optional)
  • Copy to the directory pointed to by the environment variable HOME, your .emacs file. A standard version containing the customisations for LHCb, can be downloaded from here. (NB - Remember to remove the first "a" from the file name when saving. It was added since the web server doesn't like files without a character before the . !)
    • If you don't have the variable HOME defined, follow the instructions here to define it.
    • NOTE For Terminal Server users : Emacs is already installed and available from the start Menu.
      

• If you want to access the AFS software release areas, configure AFS
  • Using the AFS application (a little padlock in the system tray) :-
    • Mandatory : Mount /afs as Z:
    • Recommended : Mount your home (e.g. /afs/cern.ch/user/j/jonrob) area as U:

Define Environment Variables

The following environment variables are mandatory and  must be defined (in Start->Control Panel->System->Advanced Menu)

• TEMP
  • CMT needs to write some temporary files: it writes on %TEMP%.
  • You should make sure that the TEMP environment variable points to an area with write access.
    
• User_release_area 
  
  • The first location where CMT is looking for projects. You should create a directory, typically on the local disk ( e.g. C:\cmtuser),  and set User_release_area to point to it.
    
• NOTE For Terminal Server users : For local files, we recommend using the directory C:/Users/<username>/cmtuser
  
• CVSROOT
  
  • Must be set to ":ext:isscvs.cern.ch:/local/reps/lhcb" to enable ssh access to the server.

• CVS_RSH
  
  • Must be set to the location of the PuTTy application "plink". Normally this will be "C:\Program Files\PuTTY\plink".

The following variable is optional, it should only be set if you want CMT to access the AFS software release areas

• AFSROOT 
  • Set the environment variable AFSROOT to Z:

The following variables are optional, they are needed if you want to use emacs as editor

• HOME
  • Points to your "home" area (e.g. C:\Users\<username> on the TS). Used by emacs as the location to look for a ".emacs" file.
    

• EMACSDIR
  • The location of the LHCb Emacs package. Set as "Z:\cern.ch\lhcb\software\releases\TOOLS\Tools\Emacs\pro"
    

Install a software release (optional)

If you have chosen to not use AFS, you have to install at least one version of the LHCb software stack, using the installProject.py script.

• Create a directory on the local disk under which you will install the software. e.g. C:\releases
• Define the environment variable MYSITEROOT to point to the above directory
• Import the software by following the instructions given here.

Map Network Drives (optional)

If you have chosen to use the AFS release area, and you are at CERN, we recommend that you map the directory \\cern.ch\dfs\Experiments to the S: drive. This directory contains a collection of scripts needed to run various tasks. To map a network drive, use the Tools menu of the Windows Explorer.

Available Commands at the DOS Prompt

(Hint: If you want to have a unix shell style "tab" behaviour  to autocomplete a filename/directory in DOS, set the value "9" in the registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\CompletionChar)

When you open a new DOS window, you should execute a script equivalent to the group login on Linux, to set up all other environment variables necessary to work with CVS and CMT. Depending on whether or not you have installed the software locally, you should type:

• %MYSITEROOT%\scripts\localsetup.bat (local installation)
•  S:\lhcb\scripts\lhcbsetup (AFS+DFS installation)

(Hint: If you have a desktop shortcut to start a DOS window, you can modify its properties to execute the script automatically: right-click on the icon, select Properties, Shortcut tab. In "Target:" append the string: /K S:\lhcb\scripts\lhcbsetup. In "Start in:" you could choose to start in %User_release_area%.)

The following commands are available at the DOS prompt:

• getpack    Similar behaviour than the Linux one with the same arguments. It does the checkout from the cvs repository and configures the package.
  
• setenvProject  Setup your environment for a particular project (e.g. setenvProject Brunel v31r7). Wildcard usage does not always work - you may need to specify the version you want at the command line.
  
• cmt           All cmt commands are available. This include the cmt broadcast, cmt checkout, etc. 
• make        Is equivalent to "nmake /f nmake"
• setup        To execute the setup.bat in each package to set the necessary environment variables. 
• cvs           Wrapper for the cvs command (accesses the public WinCVS installation in the CERN dfs domain).
• doxygen   Wrapper for the doxygen documentation tool. See here for details
• set            Standard DOS command to set environment variables. Useful for setting variables for the current DOS window only. e.g. set User_release_area=C:\cmtuser
  

Building LHCb Software on Windows in Command Line Mode

Building software in Windows  in command-line mode is not much different from building it in Linux. All the basic commands (cmt, cvs, etc.) should just work the same way in this environment.  This is perhaps the easiest way to check that your package can be built and run in Windows if you are not used to the graphical integrated development environments (Visual Studio).

The following command sequence should just do the work of building and running (e.g. using Brunel)

Using Visual Studio .NET

Note to Terminal Server Users : In order to use the graphical interface to Visual Studio .Net you need special access rights. You should ask Joel to add you to the "Debugger Users" group on the terminal server.

Before starting Visual Studio.NET, you need to create the "solution" file (equivalent to the workspace in VisualStudio 6). For example:

        > cd C:\cmtuser\Rec\Brunel\v24r2\cmt
        > setup
        > cmt build vsnet
        > ..\Visual\Brunel.sln

The last command starts Visual Studio.NET. Before running e.g. Brunel, you may have to tell Visual Studio.NET about the job options file that you want to read:

• In Solution Explorer select Brunel
  
• In Project Menu: "Set as StartUp Project"
• In Project Menu -> Properties...
  • Select Debugging the left hand panel
  • In Command Arguments add:   ..\options\v200402.opts
  
  N.B. This step is only necessary once, it is remembered in subsequent Visual Studio.NET sessions with this executable

You are now ready to debug your program. Use [F5] to run the program in debug mode.

Data Access on Windows

If you have installed the Castor client, you can access Castor data files directly from Gaudi, as on Linux. Instructions for accessing data using DC04 software (obsolete) are given here

Document last updated 19-Dec-07.