From: softlib.cs.rice.edu
Last mod: December 29, 1995

Alpha VMS

The following are instructions for running FASTLINK 3.0P on DECAlphas which run the OpenVMS operating system. The instructions were mostly put together by FASTLINK user Kimmo Kallio in Finland. Thanks Kimmo!

There are two fundamental problems in porting FASTLINK to a VMS system, compilation and checkpointing. Since checkpoiinting provides extra functionality over LINKAGE, for now we are primarily concerned with ensuring that the checkpointing does not break anything during runs that do not crash. It is not yet clear whether crash-recovery works on VMS.

Kimmo has solved the compilation problem by creating his own make utility for OpenVMS. Note that there may be problems in porting this utility to VMS on a VAX. Here are the instructions I got via Kimmo.

The top level directory after you untar the FASTLINK package is called fastlink. The main source code files can be found in the subdirectory 3.0P/src. In the subdirectory 3.0P/alphavms, you will find the following extra files.

  1. checkpointdefs.h (intended to replace the checkpointdefs.h that comes with FASTLINK)
  2. maketool_vms.com (command file to assist with Make)
  3. maketool_vms.c (little C program to assist with make)

Here are the instructions, as I understand them.

  1. Read comments in maketool_vms.com and maketool_vms.c
  2. Among other things, these comments refer you to an ftp site from which you can retrieve a version of make for OpenVMS.
  3. Install the make that you retrieve.
  4. Make sure all the 3 files from the alphavms directory are in the same directory as the main FASTLINK source code files. Note that you will overwrite checkpointdefs.h with the new version.
  5. Unlike in version 2.2, you may now use the regular Makefile provided with the FASTLINK distribution. Find the section in the Makefile marked "VMS Specific". Follow the directions there to uncomment all of the lines below up to (but not including) the line that starts "END: VMS".
  6. Now you can make any of the targets in Makefile as on UNIX. Note that you should make the make_tool target first, since it is used to make all the FASTLINK targets.
Caution: The file commondefs.h includes certain .h files, which have definitions that come with any C compiler. The way these files are #included in commondefs.h makes standard assumptions about the user's search path and where the files are found. If you get compilation errors suggesting that these .h files cannot be found, you need to ask your system administrator where the files are on your VMS system and modify the #include lines at the top of commondefs.h accordingly.

Kimmo has also provided a couple of other utility programs that can be found in the 3.0P/alphavms subdirectory.

  1. setup.com -- A simplified version of a linkage setup file for VMS used at the National Public Health institute in Finland.
  2. start_pedin.com -- A simplified version of a command file used to start linkage batch jobs on VMS; to be used with SETUP.COM.

Thanks again to Kimmo for all his work.

back to fastlink