Mac OSX/Setup

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Mac OSX Setup -- Building GridLAB-D on a Mac

Overview

Building GridLAB-D on a Mac uses much the same process as on Linux/Unix. We recommend that you use Xcode and homebrew to install GridLAB-D's dependencies on your system.

Build Environment Setup Procedure

Install Xcode Command Line Tools (Development Tools)

From the command line prompt (Terminal):

xcode-select --install

A dialog box will pop-up asking to confirm the installation of the command line tools.

Install homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Install autoconf, automake, and libtool

brew install autoconf
brew install automake
brew install libtool

Install gnu-sed

brew install gnu-sed

Symlink gsed to sed

ln -s /usr/local/bin/gsed /usr/local/bin/sed

Install xerces-c

This is a required package for GridLAB-D.

brew install xerces-c

Install mysql-connector-c (optional)

Required only when using MySQL

brew install mysql-connector-c
ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/mysql-connector-c/<version> /usr/local/mysql-connector-c

where <version> is replaced by your particular version, e.g., "6.1.6".

Link matlab (optional)

If you want to use Matlab you must have an active license. Add matlab to your path in ~/.bash_profile so 'configure' can find it, e.g.,

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/texbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Applications/MATLAB_<version>.app/bin

where <version> is replaced by your particular version, e.g., "R2015a". You can test your path by asking matlab to report its environment:

matlab -e

which, if configured properly produces a series of environment variables and their values, e.g.,

TERM_PROGRAM=Apple_Terminal
MATLABPATH=/Applications/MATLAB_R2015a.app/toolbox/local
TERM=xterm-256color
SHELL=/bin/bash
...

Link the new commands (only in event of errors)

The above commands should create symlinks in /usr/local/bin to each of these tools. On some combinations of XCode version and Mac OSX version, the symlinks don't get created. If this is the case, create them with

brew ln --force autoconf
brew ln --force automake
brew ln --force libtool

You should now be prepared to build GridLAB-D on your Mac.

El Capitan debugging using gdb

To enable gdb on OS X El Capitan you must do the following (source: http://unixnme.blogspot.com/2016/04/how-to-enable-gdb-on-mac-os-x-el-capitan.html).

First,install gdb.

brew install gdb

At this point if you debug a program with gdb you get this rather unhelpful message:

Unable to find Mach task port for process-id 627: (os/kern) failure (0x5).
(please check gdb is codesigned - see taskgated(8))

Normally you would follow this advice and codesign gdb (see for example http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33162757/how-to-install-gdb-debugger-in-mac-osx-el-capitan). But an alternative to codesigning gdb is to enable the old Tiger convention for the task_for_pid access control daemon:

1. Restart OS X. Enter recovery mode by pressing and holding [command + R] until you see Apple logo (for details see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314).
2. In the recovery mode, choose utilities menu and open up terminal
3. In the terminal, disable system integrity protection (SIP)

   $ csrutil disable && reboot

4. Add -p option to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.taskgated.plist file. After your edit, it should like something like this around line 22

   <array>

   <string>/usr/libexec/taskgated</string>

   <string>-sp</string>

   </array>

5. (Optional) Re-enable SIP by repeating steps 1~3 with the command and reboot.

   $ csrutil enable && reboot

6. . Add your username to procmod group

   $ sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a username -t user procmod

7. Locate gdb executable file and run

   $ sudo chgrp procmod /user/local/Cellar/gdb/7.10.1/bin/gdb

   $ sudo chmod g+s /user/local/Cellar/gdb/7.10.1/bin/gdb

You need to reboot your system for the change to take effect.

If your gdb path differs from above, search for the location using

$ find / -name 'gdb' -type f -print 2>/dev/null

Bugs

Some tickets have a bad configuration and produce invalid Makefile variables for matlab-related targets, such as

MATLAB = matlab
MATLAB_CPPFLAGS = -Imatlab/extern/include
MATLAB_LDFLAGS = -L
MATLAB_LDPATH = 

which causes the core/link/matlab folder build to fail. If you run into this you can patch the Makefile as follows

MATLAB = /Applications/MATLAB_R2015a.app
MATLAB_CPPFLAGS = -I${MATLAB}/extern/include
MATLAB_LDFLAGS = -L${MATLAB}/bin/maci64
MATLAB_LDPATH = ${MATLAB}/bin/maci64

or you can download a fixed version of the automake files.

See also

• Installation Guide