Matlab

General Information

Short Description: Environment for technical computing

Long Description:
MATLAB is a high-performance language for technical computing. It integrates computation, visualization, and programming in an easy-to-use environment where problems and solutions are expressed in familiar mathematical notation. Typical uses include: math and computation, algorithm development, modeling, simulation and prototyping, data analysis, exploration and visualization, scientific and engineering graphics, and application development.

Category: Data Analysis and Visualization
Mathematics and Statistics

Vendor/Developer: The Mathworks, Inc

Vendor Website: http://www.mathworks.com/

Software Website: http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/matlab.shtml

Programming Language:

Terms of Use:
___Please see individual installations for restrictions.___

Installation Information

Version: README_1st      Version Date: 0000-00-00

Installed Site: National Center for Supercomputing Applications

Installed Platform: Intel 64 Linux Cluster

Point of Contact: Greg Bauer

Installation Status: Complete

Installation Date: 2008-07-03

Usage Information

Usage URL:

Usage Information:
(05/01/2009)
Due to a licensing issue with the Mathworks, we are not able to provide Matlab on NCSA's Abe cluster for non-UIUC users. We are revisiting this issue with the MathWorks while renewing licenses.



We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to again provide Matlab to UIUC and non-UIUC users.

-Greg Bauer
Math software coordinator (mathsoft@ncsa.uiuc.edu)

Matlab is available on Abe for UIUC users only.

Matlab is accessed via a special Matlab resource to control usage and access. Users will need to provide institute affiliation information as we now have licenses for UIUC affiliated users and non-UIUC affiliated users.

Abe is a Intel dual-socket quad-core (Intel64) based machine with 1 pr 2 GB per core (8 cores per node). It is running a 64-bit OS.

To gain access to Matlab on Abe, you need to be added to the matlab group. Please send to email mathsoft@ncsa.uiuc.edu with your NCSA userid and if you are a member of UIUC, your UIUC netid.

Tungsten users who had access to Matlab on Tungsten and have an Abe account were automatically added to the matlab group on Abe. Type groups to see if you are already a member of the matlab group.

Once you have been added to the matlab group, you need to add +matlab to your ${HOME}/.soft file and do a resoft.

Running Matlab

Execution of matlab is restricted to compute nodes that are part of a batch job that is running with the matlab resource.

Using Matlab in an interactive batch job

Without using ssh tunneling
If your site (or somewhere between your desktop and Abe) allows X11 traffic
% qsub -I -A abc -lwalltime=00:30:00,nodes=1:ppn=8,software=matlab
% setenv DISPLAY mydesktop.mydomain.edu:0.0
% matlab
Without needing Matlab desktop or plotting (graphics)
% qsub -I -A abc -lwalltime=00:30:00,nodes=1:ppn=8,software=matlab
% unsetenv DISPLAY
% matlab

With ssh tunneling

To use Matlab with the desktop GUI you can use the following script that will start up a single node job, and then ssh you to that node with X11 tunneling enabled. You then need to type (don't ask why) matlab when prompted.

% matlab_interactive_batch HH:MM [PSN]
where HH:MM is the wall clock hours and minutes
and PSN is the optional project id.
for example: matlab_interative_batch 03:00 abc
will submit an interactive job for 3 hrs using the project id of abc.

Using Matlab in batch (non-interactive)

Here is a sample script (others are in /usr/apps/math/mathworks/matlab/batch) that runs a single matlab task with a single m-file. To submit the job (assuming the batch file is called myjob.pbs:

qsub myjob.pbs

#! /bin/csh
#PBS -l walltime=00:30:00
#PBS -l nodes=1:ppn=8,software=matlab
#PBS -N myjob
#PBS -A abc

unsetenv DISPLAY

matlab -r m-file-name >& matlab.${PBS_JOBID}.oe


Compiling m-files to reduce license usage

It is possible to reduce license usage by running compiled m-files when submitting batch jobs. It the simplest case, one needs only run the mcc command with the -m option:
% mcc -m filename
where the name of the m-file is provided without the .m tag. You will need to use the mcc command in on a node from a job submitted to the matlab resource. You can use matlab_interactive_batch for this purpose.

If all goes well, an executable and a script called run_m-file-name.sh will be generated which functions similar to running the m-file as shown in the example batch script above. But now the licenses have been used when building the executable. You could then replace the line:
matlab -r m-file-name
with
./run_m-file-name.sh $MATLAB_HOME
in the batch script above and you don't need to submit it to the matlab resource.

Please see Coding with M-Files Only for more information.

Currently licensed toolboxes

___ FOR UIUC users ONLY ___ MATLAB 16 users
Simulink 9 users
Image Processing Toolbox 2 users
MATLAB Compiler 2 users
Neural Network Toolbox 1 user
Optimization Toolbox 2 users
Partial Differential Equation Toolbox 4 users
Signal Processing Toolbox 2 users
Statistics Toolbox 2 users
Symbolic Math Toolbox 2 users
Spline Toolbox 2 users


User Guide Homepage:

License Information

Number of Licenses: Please see description above

User Fee:

Type of License: Served

Type of Installation: Installed with restricted access

Distribution Information: