17th February 2014

Download v2.3.0 | RHEL

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Versions

OpenFOAM and Paraview are currently available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5.

Installation

We have generated RPM packs of OpenFOAM, scotch/ptscotch and Paraview for RHEL. The packs are dependent on other software, available as standard RPM packs for RHEL. Before installing OpenFOAM, please ensure that your RHEL installation includes all the software in the Development Tools group, which can be installed with yum by executing the following at a terminal prompt:

sudo yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'

OpenFOAM and Paraview also require the following packages to be installed. Execute the following at a terminal prompt.

sudo yum install openmpi openmpi-devel qt zlib-devel cmake

In order to activate OpenMPI, add the path entries below, for example by including the following within the users .bashrc file:

export PATH=/usr/lib64/openmpi/bin/:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib64/openmpi/lib/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

The user can check that MPI is available on their system by typing the following:

mpirun --version

The QT webkit can be installed from an unofficial repository as follows:

sudo yum-config-manager --nogpgcheck --add-repo http://dl.atrpms.net/el6-x86_64/atrpms/stable
sudo yum install --nogpgcheck qtwebkit qtwebkit-devel

The foamyHexMesh utility requires the Computational Geometry Algorithms Library (CGAL) installed on the system. It can be installed as follows.

sudo yum install --nogpgcheck CGAL CGAL-devel

The user can now install OpenFOAM for RHEL 6.5 64 bit by executing the following commands:

sudo rpm -i https://www.openfoam.org/download/rhel/6.5/x86_64/OpenFOAM-scotch-6.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -i https://www.openfoam.org/download/rhel/6.5/x86_64/OpenFOAM-ParaView-3.12.0-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -i https://www.openfoam.org/download/rhel/6.5/x86_64/OpenFOAM-2.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm

OpenFOAM-2.3.0 and Paraview-3.12.0 are now installed in the /opt directory.

If the user wishes to modify any source and compile some OpenFOAM code, they will need GCC v4.7 or newer. If an upgrade is required, see the note on upgrading GCC in the source code installation of OpenFOAM.

User Configuration

In order to use the installed OpenFOAM package, complete the following

Open the .bashrc file in the user’s home directory in an editor, e.g. by typing in a terminal window (note the dot)
```
gedit ~/.bashrc
```
At the bottom of that file, add the following line (see Note 1),where the first line specifies the name of the openmpi module from step 1. Save the file
```
source /opt/OpenFOAM-2.3.0/etc/bashrc
```
Open a new terminal window (see Note 2) and test that the simpleFoam application, from the OpenFOAM package, is working by typing
```
simpleFoam -help
```
A “Usage” message should appear. Your installation and user configuration is complete.

Note 1: If a similar line has already been added to the user’s .bashrc file, e.g. for a previous version of OpenFOAM, then the line should be deleted or, alternatively, commented out by inserting a # at the beginning of the line.
Note 2: If a user wishes to execute simpleFoam in the same terminal window, they must first register the change to the .bashrc file by typing at the terminal prompt (note the dots): source $HOME/.bashrc

Getting Started

Create a project directory within the $HOME/OpenFOAM directory named <USER>-2.3.0 (e.g. chris-2.3.0 for user chris and OpenFOAM version 2.3.0) and create a directory named run within it, e.g. by typing:

mkdir -p $FOAM_RUN

Copy across the backward facing step example, generate the mesh with blockMesh and run the steady flow, incompressible solver simpleFoam

cd $FOAM_RUN
cp -r $FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressible/simpleFoam/pitzDaily .
cd pitzDaily
blockMesh
simpleFoam
paraFoam

Refer to the OpenFOAM User Guide to get started.

Reporting Bugs in OpenFOAM

We appreciate that bugs in OpenFOAM are reported so we can fix them. Please refer to the OpenFOAM bugs pages to report bugs.