Creating FICO Xpress Runtime Distributions

Topics covered in this chapter:

For distributing an application that uses some portion of FICO Xpress Optimization to end-users we recommend that you distribute the whole installation package, but if you only want to distribute parts of it then here is how to do it.

Runtime Libraries and Other Dependencies

1. Make sure that there is no other Xpress software, library files or license files on the path or in any directories used or accessed by your application – in particular, be careful that no earlier releases of Xpress software are present.
2. The files you need to run (but not compile) applications depend on which of the Xpress libraries you are using. Here we give the files required for Windows and Linux; the files required for other Unix operating systems are similar to those required for Linux, but the exact file names sometimes differ in an obvious way. (The suffix X in Linux file names indicates the version number.) All of these files (with the exception of your particular license file, xpauth.xpr) should be taken from the current Xpress release distribution. See note 9 below for an explanation of the UNIX symbolic links required for UNIX installations.
   • An Optimizer application requires the files

     	Windows	Linux	Notes
     Optimizer library	xprs.dll	libxprs.so.*
     Optimizer library Java wrapper	javaxprs.dll	libjavaxprs.so	(Java and MATLAB Java only)
     Optimizer library C++ API	xprscxx.dll	libxprscxx.so	(C++ only, if required)
     Xpress support library	xprl.dll xpnll.dll	libxprl.* libxpnll.*
     MATLAB interface	xprs*.mexw*	xprs*.mex*	(MATLAB only)
     Knitro library	xknitro.dll xknitronl.dll libiomp5md.dll	libxknitro.so.* libxknitronl.so.*	(if required)
     License file	xpauth.xpr	xpauth.xpr

     
     
     • For a Python application, the xpress package from Pip or Anaconda must be installed in the Python environment containing your application. Please refer to the Python interface reference manual for installation instructions.
     • For an R application, the xpress package must be installed in the R environment containing your application. Instructions for installing this package can be found in the R/INSTALL.txt file in your Xpress installation.
     • For a .NET application, you would require either the FICO.Xpress.XPRSdn.*.nupkg package or the xprsdn.dll file from within it, depending upon how you distribute your application. NuGet packages for Xpress are not available through online package repositories. Xpress .NET libraries can be used on Windows and Linux platforms only.

   An application outsourcing optimization solves to the Xpress Insight Compute Interface requires additional files

   Optimizer Webservices client library	xprsws.dll	libxprsws.so.*
   Curl library	libcurl.dll	libcurl.so.*
   Jansson library	jansson.dll	libjansson.so.*
   Libwebsockets library	websockets.dll	libwebsockets.so.*
   OpenSSL libraries	libcrypto*.dll libssl*.dll	libcrypto.so.* libssl.so.*
   Zip library	libzip.dll	liblibzip.so.*

   A Mosel (run-time library) application requires the files

   Optimizer library	xprs.dll	libxprs.so.*	(if required, see additional dependencies below)
   Mosel library	xprm_rt.dll	libxprm_rt.so.*
   Mosel executable	mosel.exe	mosel	(required for remote connections or Mosel command line)
   Mosel library Java wrapper	xprm_rtJ.dll	libxprm_rtJ.so.*	(Java and MATLAB Java only)
   Mosel compiler library	xprm_mc.dll	libxprm_mc.so.*	(if required, e.g. by executable)
   Mosel compiler library Java wrapper	xprm_mcJ.dll	libxprm_mcJ.so.*	(Java only; if required)
   Mosel library .NET wrapper helper DLL	xprndn-c- helper.dll	libxprndn-c- helper.so	(Windows/Linux .NET only)
   MATLAB interface	moselexec.mexw*	moselexec.mex*	(MATLAB only)
   Natural language support	xprnls.dll	libxprnls.so
   Mosel modules or packages used	XXX.dso XXX.bim	XXX.dso XXX.bim	(as required, see additional dependencies below)
   VB library extensions	xprmvb.dll	N/A	(VB only)
   Xpress support library	xprl.dll xpnll.dll	libxprl.* libxpnll.*
   License file	xpauth.xpr	xpauth.xpr

   • For a .NET application, you would require either the FICO.Xpress.XPRMdn.*.nupkg package or the xprmdn.dll file from within it, depending upon how you distribute your application. NuGet packages for Xpress are not available through online package repositories. Xpress .NET libraries can be used on Windows and Linux platforms only.

   Certain Mosel modules or packages have additional dependencies, so these files also need to be provided if you use the specified component:

   aec2.bim	mmjobs.dso mmhttp.dso mmssl.dso
   	mmsystem.dso mmxml.dso
   	Windows: mplink.exe mpscp.exe
   dmp.dso	mmhttp.dso mmsystem.dso
   	Windows: jansson.dll
   	Unix: libjansson.so.*

   executor.bim	mmjobs.dso mmhttp.dso mmxml.dso
   	mmsystem.dso executor.dso
   	Windows: jansson.dll
   	Unix: libjansson.so.*
   fssappstudio.bim	mmxml.dso mmsystem.dso
   kalis.dso	Windows: Kalis.dll xprs.dll	(Windows and Linux)
   	Linux: libKalis.so libxprs.so.*
   	libstdc++.so.* libgcc_s.so.*+
   matlab.dso	(MATLAB installation required)

   mmhttp.dso	mmjobs.dso mmsystem.dso
   mminsight.bim	mminsight.dso mmxprs.dso mmxml.dso
   	mmsystem.dso mmhttp.dso mmjobs.dso
   	trusteddsn.dso mmssl.dso
   	s3.dso s3.bim debugarchive.bim
   	mminsightannotations.bim
   mmjobs.dso	Windows: xprm_mc.dll
   	Unix: libxprm_mc.so.*
   mmoci.dso	(Oracle Instant Client installation required)
   mmrobust.dso	mmxprs.dso
   	Windows: xprs.dll / Unix:libxprs.so.*

   mmsheet.dso	Windows: libxl.dll	(Windows, Linux, OSX)
   mmssl.dso	mmsystem.dso
   	Windows: LIBEAY32.dll SSLEAY32.dll
   	Unix: libssl.so.* libcrypto.so.*
   mmsvg.bim	mmsystem.dso mmjobs.dso
   	mmxml.dso mmsvg.tgz
   mmxml.dso	mmsystem.dso

   mmxnlp.bim	mmxprs.dso mmnl.dso mmjobs.dso
   	mmsystem.dso mmxnlp.dso
   	Windows: xprs.dll / Unix: libxprs.so.*
   	Knitro solver (optional):
   	Windows: xknitro.dll xknitronl.dll
   	libiomp5md.dll
   	Unix: libxknitro.so.* libxknitronl.so.*

   mmxprs.dso	Windows: xprs.dll / Unix: libxprs.so.*
   python3.dso	(Python 3 installation required)
   r.dso	(R installation required)
   s3.bim	mmjobs.dso mmssl.dso mmxml.dso
   	mmsystem.dso mmhttp.dso s3.dso
   	Windows: jansson.dll
   	Unix: libjansson.so.*
   zlib.dso	Unix: libz.so.*	(no extra dependency on Windows)
   mmssl executable	Windows: mmssl.exe / Unix: mmssl	(required for https setup)
   xprmsrv executable	Windows: LIBEAY32.dll ssh.dll
   	Unix: libssh.so.* libcrypto.so.*	(for remote connections)

   If you are using a floating license, you also need these files:

   Xpress license manager	xpserver.exe	xpserver
   License state query tool	xplicstat.exe	xplicstat
   OpenSSL libraries	libcrypto*.dll libssl*.dll	libcrypto.so.* libssl.so.*

   • Some of the components of FICO Xpress Optimization contain open source software. When redistributing parts of Xpress please make sure that you also include the corresponding files from the licenses subdirectory of the Xpress distribution.
3. Copy all of the Xpress files listed above to one directory on your end-user's computer. This can be any directory, but we strongly recommend that you use the directory containing your application program.
   If you are building a runtime distribution for Mosel applications we recommend that you maintain the same subdirectory structure (with directories bin, dso, lib, and if you are using MATLAB also matlab) as the original Xpress distribution.
4. Windows libraries: Add the directory containing the Xpress files to the Windows PATH, so that Windows knows where to find the Xpress DLLs.
5. Unix libraries: Add the directory containing the Xpress libraries to the environment variable for locating shared libraries on your platform (LD_LIBRARY_PATH for Linux, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on macOS).
6. Windows licensing: Copy the Xpress license file, xpauth.xpr, into the directory containing the Xpress DLLs. If you store the license file in a different location, set the XPAUTH_PATH environment variable to its full path. It is not recommended to store the license file in a different location, because it adds to the complexity of the Xpress licensing procedure and makes it difficult to support your application on your end-user's computer. For the same reason, it is not recommended to specify the location of the license file by passing an explicit path argument (to XPR?license or XPR?init) when initializing Xpress.
7. Unix licensing: Set the environment variable XPAUTH_PATH to the full path to the Xpress license file, xpauth.xpr.

   Note: Previous releases of Xpress used the XPRESS environment variable to locate the license file. This is now deprecated in favour of the XPAUTH_PATH environment variable. When upgrading, please ensure that any installation scripts, application code and documentation is updated to use XPAUTH_PATH instead of XPRESS.

8. If you are using Mosel, set the environment variable MOSEL_DSO to point to the directory containing the Mosel DSO files.
9. Unix symbolic links: The tar file distributions contain symbolic links e.g. libxprs.so.17.10.01 -> libxprs.so.17.10 -> libxprs.so ( .so extension may vary between UNIX platforms).
   In the example above, the binary file has the full version number postfixed to enable the support team to easily identify the exact version number being used. The intermediate filename without the 3^rd element of the version number is used internally by one Xpress component to link to another. The link with no version number is used to support the version-independent documentation, examples and example makefiles.
   In general, it is possible to remove the soft links and rename the libraries, with the following exceptions. The security library must be made available as libxprl.so.yyyy for all Xpress components to use. If any components ( including Xpress Optimizer console ) other than the Xpress Optimizer runtime library are to be used then the Xpress Optimizer runtime library must be made available as libxprs.so.xx.yy .

Dongles

10. If you are using Xpress dongles, you must install the dongle driver on your end-user's computer. You can obtain the files necessary to do this from the fico.com website:
    • For HASP dongles on Windows, you need the file

      \windows\dongle\hasp\hinstall.exe

      Administrator privileges are required to install the dongle driver. To install the driver, execute

      hinstall -i -criticalmsg

      The driver does not normally start up until the computer is re-booted.
    • For HASP dongles on Linux you need the file HDD_Linux_dinst.tar.gz (available from the Xpress client area download page); to install the dongle driver daemon you must uncompress this archive somewhere convenient, switch to your superuser account and run the supplied dinst shell script.

Floating Licenses

11. Users with floating licenses: make sure the Xpress license manager is installed and running on the server machine. Please refer to the chapter FICO Xpress Licensing for full instructions and troubleshooting. If you wish to install the license server as a service on Windows machines, run this command:

    xpserver -service install

    and to remove the service:

    xpserver -service remove

12. Users with floating licenses: when creating your installer for the client machines you will have to construct an xpauth.xpr file for connecting to the server. This file should contain one line as follows:

    use_server name="<servername>"

    Where <servername> is the name of the license server machine. You may wish to prompt the user for this information as part of the install process.