Installation on Linux or Unix

To install Xpress on Linux and Unix variants, use the install script contained within the downloaded tar archive file. You must untar the required files from the downloaded file. As such, it is recommended that you not perform this task from your base directory.

Prerequisites for Linux Installations

Note: If you have an Xpress license, it is recommended that you make a note of the full directory path that contains the file (xpauth.xpr) before you begin installation since you will need this information.

1. To extract the files from the tar archive and start the installation script, enter the following commands. (For this example the installation is for an 8.4 Linux 64-bit version; as such, your tar file may have a slightly different name depending on the Xpress version and system on which you are installing.)

   tar xf xp8.8.0_linux_x86_64_setup.tar
   cd xp8.8.0_linux_x86_64_setup
   ./install.sh

   After script start up, you will be prompted to answer a series of questions to set up the installation. (You can exit the installation process at any time by pressing the Ctrl and c at the same time.)
2. Specify the type of licensing you wish to use: choose from community (free FICO Xpress Community License for academic and commercial use; the capacity limitations previously listed in Community License apply), static (one computer, or a dongle for a non-server installation) or floating. Also note the following when responding to the prompts:
   • In this and all of the other installation questions, valid options are visible in the question text surrounded by square brackets. For example, at this point there are three options: (c)ommunity or (s)tatic or (f)loating. Therefore valid entries are c or s or f.
   • When the question requires a yes/no answer, you must type y or n.
   • When entering a directory path, type the full path, or press Enter to accept the offered default path.
3. If you opted to install a floating license, you will be prompted to indicate whether you want a (s)erver or a (c)lient installation. If you will be connecting to another computer (or another XPserver Xpress license manager on the same machine) then enter c; if you want to make this machine the license server then enter s.
4. Determine where to install the software: The default is /opt/xpressmp. Press Enter to accept the default. To install to a different location, enter the full path, making sure to use forward slashes "/". You may enter the relative path if you wish, but this may affect how the environment variables are set later in the installation process. The supported method is to enter the full path.
5. Using the Xpress Kalis constraint programming engine: this is an optional component for use in the Mosel modeling environment. It requires the relevant licensing option in order to authorize its use; however, anyone can install the add-on provided they accept the terms and conditions.
    
   If you select the default option (to install Kalis) the Kalis licensing agreement is displayed. This can be scrolled through quickly using the Space bar key, or scrolled through slowly using the up and down arrow keys or Enter. Pressing q stops the display of the licensing agreement, at which point you will be asked if you agree to its terms. Press n or y.
6. Add Xpress installation paths to your .bashrc file: by doing this, Xpress command-line tools can be accessed from any Bourne shell (bash) you create. If not, you will have to manually source the xpvars.sh file to use Xpress tools. Press n or y.
7. License file: you will be prompted to indicate whether you have an Xpress license file from FICO Support.
   • If you do not have a license, enter n. At this point, you can stop the installation in order to obtain the license file from FICO Support and then perform the installation once you have it. Or you can continue with the installation and get the license file at a later date. If you choose the latter option, you will need to place the license file in the bin directory of your Xpress installation. For instance, in the preceding example, (/opt/xpressmp) you would copy the xpauth.xpr license file in to the /opt/xpressmp/bin directory.
   • If you indicated earlier that you have an Xpress license and provided its location, you will be prompted whether you want to copy the license file to the default directory (which is /opt/xpressmp/bin for this example). This is the default option.
      
     If you decide not to use the default location for the Xpress license, Xpress will still work correctly; however you should make a careful note of where the license file is stored in case it requires updating at a later date. (Once installation is complete, the location you have set for the license file should be pointed to by the XPRESS environment variable.)
   The files will now be extracted from the tar archive. Depending on the speed of the computer, this may take only a few seconds or it may take as long as a few minutes.
8. If you indicated earlier that you were installing a floating client, you will now be prompted for the name of your license server. If you know the name, enter it now. If you do not know the server name, press Enter and make a note of the onscreen instructions for entering the server name at a later date. (You can alter the server name in the xpauth.xpr license file using any text editor, such as Emacs or Vi.)
9. On completion, the installer generates two script files, one for the Bourne shell (xpvars.sh) and another for the C shell (xpvars.csh). These scripts should be run, as detailed in the installer output, to set up the shell environment so that Xpress runs correctly. Add them to any user profiles or service startup scripts that will be making use of Xpress.
10. If you need to set any custom environment variables for Xpress (in the Bourne shell) you can create a file called xpvars.local.sh alongside the generated xpvars.sh file and export custom environment variables from this script.
11. If you did not have your license file while performing the installation, you will need to set the XPRESS environment variable to point to it once you do have it. The instructions for doing this from the command line are described within the installer output.
12. If you want to add the change to XPRESS to a more permanent script that can be run whenever the shell is opened, then the best option would be to edit the relevant xpvars script in the bin directory of your Xpress installation. You can edit these files with any Linux/Unix text editor by altering the line relating to the XPRESS environment variable (since this is the location of the license file).
13. If you indicated earlier that you were installing a floating server installation, the install script attempts to start the XPserver license manager.
14. If you do not have a server license, then an error message is displayed. If it starts successfully, then any log messages from it will be output in to the xpress.log file. By default the xpress.log file is written to /var/tmp/xpress.log. For more information, see FICO Xpress Licensing.
15. The Knitro solver component for Xpress NonLinear has a dependency on libgfortran.so.3 on Linux platforms. If libgfortran is not present it needs to be installed on the system, e.g. using a command such as

    yum install libgfortran

Once the environment variables have been set using the script and a valid license file is present, then the Xpress software is ready to use.

Automated installation on Linux or Unix

As well as the guided installation detailed in the previous section you can also use the Xpress installation script as an automated installer by providing command-line options.

To get a list of the available options run:

./install.sh -h

You can specify as many options as you like, if there are any required options missing you will be prompted for these with interactive prompts. If you require the installation to be fully automated make sure you supply all the necessary options so that the interactive prompts do not appear.

Here is an example of a fully automated installation assuming you are in a directory containing the Xpress tar archive and a valid xpauth.xpr license file:

mkdir xp84
tar xf xp8.8.0_linux_x86_64_setup.tar -C xp84
pushd xp84/xp8.8.0_linux_x86_64_setup
./install.sh -l static -a .. -d /opt/xpressmp -k yes
popd