Prerequisite Steps

Before you start using any of the Intel® MPI Library functionality, make sure to establish the proper environment settings:

  1. Set up the Intel MPI Library environment by sourcing the setvars.sh script, which is found in your installation directory (by default, /opt/intel/oneapi/mpi/<version> ).

    Note

    You must run setvars at the start of each session. See the Intel HPC Toolkit Get Started Guide for more details, including options for automatic setup of environment settings.

    Note

    If you are using Intel MPI in a Unified Directory Layout, set the environment variables using the /opt/intel/oneapi/<toolkit-version-number>/oneapi_vars.sh script instead. To understand more about the Unified Directory Layout, including how the environment is initialized and the advantages of using the layout, see Use the setvars and oneapi-vars Scripts with Linux* .
  2. To run an MPI application on a cluster, the Intel MPI Library needs to know names of all its nodes. Create a text file listing the cluster node names. The format of the file is one name per line, and the lines starting with # are ignored. To get the name of a node, use the hostname utility.

    A sample host file may look as follows:

    $ cat ./hosts
    # This line is ignored
    clusternode1
    clusternode2
    clusternode3
    clusternode4

  3. For communication between cluster nodes, in most cases the Intel MPI Library uses the SSH protocol. You need to establish a passwordless SSH connection to ensure proper communication of MPI processes.

Intel MPI uses PowerShell bootstrap by default. It is available by default and does not require any extra steps. If you need more fine-grain setup information, refer to Microsoft PowerShell Setup Guide and read the following topics: about_Remote_Requirements, Security Considerations for PowerShell Remoting using WinRM, and about_Remote_Troubleshooting. You can also consider domain-based authorization as an alternative to the default mechanism. However, this method requires additional configuration.

After completing these steps, you are ready to use the Intel MPI Library.