Comsol Multiphysics

Installation Guide

VERSION 4.3b

COMSOL Installation Guide

19982013 COMSOL
Protected by U.S. Patents 7,519,518; 7,596,474; and 7,623,991. Patents pending.
This Documentation and the Programs described herein are furnished under the COMSOL Software License
Agreement (www.comsol.com/sla) and may be used or copied only under the terms of the license agreement.
COMSOL, COMSOL Multiphysics, Capture the Concept, COMSOL Desktop, and LiveLink are either registered
trademarks or trademarks of COMSOL AB. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners, and
COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by
those trademark owners. For a list of such trademark owners, see www.comsol.com/tm.
Version:

May 2013

COMSOL 4.3b

Contact Information
Visit the Contact Us page at www.comsol.com/contact to submit general inquiries, contact
Technical Support, or search for an address and phone number. You can also visit the Worldwide
Sales Offices page at www.comsol.com/contact/offices for address and contact information.
If you need to contact Support, an online request form is located at the COMSOL Access page at
www.comsol.com/support/case.
Other useful links include:
Support Center: www.comsol.com/support
Download COMSOL: www.comsol.com/support/download
Product Updates: www.comsol.com/support/updates
COMSOL Community: www.comsol.com/community
Events: www.comsol.com/events
COMSOL Video Center: www.comsol.com/video
Support Knowledge Base: www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase
Part No. CM010004

Contents
Before You Begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Installation Media Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Previous Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Software License Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
License Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
License Management Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
COMSOL Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Installing on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Installation Over the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Installation from Downloaded DVD Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Installation from a DVD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Installation from a USB Flash Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Running the COMSOL Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Removing (Uninstalling) the COMSOL Installation . . . . . . . 25
Installing Software Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Automated Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Product Updates and Model Library Update . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
LiveLink fo r E x c e l Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
LiveLink fo r S o l i d Wo r k s : Add-In for SolidWorks. . . . . 30
LiveLink fo r I nve n t o r : Add-in for Autodesk Inventor . . 30
LiveLink fo r A u t o C AD Installations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

|i

LiveLink fo r P r o / E N G IN E E R : Changing the Installation Path 31

LiveLink fo r C r e o Par am et r i c : Changing the Installation Path 32
LiveLink fo r S o l i d E d g e : Add-in for Solid Edge. . . . . . . 33
LiveLink fo r S p a c e C l a i m : Add-in for SpaceClaim. . . . . 33
Cluster Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
License Manager Installation on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
What is the FlexNet License Manager?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
System Requirements for the FlexNet License Manager . 36
FlexNet License Manager Software Components. . . . . . . 36
FlexNet License Manager Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The License File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Installing the License Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Starting the License Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Verifying that the License Manager is Running . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Starting COMSOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Changing the License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Troubleshooting License Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Running COMSOL on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
The COMSOL Folder on The Windows Start Menu . . . . . 46
Running COMSOL on Windows 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Starting COMSOL for a Classkit License. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Creating Desktop Shortcuts Manually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Running COMSOL in Client-Server Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Running COMSOL in Batch Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

ii |

Running COMSOL on Multicore Computers. . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Running COMSOL on Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Running COMSOL on the Cloud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Running COMSOL with MATLAB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Installing on Mac OS X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Installation Over the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Installation from Downloaded DVD Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Starting the Installer from DVD or DVD Image . . . . . . . . . . 61
Installation from USB Flash Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Running The COMSOL Installer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Removing (Uninstalling) the COMSOL Installation . . . . . . . 63
Automated Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Product Updates and Model Library Update . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Changing the Path to the MATLAB Installation . . . . . . . . . 64
License Manager Installation on Mac OS X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
FlexNet License Manager Software Components . . . . . . . . 65
FlexNet License Manager Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
The License File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Installing the License Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Starting the License Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Verifying that the License Manager is Running . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Starting COMSOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Changing the License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Troubleshooting License Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

| iii

Running COMSOL on Mac OS X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

The COMSOL Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Running COMSOL from a Terminal Window . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Running COMSOL in Client-Server Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Running COMSOL in Batch Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Running COMSOL on Multicore Computers. . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Running COMSOL on Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Running COMSOL on the Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Installing on Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Installation from Downloaded DVD Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Starting the Installer from Downloaded DVD Image. . . . . . 79
Installation from DVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Installation from USB Flash Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Running The COMSOL Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Web Browser for Viewing the Documentation . . . . . . . . . . 82
Removing (Uninstalling) the COMSOL Installation . . . . . . . 82
Automated Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Product Updates and Model Library Update . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Changing the Path to the MATLAB Installation . . . . . . . . . 83
Cluster Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
License Manager Installation on Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
FlexNet License Manager Software Components . . . . . . . . 85
FlexNet License Manager Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The License File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

iv |

Installing the License Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Starting the License Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Verifying that the License Manager is Running . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Starting COMSOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Changing the License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Troubleshooting License Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Running COMSOL on Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Running COMSOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Running COMSOL on Multicore Computers. . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Running COMSOL in Batch Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Running COMSOL in Client-Server Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Running a Classkit License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Running COMSOL on Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Running COMSOL on the Cloud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Running COMSOL with MATLAB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Troubleshooting License Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

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vi |

Before You Begin

Welcome to the COMSOL Installation Guide, which provides instructions on
how to install COMSOL Multiphysics and its add-on products. In addition to
this manual, several on-line resources are available which are relevant for
installation:
System Requirements: www.comsol.com/products/requirements
Support Knowledge Base: www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase
Support Center: www.comsol.com/support
Download COMSOL: www.comsol.com/support/download
Product Updates: www.comsol.com/support/updates
Tutorials: www.comsol.com/video

I n s ta l l at i o n M e d i a O p ti o n s
There are four installation media options for COMSOL 4.3b:
1 Installation over the Internet:

- This option requires Internet access from the computer that COMSOL will
be installed on.
2 Installation from downloaded DVD image:

- This option requires Internet access from any computer for downloading the
DVD image file with a .iso file extension.
3 Installation from a DVD given to you by a COMSOL representative:

- This option requires access to a DVD reader on the computer that COMSOL
will be installed on.
4 Installation from a USB Flash Drive given to you by a COMSOL representative:

- This option requires a USB port on the computer that COMSOL will be
installed on.
Installation using any of these four options is explained later in this document.

Before You Begin

|1

S y s t e m R e q u i rem e n t s
COMSOL is a cross-platform software that runs on the Windows, Mac, and
Linux operating systems. A variety of hardware platforms are supported
including graphics cards. Before installing, make sure your computer meets the
current system requirements listed at: www.comsol.com/products/requirements.
There you will also find a current list of compatible software versions for:
External function C compiler
COMSOL API for use with Java
LiveLink for MATLAB
LiveLink for Excel
CAD Import Module
LiveLink for SolidWorks
LiveLink for SpaceClaim
LiveLink for Inventor
LiveLink for AutoCAD
LiveLink for Creo Parametric
LiveLink for Pro/ENGINEER
LiveLink for Solid Edge
File Import for CATIA V5

P rev i o u s I n s t a l l a t i o n s
Previous installations of COMSOL on your computer is not affected by your new
COMSOL 4.3b installation except that double-clicking a Model MPH-file opens
in the latest installation (unless otherwise specified during installation). You can
continue to use other versions or uninstall them independently of the latest
installation.
In this guide, the term COMSOL 4.3b refers not only to COMSOL
Multiphysics 4.3b but also to any of the add-on products.

2 | Before You Begin

S o f t w a re L i c e n s e A g re e m e n t
For the complete software license agreement with details on the license
conditions, please refer to the COMSOL Software License Agreement. The PDF
can be downloaded from this link: www.comsol.com/sla. The license agreement
is also available in your installation folder. On Windows, it is located at:
C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\
doc\pdf\comsol\COMSOL_SoftwareLicenseAgreement.pdf

and can also be accessed from the Windows Start menu, under
COMSOL 4.3b>Documentation.
On Mac, it is located at:
/Applications/COMSOL43b/doc/pdf/comsol/COMSOL_SoftwareLicenseAgreement.pdf

On Linux, it is located in the installation directory, for example:

/usr/local/comsol43b/doc/pdf/comsol/COMSOL_SoftwareLicenseAgreement.pdf

L i c e n s e Typ e s
There is a variety of license options and the steps involved when installing may
differ depending on which license type you have acquired. No license type restricts
usage to just one operating system but you are able to choose to install on either
Windows, Mac, or Linux. A COMSOL model file saved on one platform can be
opened on another. Certain license types come with restrictions; make sure you
know which license type you have before proceeding with the installation.
All COMSOL licenses allow for multicore/multiprocessor
shared-memory computing. How many cores or processors you can utilize
is only limited by your hardware configuration and operating system. In
the COMSOL Desktop you control the number of processors from the
Options menu, under Preferences>Memory and processors.

Before You Begin

|3

The picture below summarizes the license types and their usage:

All of the license types may not be available in your region.

For a full description and definition of the different license types, see the
COMSOL Software License Agreement.
The following summary gives an overview of the different license types:

Named Single User License (NSL)

This license type permits one physical person designated to COMSOL by name to
run a session of the software. This designated user may be replaced on a temporary
or permanent basis provided that only one individual is designated to COMSOL
as the user at any given time. A Named Single User License may not be used or
accessed over a network with tools such as Windows Remote Desktop or similar.

CPU-Locked Single User License (CPU)

This license type permits you to install the software on one computer and different
users can take turns using COMSOL on that computer, one session at a time. A
CPU-Locked Single User License may not be used or accessed over a network
with tools such as Windows Remote Desktop or similar.

Floating Network License (FNL)

This license type is intended for multiple users and is licensed per concurrent user.
You can install the software on as many computers on your network as you want
and these computers can have different operating systems (one being a Windows
PC, another running Mac, a third running Linux, and so on).
As a user of a Floating Network License, you can run COMSOL in several ways:
On your local computer
On a remote computer accessed over a network

4 | Before You Begin

 In Client-Server mode where you run only the COMSOL Client locally and
the COMSOL Server elsewhere on the network, usually on a more powerful
computer. The COMSOL Client is essentially the COMSOL Desktop
environment whereas the COMSOL Server is the COMSOL computational
engine needed for solving.
On a cluster or cloud with no restrictions on the number of compute nodes.
In any of the Floating Network License usage scenarios above, the FlexNet
license manager software (shipped with COMSOL) needs to be installed and run
on a computer somewhere on the network.

Class Kit License

The Class Kit License may be installed and used by up to 30 students including up
to two teaching assistants. This type of license is for classroom use only and
requires a central license administrator person.

Trial License
This license type can be either a Single User License or Floating Network License
with the intention to test the software without any payment obligation for
non-commercial or non-production use.

L i c e n s e M a n agem e n t To o ls
The FlexNet License Manager Software
Depending on your region and operating system, any of the above license types
may require that the FlexNet license manager software is installed and started
before running COMSOL. The FlexNet license manager comes bundled with any
COMSOL installation. You can view the contents of the license file (license.dat)
that you received from your COMSOL representative by opening it with a text
editor or word processing software. If the file contains a line starting with the word
SERVER, then the FlexNet license manager is required. For a Floating Network
License, the purpose of the FlexNet license manager software is to count the
number of concurrent users and to give an error message if the number of users
exceed the licensed number of concurrent users. Depending on your region and
operating system, the FlexNet license manager software may also be needed for a
Single User License. In that case, the purpose of the license manager software is
to lock the COMSOL session to a by COMSOL authorized computer. See
License Manager Installation on Windows on page 35 for more information.
The COMSOL software products and the license manager can be installed in any
Before You Begin

|5

order, except if you are installing based on a port number and host name. In that
case, the license manager software needs to be installed and started before
installing COMSOL.

Dongle Hardware Lock

Depending on your region and operating system, any of the above license types
may require a dongle (hardware lock). If you have received a dongle to use with
COMSOL, please refer to instructions given to you by your COMSOL
representative.

CO M S O L A c c e s s
COMSOL Access is a service provided by COMSOL that gives you access to
additional content on www.comsol.com and allows you to:
Download products
Update products (restricted to customers with an active subscription)
Edit contact and license information
Access to the Knowledge Base (unabridged access to all parts is restricted to
customers with an active subscription)
Contact technical support
Manage event registrations
Manage abstract submissions to the COMSOL Conference
Access to the COMSOL Exchange on-line model sharing
Participate in the Community Discussion Forum
Registering with COMSOL Access is required for product download and
installation.

6 | Before You Begin

Installing on Windows

I n s ta l l a t i o n O ve r t h e I n t e r n e t

INSTALLATION OF A TRIAL LICENSE OVER THE INTERNET

A trial license may be given to you with the intention to test the software without
any payment obligation for non-commercial and non-production use. This option
may not be available in all regions.
Installation of a Single User Trial License on Windows requires a license passcode.
A passcode has a form similar to:
FFFFFFFF-TYUS-123456-1234567-123456789

This is usually sent to you by a COMSOL representative by email. Once you locate
your passcode, follow these steps to prepare for download and installation:
1 Click the link for downloading the software as given in the software download

email from your COMSOL representative. This link is identical or similar to:
www.comsol.com/support/download/trial.

Installing on Windows

|7

2 If you havent already created a COMSOL Access account, you are now

prompted to create it. While creating the account, enter your trial passcode to
associate it with your account information.

If you already have created a COMSOL Access account, then the link
www.comsol.com/support/download/trial directs you to a page where you
can enter the passcode:

3 Click Download.
4 Continue with the instructions in the section Downloading the COMSOL

Installer on page 13.

8 | Installing on Windows

INSTALLATION OF A PAID - FOR LICENSE OVER THE INTERNET

Installation of any paid-for license on Windows requires a license file that is sent
to you by your COMSOL representative by email. To be able to generate the
license file, information about your hardware is needed in the form of a hostid
(host ID). The hostid is used to lock the license to your hardware and needs to be
sent by you to a COMSOL representative prior to the license file being generated.

Obtaining the Hostid

Follow these steps to obtain a hostid:
1 First open the command window by pressing the keyboard Window button+R.

If you dont have a Window button, click the Start button and then Click Run.
Put the insertion point in the text field, type cmd and press OK or Return.
2 Type in ipconfig /all at the command prompt and press Return. The

displayed information will look similar to this:

3 The hostid you are looking for is here called Physical Address, also known as

Ethernet address or MAC address.

To place the number on the Windows clipboard, right-click the text in the
command window and select Mark in the menu, mark with the mouse, and press
Return. Alternatively, you can type the command:
getmac /FO LIST /V | clip

which also places the information on the Windows clipboard.

4 Now press Ctrl+V to paste the hostid to the text body of an email to be sent to

a COMSOL representative.
Installing on Windows

|9

Obtaining the Host Name

If you have been informed by your COMSOL representative that you need to run
the FlexNet license manager for your installation, then you also need the Host
Name. The Host Name is encircled in the screen shot above. If your network
administrator prefer to use a fixed IP address for this particular computer, this IP
Address could be optionally used in place of the Host Name. For more
information on license manager installation see License Manager Installation on
Windows on page 35.

Hostid for PCs with Wireless Adapters

If you plan to install on a computer with a wireless network adapter, you need the
physical address of both the wireless and the Ethernet adapter. If the COMSOL
representative asks you for the hard disk serial number instead of the hostid, type
vol at the Windows command line prompt. The output will look like
Volume Serial Number is 2C9F-5930

Obtaining the License File from a COMSOL Representative

Send the hostid information, as well as Host Name, if applicable, in an email to
your COMSOL representative, who will respond with an email with an attached
license file (license.dat). Save this file to any location on your computer. You will
need to reference it during installation. The license file is a text file and below is
an example of the contents of a license.dat file for a Single User License on
Windows. This example license file shows that the licensed products are
COMSOL Multiphysics, Particle Tracing Module, Subsurface Flow Module, and
LiveLink for Excel.
#-----------------------------------------------------------------# COMSOL 4.3b NSL License No: 1234567 Windows/Mac
# Visit www.comsol.com/install for latest installation instructions
#-----------------------------------------------------------------FEATURE SERIAL LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
VENDOR_STRING=C,18000100200 HOSTID=ANY sort=100 SN=1234567 \
TS_OK SIGN=8045890A6FE4
FEATURE COMSOL LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted HOSTID="70f2b12f4dfd \
0116b8cc761a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n i86_mac x64_mac" \
SN=2076312 SIGN=E607EB680852
FEATURE PARTICLETRACING LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
HOSTID="70f1a12f4dfc 0026b9cc760a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n \
i86_mac x64_mac" SN=2076312 SIGN=3835733C6290
FEATURE SUBSURFACEFLOW LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
HOSTID="70f1a12f4dfc 0026b9cc760a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n \
i86_mac x64_mac" SN=2076312 SIGN=3A9BA162C9E4
FEATURE LLEXCEL LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted HOSTID="70f1a12f4dfc \
0026b9cc760a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n i86_mac x64_mac" \
SN=2076312 SIGN=EE9C11E44356
FEATURE COMSOLGUI LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
HOSTID="70f1a12f4dfc 0026b9cc760a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n \
i86_mac x64_mac" SN=2076312 SIGN=0D0A83382550

10 | Installing on Windows

A Single User License file can normally not be edited or changed in any way by
the user but has to be identical to the one sent to you by a COMSOL
representative. If you were sent a license file that requires a license manager, then
minor edits may be required. For information on the type of license file required
for installations using a license manager, see The License File on page 37.

Registering with COMSOL Access

Once you have saved your license file, follow these steps to register or login to
COMSOL Access and to start the installation:
1 Click the link for downloading the software as given in the software download

email from your COMSOL representative. This link will be identical or similar
to: www.comsol.com/support/download.

Installing on Windows

| 11

2 If you havent already created a COMSOL Access account, you are now

prompted to create it. While creating the account, point to your license file
(license.dat) to associate it with your account information.

If you already created a COMSOL Access account, then you can associate the
license file with your account under Manage Licenses at www.comsol.com/
access/licenses

3 Continue with the instructions in the next section.

12 | Installing on Windows

D OWNLOADING

THE

COMSOL I NSTALLER

1 You are now given the option of Installing COMSOL over the Internet. (For the

DVD option see Installation from Downloaded DVD Image on page 13.) In
addition, there are two further options of Compact Install or Full Install:
a Compact Install: Includes the on-line documentation. The Model Library

tutorials are stripped of solutions, which reduces download time. The size of
this download ranges from 600 MB to 1.6 GB depending on your license.
b Full Install: Includes the full documentation and the complete Model Library

with meshes and solutions for your licensed products. The size of this
download ranges from 1.0 GB to 4.6 GB depending on your license.
If you have problems downloading (such as Error downloading file.
Connection refused: connect), please review this knowledge base entry:
www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1149. If you still have
problems, please contact your local COMSOL representative or technical
support from the Support Center page at www.comsol.com/support.
2 For Installing COMSOL over the Internet, in the Windows section, click one of the

buttons for Compact Install or Full Install.

Clicking one of the install buttons starts the download of the COMSOL Installer.
For Windows, the file to download is called COMSOL43b_win.exe for the full
installation and COMSOL43b_compact_win.exe for the compact installation.
STARTING THE INSTALLER FOR INSTALLATION OVER THE INTERNET

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. Start the COMSOL Installer by running one of the
downloaded files COMSOL43b_win.exe or COMSOL43b_compact_win.exe,
corresponding to the full and compact version, respectively. The COMSOL 4.3b
Installer window should now appear. Now continue with the instructions in the
section Running the COMSOL Installer on page 16.

I n s t a l l a t i o n f ro m D ow n l o a d e d DV D I m age
Installation from a DVD where the DVD image is downloaded from COMSOL
for off-line installation requires you to first create a COMSOL Access account as
described in the section Installation Over the Internet on page 7.
1 Once you are logged in to COMSOL Access, you are now given the options of

Installing COMSOL over the Internet or to Download the DVD Image for Offline
Installing on Windows

| 13

Installation. This section covers the DVD Image option. In addition, there are
two further options of Compact Install or Full Install:
a Compact Install: Includes the on-line documentation. The Model Library

tutorials are stripped of solutions, which reduces download time. The size of
this download ranges from 600 MB to 1.6 GB depending on your license.
b Full Install: Includes the full documentation and the complete Model Library

with meshes and solutions for your licensed products. The size of this
download ranges from 1.0 GB to 4.6 GB depending on your license.
If you have problems downloading (such as Error downloading file.
Connection refused: connect), please review this knowledge base entry:
www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1149. If you still have
problems, please contact your local COMSOL representative or technical
support from the Support Center page at www.comsol.com/support.
2 In the section for the DVD Image option, click one of the buttons for Compact

Install or Full Install. Clicking one of the install buttons starts the download of
the COMSOL DVD Image. The file to download is called
COMSOL43b_dvd.iso.
3 When you have downloaded the DVD image, burn the DVD image to a disc to

be able to install. In Windows 7 and Windows 8 you can burn by right-clicking

on the DVD image and selecting Open with and then Windows Disc Image Burner.
For earlier Windows versions you need a dedicated DVD burning software to
use this option. In Windows 8 you have the additional option of directly
mounting the DVD image by right-clicking on the DVD image and selecting
Mount and then continuing directly with the installation. For earlier Windows
versions, you can use a dedicated DVD image mounting software to circumvent
burning to DVD.
STARTING THE INSTALLER FROM A DVD OR MOUNTED DVD IMAGE

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. Once you have inserted the COMSOL DVD into the DVD
drive (or mounted the image), the COMSOL Installer window should appear
automatically; if not, run the file setup.exe on the installation DVD. The
COMSOL 4.3b Installer window should now appear. Now continue with the
instructions in the section Running the COMSOL Installer on page 16.

14 | Installing on Windows

I n s t a l l a t i o n f ro m a DV D
This section applies if you have received a DVD from a COMSOL representative.
STARTING THE INSTALLER FROM A DVD

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. Insert the COMSOL DVD into the DVD drive on your
computer. The COMSOL Installer window should appear automatically; if not,
run the file setup.exe on the installation DVD. The COMSOL 4.3b Installer
window should now appear. Now continue with the instructions in the section
Running the COMSOL Installer on page 16.

I n s ta l l at i o n f ro m a U S B F l a sh D r i ve
This section applies if you have received a USB Flash Drive from a COMSOL
representative.
STARTING THE INSTALLER FROM A USB FLASH DRIVE

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. Insert the USB Flash Drive into a USB port on your
computer. The COMSOL Installer window should appear automatically; if not,
run the file setup.exe on the USB Flash Drive. The COMSOL 4.3b Installer
window should now appear. Now continue with the instructions in the section
Running the COMSOL Installer on page 16.

Installing on Windows

| 15

Running the COMSOL Installer

The steps for running the COMSOL Installer are independent of the installation
media option you used. If you have followed the above instructions, the
COMSOL Installer should now appear.

1 In the COMSOL Installer, select one of the following options:

- Click New Installation and proceed to Step 2 (License Page) to make a new
installation.
- Click Add/Remove Features and proceed to Step 4 (Platform Page) to change
or repair an existing installation. For example, use Add/Remove Features
when adding or removing documentation files for products installed or when
adding or removing a product that your license includes.
- Click Change License and proceed to Step 2 (License Page) to update the
license of an existing installation. Use this option when COMSOL is installed
and you get a new license file. The installer then removes features/products
not licensed any more and lets you go through the Add/Remove Features
procedure to add or remove features for the new license. If your trial license

16 | Installing on Windows

has expired you can use the Change License option to re-enable a paid-for
license.
- Click Uninstall COMSOL 4.3b to remove an existing installation. For
instructions on this option, proceed to Removing (Uninstalling) the
COMSOL Installation on page 25.
You can change the path to the existing installation by pressing the F1 key.

LICENSE PAGE
2 After selecting one of the four options, the following is displayed:

After reading the license agreement, click the I accept the terms of the license
agreement button and specify the license. Use one of the following license
formats, depending on which license you have:
- Passcode: Use this option for a Single-User Trial License. Enter your
passcode, which is a series of characters and numbers that has a form similar
to FFFFFFFF-TYUS-123456-1234567-123456789. Note that the passcode
is case sensitive.
- License file: Use this option for any type of regular paid-for license installation.
Enter the path to an existing license file or click Browse to select the file

Installing on Windows

| 17

license.dat. This license file is sent to you by a COMSOL representative,

typically by email.
- Port number and Host Name: Use this option if your license administrator has
given you a port number and Host Name for a license manager for COMSOL
that is running somewhere on your organizations network. Enter the Host
Name of the computer or server running the license manager and its license
manager port number.
- Three-server redundancy: Use this option if your license administrator has
given you three port numbers and Host Names for the three-server
redundancy license manager option. Enter the Host Names and license server
port numbers of the three-server redundant configuration.

Change License
If Change License was selected in Step 1, a menu in the upper-left area of the
Installer lets you choose to use an existing paid license, trial license, or you can
choose to specify a new license.

Click Next and proceed to Step 4 if you want to change to a license with different
products. Otherwise, proceed to Step 9.
3 Click Next.

18 | Installing on Windows

PLATFORMS PAGE
4 On the Platforms page, you can typically accept the default settings. COMSOL

auto-detects the type of operating system, which, for installation on Windows,

can be Windows 32-bit or Windows 64-bit. On the 64-bit version of Windows
you can choose to install both versions.

5 Click Next.

Installing on Windows

| 19

FEATURES P AGE
6 Select the features to install and specify the path to the COMSOL installation

folder.

Feature symbols:
not currently installed, will be installed
not currently installed, will not be installed
currently installed, will not be updated
currently installed, will be updated
currently installed, will be removed

If Change License was selected earlier and you are changing the license of
an already existing installation, you need to pay attention to which check
boxes are selected. If you are adding products not previously part of your
installation, but added with the new license file, then you need to verify
the selection of the check boxes for the corresponding installation
components. (If you dont, the license information is still correct but the
software components needed to run the products will be missing.)

20 | Installing on Windows

Add/Remove Features
If Add/Remove Features or Change License was selected in Step 1, the Features page
includes a Repair all selected features check box. If this check box is selected, then
the selected set of features determines which software components,
documentation, and models to be added or removed. Features that are selected
are added if not previously installed and features that are not selected are removed
if previously installed. The selected set only affects those products that you have
licensed.
7 Click Next.

Installing on Windows

| 21

OPTIONS PAGE

8 Set the installation options:

- Create COMSOL shortcuts on Windows Desktop

- Create COMSOL folder in the Windows Start Menu
- Associate the .mph file type with this COMSOL installation
If this check box is selected, you can open COMSOL models by
double-clicking them.
- Install Microsoft DirectX runtime binaries
Clear the Install DirectX runtime binaries check box if you previously
experienced problems using DirectX on your computer. DirectX can be used
by COMSOL for accelerated graphics rendering. If you clear this check box,
then you still have two graphics options: OpenGL or software rendering.
Once installation is complete, you can change the graphics rendering method

22 | Installing on Windows

from the Preferences dialog box on the Options menu in the COMSOL
Desktop.
- Check for updates after installation. This option is selected by default. The
installer then checks and applies all available updates that are available for the
version that you install.
- Enable automatic updates after installation. Select this check box if you want
COMSOL to automatically check for and apply available software updates.
- Install LiveLink for Excel for all users. If you select this check box, the
installation of LiveLink for Excel is global to the machine and is available
no matter which user is logged on. Otherwise, the installation is only available
to the current user (this is the only supported option for Excel 2007).
- If you install over the Internet using a proxy server, you can specify the host
name and port number, and also, optionally, a username and password if
required. If you do not enter a port number, COMSOL uses port 443, which
is the default port setting for the HTTPS protocol. These settings do not
appear if you do not use an installation via the Internet.
- For the LiveLink products for MATLAB, Pro/ENGINEER, and Creo
Parametric, specify the path to their respective installation folders.
9 Click Next.

Installing on Windows

| 23

INSTALL PAGE

10 When you click Install the utility now installs or updates COMSOL. The

installation process might take several minutes. A full installation including all
products typically takes more than 15 minutes to complete. The Finish page in
Step 11 appears automatically when the installation process is finished.

24 | Installing on Windows

FINISH PAGE
11 This window appears when the installation is finished.

If warning or errors were detected, click View Log to open a window that shows
the installation log. Do not hesitate to contact technical support if you
encountered any errors and remember to send the installation log file along
with your technical support inquiry.
12 Click Finish to quit the installer.

For information on how to run COMSOL after installation, see Running

COMSOL on Windows on page 46. If you are installing on a Mac, see Running
COMSOL on Mac OS X on page 70. If you are installing on Linux, see
Running COMSOL on Linux on page 90.

R e m ov i n g ( U n i n s t a l l i n g ) t h e C O M S O L I n s t a l l a t i o n
To remove a COMSOL installation from your system, you can uninstall using the
COMSOL Installers uninstallation option. The uninstaller deletes all old version
COMSOL files and directories on the system that were installed by the COMSOL
installer. Additional files and folders created after installation are not removed.
Installing on Windows

| 25

If COMSOL is run with MATLAB, close MATLAB before starting the

uninstaller. If MATLAB is active, the utility cannot remove certain files.
You can start the COMSOL Uninstaller in a few different ways:
From the Windows Start Menu, open the Control Panel and select Uninstall a
program. Find COMSOL 4.3b in the list and select Uninstall.
From the Windows Start Menu under COMSOL 4.3b, select Uninstall
COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b.
By inserting the COMSOL DVD and starting the COMSOL Uninstaller.
Click Uninstall COMSOL 4.3b
to start removing the installation. Click Finish
to quit the installer when the uninstallation is complete.
On Windows 8, go to the All apps page and click the COMSOL Launchers
folder. In that folder you will find the Unistaller.

I n s t a l l i n g S o f t w a re U p d a t e s
COMSOL provides software updates that improve the software and correct issues
found. To check if an update is available, choose Check For Updates from the Help
menu. If an update is available, an Update dialog box appears where you click
Download to download the update directly or click Browse Update to open the

26 | Installing on Windows

COMSOL website where you can read about and download the update. To check
for updates automatically each time that you start COMSOL, select the Check for
updates at launch check box under Product updates on the Updates page in the
Preferences dialog box. When the update installation starts (you may first have to
close any running instance of COMSOL) you see the following installation
window:

You can use a direct download (the default) or download via a proxy server. If you
download via a proxy server, specify the host name and port number for the proxy
and, if required, a username and password.

A u t o m a t e d I n s ta l l a t i o n
You can install COMSOL using an automated installation process with minimal
user interaction. This method requires installation from DVD or DVD image. An
answer file then responds to questions while the installer is running. The answer
file is a text file with a specific format that contains predefined settings that the
COMSOL installer uses. Start the installation by running
<path

to DVD>\setup.exe -s <answer file path>

Installing on Windows

| 27

where <answer file path> is the path to your answer file. A template answer file,
setupconfig.ini, with detailed usage information is available on the DVD.

A UTOMATED R EMOVAL (U NINSTALLATION )

OF

COMSOL

You can uninstall COMSOL using an answer file:

<path

to COMSOL>\setup\setuplauncher.exe -s <answer file path>

where <answer file path> is the path to your answer file.

P ro d u c t U p d a t e s a n d M o d e l L i b r a r y U p d a t e
COMSOL periodically releases product updates with improvements and
corrections to reported problems. By default, COMSOL checks for updates at
startup. You can turn this feature on and off from the COMSOL Desktop
Preferences Window. Here you can also configure settings for the Model Library
Update.
The Model Library is updated on a regular basis by COMSOL. From the
COMSOL Desktop, by choosing the menu option View>Model Library Update you
can get the latest updates to the model library. This connects you to the
COMSOL Model Update website where you can access the latest models and

28 | Installing on Windows

model updates. This includes models that have been added or improved since the
latest product release.

Using the Updates section in the Preferences dialog box you can configure proxy
server settings as well as model and documentation directories for the Model
Library Update. See the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual for more
information including command-line options for the Model Library.

L i veL i n k f o r E x c e l I n s t a l l a t i o n s
If you have licensed LiveLink for Excel, several tools are accessible from a
COMSOL tab in the Excel ribbon for working with a COMSOL model from an
Excel worksheet. You can for example extract model definitions and results. You
can also change model definitions in the worksheet, then update and re-compute
the model.
Whenever you open a COMSOL model from Excel, a COMSOL Model window
is displayed. This window represents a COMSOL Server application running in
the background. The data transfer between Excel and the COMSOL Server

Installing on Windows

| 29

application is performed using a TCP/IP communication protocol, which accepts

only local connections.

L i veL i n k f o r S o l i d Wo r k s : A dd - I n fo r S o l i d Wo r k s
If you have licensed LiveLink for SolidWorks, the COMSOL Installer registers
an add-in called the LiveLink for COMSOL (4.3b). This add-in should appear in
the SolidWorks user interface, listed in the Add-Ins dialog box, accessible from the
Tools menu.
The add-in provides tools for preparing your SolidWorks design for simulation
with COMSOL. For example you can create selections on the geometry and set
up dimensional parameters. Both the selections and the parameters are
synchronized together with the geometry with the COMSOL model.
The add-in enables to modes of setting up simulations based on the SolidWorks
design. In one mode you can run SolidWorks and the COMSOL Desktop
side-by-side and synchronize the geometry between the two. In another mode you
can work with COMSOL simulations inside SolidWorks. This latter mode is called
the One-Window interface. Only one version of the One-Window interface can be
active at a time. If you have several COMSOL versions installed, make sure that
the latest version of LiveLink for COMSOL is selected from the
COMSOL>One-Window Version menu inside SolidWorks. You may need to restart
SolidWorks after changing the One-Window interface version.
If COMSOL cannot connect to SolidWorks, you can re-install COMSOL, or
follow the instructions from the following link:
http://www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1122.

L i veL i n k f o r I nve n t o r : A dd - i n fo r A u t o d e s k I nve n t o r

If you have licensed LiveLink for Inventor, the installer registers an add-in for
Autodesk Inventor called the LiveLink for COMSOL (4.3b). This add-in should
appear in the Add-In Manager dialog box that is accessible from the Options tab
of the Tools panel in the Autodesk Inventor user interface.

30 | Installing on Windows

The add-in provides tools for preparing your Inventor design for simulation with
COMSOL. For example you can set up dimensional parameters to be
synchronized together with the geometry with the COMSOL model.
The add-in enables to modes of setting up simulations based on the Inventor
design. In one mode you can run Inventor and the COMSOL Desktop
side-by-side and synchronize the geometry between the two. In another mode you
can work with COMSOL simulations inside Inventor. This latter mode is called
the One-Window interface.
If COMSOL cannot connect to Inventor, you can re-install COMSOL, or follow
the instructions from the following link:
http://www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1163.

L i veL i n k f o r A u t o C AD I n s t a l l a t i o n s
If you have licensed LiveLink for AutoCAD, the installer registers an add-in
with AutoCAD called LiveLink for COMSOL (4.3b). This add-in is loaded on
start-up of AutoCAD and provides functionality for synchronizing the geometry
between AutoCAD and COMSOL.

L i veL i n k f o r P ro / E N G I N E E R : C h a n g in g t h e I n s t a l l a t i o n
Pat h
If you have licensed LiveLink for Pro/ENGINEER, you need to provide the
installation path for Pro/ENGINEER or Creo Elements/Pro during the install
process. The installer registers an add-in with Pro/ENGINEER called LiveLink
for COMSOL (4.3b). The add-in should be listed in the Auxiliary Applications
dialog box that is accessible from the Tools menu in the Pro/ENGINEER user
interface. The add-in provides functionality for selecting dimensional parameters
that can be synchronized with COMSOL.
After the installation you can configure the interface to work with a different Pro/
ENGINEER installation. Go to the Preferences window, which you can access
from the Options menu inside the COMSOL Desktop. There find the LiveLink
products section and edit the Pro/ENGINEER installation folder. It should point
to the root directory of the Pro/ENGINEER installation, typically

Installing on Windows

| 31

C:\Program Files\proeWildfire 5.0

or
C:\Program Files\PTC\Creo Elements\Pro5.0

for an installation of Creo Elements/Pro.

If you have installed both LiveLink for Pro/ENGINEER and LiveLink for Creo
Parametric, you can use only one of those during a COMSOL Multiphysics
modeling session. The default is to connect to Creo Parametric. To connect to
Pro/ENGINEER select LiveLink for Pro/ENGINEER from the Use list.
Restart COMSOL for the changes to take effect.
Note that changing the Pro/ENGINEER installation folder in the Preferences
does not re-register the add-in with that Pro/ENGINEER installation. To do this
you can re-install COMSOL, or follow the instructions from the following links:
http://www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1159
If COMSOL cannot connect to Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0, follow the
instructions from the following link:
http://www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1162

L i veL i n k f o r C re o Pa r a m e tr ic : C h a n g i n g t h e
I n s ta l l a t i o n Pa t h
If you have licensed LiveLink for Creo Parametric, you need to provide the path
to the common files folder in the Creo Parametric installation during the
installation process. After the installation you can configure the interface to work
with a different Creo Parametric installation. Go to the Preferences window,
which you can access from the Options menu inside the COMSOL Desktop.
There find the LiveLink products section and edit the Creo Parametric common
files folder. It should point to the common files directory of the Creo Parametric
installation, typically
C:\Program Files\PTC\Creo 2.0\Common Files\M040

Restart COMSOL for the changes to take effect.

Note that changing the Creo Parametric common files folder in the Preferences
does not re-register the add-in with that Creo Parametric installation. To do this
you can re-install COMSOL, or follow the instructions from the following link:
http://www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1158.

32 | Installing on Windows

L i veL i n k f o r S o l i d E d ge : A dd - i n fo r So l id E d ge
If you have licensed LiveLink for Solid Edge, the installer creates an add-in to
Solid Edge called LiveLink for COMSOL (4.3b). This add-in should appear in the
Add-In Manager dialog box that is accessible in the Solid Edge user interface if
you click the Applications button, then select Add-Ins from the menu.
When the add-in is active a COMSOL Multiphysics tab appears in Solid Edge. Use
the Parameter Selection tool from the tab to select dimensional parameters that
are synchronized together with the geometry between Solid Edge and COMSOL.
If COMSOL cannot connect to Solid Edge, you can re-install COMSOL, or
follow the instructions from the following link:
http://www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1160

L i veL i n k f o r S p a c e C l a i m : A dd - i n fo r S p a c e C l a i m
If you have licensed LiveLink for SpaceClaim, the installer registers an add-in
with SpaceClaim called LiveLink for COMSOL (4.3b). This add-in should appear
in the Add-Ins section of the SpaceClaim Options dialog box that is accessible in
the SpaceClaim user interface if you click the button for the Applications menu.
When the add-in is active you synchronize the geometry and any driving
dimensions that are defined on the geometry between SpaceClaim and COMSOL.
If COMSOL cannot connect to SpaceClaim, you can re-install COMSOL, or
follow the instructions from the following link:
http://www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1164

Cluster Installation
COMSOL supports two mutual modes of parallel operation: shared-memory
parallel operations and distributed-memory parallel operations, including cluster
support. This section is dedicated to distributed-memory parallel installation.
COMSOL can distribute computations on compute clusters using the MPI
model. One large problem can be distributed across many compute nodes. Also,

Installing on Windows

| 33

parametric sweeps can be distributed with individual parameter cases distributed

to each cluster node.
LICENSE MANAGER

COMSOL requires a Floating Network License for running on clusters. Please

check the license file for the CLUSTERNODE feature which needs to be present
to enable the cluster computing functionality. The license manager needs to be
accessible from all nodes in the cluster. Therefore it is often a good idea to have it
run on the head node.
INSTALLATION FOLDER

The COMSOL installation folder should be shared between all compute nodes
and the head node.
FEATURES

During installation, make sure the Cluster Components feature is selected.

ACCESS TO CLUSTER ( WINDOWS HPC SERVER ONLY )

If you work on a desktop PC, install COMSOL on that PC. Before you start, you
need to install Windows HPC Pack on the PC. This software is free and shipped
with the Windows Server operating system and enables you to access the cluster
from your PC.
For more information on installing and running COMSOL on clusters, see
Running COMSOL on Clusters on page 52 and the COMSOL Multiphysics
Reference Manual.

34 | Installing on Windows

License Manager Installation on Windows

Depending on your region and operating system, you may be required to install
and run the FlexNet license manager software before being able to run COMSOL.

W h a t i s t h e Fl exN e t License Manage r?

COMSOL uses the FlexNet license manager version 11 from Flexera Software,
Inc. for license management. (FlexNet was formerly called FLEXlm.)
The license manager comes bundled with any COMSOL installation. The
COMSOL software products and the license manager can be installed in any
order, except if you are installing based on a port number and Host Name. In that
case, the license manager software needs to be installed and started before
installing COMSOL.
Installation of any paid-for license on Windows requires a license file
(license.dat), which is sent to you by a COMSOL representative by email. You
can view the contents of the license file by opening it with a text editor or word
processing software. If the file contains a line starting with the word SERVER,
then the FlexNet license manager is required. For a Floating Network License, the
purpose of the license manager software is to count the number of concurrent
users and to give an error message if the number of users exceeds the licensed
number of concurrent users. Depending on your region and operating system, the
license manager software may also be needed for Single User Licenses. In that
case, the purpose of the license manager software is to lock a COMSOL session to
a computer that is authorized by COMSOL.
The FlexNet license manager supports a heterogeneous network of Windows,
Linux, and Mac OS X computers. Both the license manager and the COMSOL
software can run on either Windows, Linux, or Mac platforms. In this context, the
computer where the license manager is installed is called the license server and any
computer that has the COMSOL products installed is called a client. Any type of
computer can function as a license server, such as a laptop, desktop, workstation
or a centrally located server. COMSOL can be installed anywhere, typically on a
local PC or on a file server where users access the program over a network. A single
computer can function as both license server and client, holding both the license
manager and COMSOL.
Even though the license manager and COMSOL can be installed in any order, a
full test of the installation cannot be done until both are installed.
License Manager Installation on Windows

| 35

S y s t e m R e q u i rem e n t s fo r t h e F l exN e t L i c e n s e M a n ager

Before starting the installation process, check that your system meets all necessary
requirements as listed at: www.comsol.com/products/requirements. For
COMSOL, all requirements need to be met. If you are running the license
manager on a license server where you did not intend to run COMSOL, the
system requirements are less stringent. The license server only needs to meet the
listed hardware and operating system requirements. For the license manager,
memory and graphics requirements do not need to be met. The license manager
is a much less CPU and memory demanding application than COMSOL.

F l ex N e t L i c e n se M a n age r S o f t w a re C o m p o n e n t s
The license manager consists of four software components:
License manager daemon (lmgrd.exe)
Vendor daemon (LMCOMSOL.exe)
FlexNet utility program (lmutil.exe)
FlexNet Control Panel (lmtools.exe)
The two daemons (lmgrd.exe and LMCOMSOL.exe) run on the license server. When
a user starts COMSOL on a client computer, communication is established
through the network from the client to the license server and the license manager
daemon (lmgrd.exe). That daemon in turn makes a request to the vendor daemon
(LMCOMSOL.exe), which releases licenses according to information in the
license.dat file. The FlexNet utility program and FlexNet Control Panel are
used for handling license server management tasks.

F l ex N e t L i c e n s e M a n age r D o c u m e n t a t i o n
For detailed information on the FlexNet license manager software, select
Help>Documentation from the COMSOL Desktop main menu, and scroll to the
bottom of the page to locate a PDF copy of the FlexNet License Administration
Guide for FlexNet Publisher. You can also find the FlexNet documentation on
your hard drive. The default folder location is:

36 | License Manager Installation on Windows

C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\doc\pdf\comsol\flexnet

T h e Li c e n s e F i l e
The license file has the same structure on all platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, and
Linux. In this section, the most important parts of the license file are explained.
Below is an example of the contents of a license.dat file:
#-----------------------------------------------------------------# COMSOL 4.3b FNL License No: 1234567
# Visit www.comsol.com/install for latest installation instructions
#-----------------------------------------------------------------SERVER apollo.thecompany.com 0050569e1b87 1718
USE_SERVER
VENDOR LMCOMSOL port=1719
FEATURE SERIAL LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
VENDOR_STRING=C,5701108 HOSTID=ANY BORROW=720 SN=1234567 TS_OK \
SIGN=0C3A8BF6722E
INCREMENT COMSOL LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent 4 SUPERSEDE DUP_GROUP=UHD \
ISSUED=6-JUN-2012 BORROW=720 SN=1234567 SIGN=123456789ABC
INCREMENT COMSOLGUI LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent 4 SUPERSEDE DUP_GROUP=UHD \
ISSUED=6-JUN-2012 BORROW=720 SN=1234567 SIGN=123456789ABC
INCREMENT HEATTRANSFER LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent 2 SUPERSEDE \
DUP_GROUP=UHD ISSUED=6-JUN-2012 BORROW=720 SN=1234567 \
SIGN=123456789ABC
INCREMENT CLIENTSERVER LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent 4 SUPERSEDE \
DUP_GROUP=UHD ISSUED=6-JUN-2012 BORROW=720 SN=1234567 \
SIGN=123456789ABC
INCREMENT CLUSTERNODE LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent 4 SUPERSEDE DUP_GROUP=U \
ISSUED=6-JUN-2012 BORROW=720 SN=1234567 SIGN=123456789ABC
INCREMENT COMSOLBATCH LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent 2 SUPERSEDE \
DUP_GROUP=UHD ISSUED=6-JUN-2012 BORROW=720 SN=1234567 \
SIGN=123456789ABC
INCREMENT HEATTRANSFERBATCH LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent 2 SUPERSEDE \
DUP_GROUP=UHD ISSUED=6-JUN-2012 BORROW=720 SN=1234567 \
SIGN=123456789ABC

THE COMMENT LINES

Comment lines can be included in the license file by starting them with the hash
symbol #. These lines have no effect on the license server or client.

License Manager Installation on Windows

| 37

THE SERVER LINE

In the license.dat file, the contents on the line starting with SERVER should
contain:
The Host Name of the license server. In the example above, the Host Name
is apollo.thecompany.com. This name can be edited by the user.
The hostid of the license server. In the example above, the hostid is
0050569e1b87. This number cannot be edited by the user.
A port number. In the example above, the port number is 1718.This
number can be edited by the user.
Confirm that the license server Host Name is the actual name of your license server
(the computer that you intend to run the FlexNet license manager software on);
otherwise, change it by editing the file. The default port number (1718) can be
changed in the unlikely event that another program is already using that port
number (you then get an error message indicating that this is the problem when
starting the license manager). If the default port number 1718 is being used,
change it to any other number between 1025 and 64,000.
THE USE _ SERVER LINE

The USE_SERVER line, with no arguments, does not impact the license manager
but has implications for the client. When a COMSOL client sees the
USE_SERVER line, it ignores everything in the license file except the preceding
SERVER lines and transfers checkout validation to the vendor daemon. This
means that if you are running COMSOL on one computer, and the license
manager on a different computer, then your license file may only contain two lines:
the SERVER line and the USE_SERVER line.
THE VENDOR LINE

The VENDOR line defines the name of the LMCOMSOL vendor daemon. This
name cannot be changed. The vendor daemon is a process that has to be running
together with the license manager and it is automatically started when the license
manager is started. The LMCOMSOL vendor daemon requires its own port
number. In the example above, the default port number 1719 is shown.
If the license manager is running on a computer with an active firewall and the
COMSOL client is outside of that firewall, at least two port numbers must be
opened up in the license servers firewall to allow client computers to connect to
the license manager and the vendor daemon.
Using the example license file above, configure the firewall to allow access to the
port numbers 1718 and 1719. If you have chosen other port numbers and
modified the license.dat file accordingly, configure the firewall to allow access

38 | License Manager Installation on Windows

to your chosen port numbers. If you are unsure about which port numbers are free
or how to enable firewall port access, contact your system administrator.
You cannot modify anything in the license.dat file except license server name
and (if necessary) port numbers or the license may not work.
THE SERIAL LINE

The SERIAL line contains information on the license type, license number, and
the products included in the license.
THE INCREMENT AND FEATURE LINES

The INCREMENT or FEATURE lines contain a product name, version,

expiration date, and the number of available licenses. The example file above
shows that the user has a perpetual (permanent) COMSOL 4.3b Floating
Network License allowing four concurrent users of COMSOL Multiphysics and
two concurrent users of the Heat Transfer Module. The number after SIGN=
at the end of each INCREMENT line contains a license key. Long lines can be
broken by a continuation character (\).

The Feature Names

The following table contains the FEATURE names for all products in the
COMSOL 4.3b product suite:
PRODUCT/FEATURE

FEATURE NAME

COMSOL Multiphysics

COMSOL

COMSOL Multiphysics GUI

COMSOLGUI

COMSOL Multiphysics Floating Network License

CLIENTSERVER, CLUSTERNODE

AC/DC Module

ACDC

Acoustics Module

ACOUSTICS

Batteries & Fuel Cells Module

BATTERIESANDFUELCELLS

CAD Import Module

CADIMPORT, CADREADER

CFD Module

CFD

Chemical Reaction Engineering Module

CHEM

Corrosion Module

CORROSION

ECAD Import Module

ECADIMPORT

Electrochemistry Module

ELECTROCHEMISTRY

Electrodeposition Module

ELECTRODEPOSITION

Fatigue Module

FATIGUE

License Manager Installation on Windows

| 39

PRODUCT/FEATURE

FEATURE NAME

File Import for CATIA V5

CATIA5

Geomechanics Module

GEOMECHANICS

Heat Transfer Module

HEATTRANSFER

LiveLink for AutoCAD

LLAUTOCAD

LiveLink for Creo Parametric

LLCREOPARAMETRIC

LiveLink for Excel

LLEXCEL

LiveLink for Inventor

LLINVENTOR

LiveLink for MATLAB

LLMATLAB

LiveLink for Pro/ENGINEER

LLPROENGINEER

LiveLink for Solid Edge

LLSOLIDEDGE

LiveLink for SolidWorks

LLSOLIDWORKS

LiveLink for SpaceClaim

LLSPACECLAIM

MEMS Module

MEMS

Molecular Flow Module

MOLECULARFLOW

Multibody Dynamics Module

MULTIBODYDYNAMICS

Nonlinear Structural Materials Module

NONLINEARSTRUCTMATERIALS

Optimization Module

OPTIMIZATION

Particle Tracing Module

PARTICLETRACING

Pipe Flow Module

PIPEFLOW

Plasma Module

PLASMA

RF Module

RF

Semiconductor Module

SEMICONDUCTOR

Structural Mechanics Module

STRUCTURALMECHANICS

Subsurface Flow Module

SUBSURFACEFLOW

Wave Optics Module

WAVEOPTICS

I n s t a l l i n g t h e L i c e n s e M a n age r
The FlexNet license manager is automatically installed when installing COMSOL
unless otherwise specified on the Features page of the COMSOL Installer; see

40 | License Manager Installation on Windows

Features Page on page 20. The check box for the license manager components
can be found last in the list of software components, as seen in the picture below:

If you do not intend to run the license manager software on the computer for
which you are installing COMSOL, you can clear this check box during
installation. The license manager components requires a moderate amount of hard
disk space (about 26MB).
If you want to install COMSOL on the same computer as the license manager, first
perform a complete COMSOL installation including the license manager software
components. When finished, skip the remainder of this section and continue with
Starting the License Manager on page 42.
To install only the license manager, follow the installation instructions for
COMSOL earlier in this document and on the Features page, clear all check boxes
except the one for the license manager.
AUTOMATED LICENSE MANAGER INSTALLATION

Alternatively, the license manager can be installed using an automated installation

process with minimal user interaction, see Automated Installation on page 27.
Set licmanager = 1 in the answer file to install the license manager.

License Manager Installation on Windows

| 41

S t a r t i n g t h e L i c e n s e M a n ager
The license manager can be started manually, or it can be configured to run
automatically as a service each time the license server is restarted.
STARTING THE MANAGER AUTOMATICALLY AS A SERVICE

To set up the license manager as a service from the FlexNet Control Panel
(LMTOOLS):
1 Locate the COMSOL43b\license\win32 (Windows 32-bit) or

(Windows 64-bit) folder and run lmtools.exe.

Alternatively, run LMTOOLS from the Windows Start menu, available under
COMSOL 4.3b>License Tools>LMTOOLS.

COMSOL43b\license\win64

2 On the Service/License File page choose Configuration using Services.

3 Click the Configure Services tab.
4 Make an entry in the Service Name field, for example, COMSOL License

Manager.
5 Specify the full path to lmgrd.exe, license.dat by browsing to their location

on your hard drive. The default location for lmgrd.exe is at: C:\Program
and for the license file at:
C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\license\license.dat. For the debug
log file, you can use any name of your choice, for example, comsol43b.log. For
convenience you can place this next to your license file at: C:\Program

Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\license\win64\lmgrd.exe,

Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\license\comsol43b.log.

Make sure your Windows user account has read/write permission for the
folder of the debug log file otherwise the debug log file is not created.

42 | License Manager Installation on Windows

6 Select the Use Services check box (this might not be possible on all platforms,

but it is recommended when available) and then the Start Server at Power Up
check box.

7 Click Save Service. The license manager now starts at boot. If you wish to start

the license manager right away without restarting the license server computer,
click Start Server on the Start/Stop/Reread page of the FlexNet Control Panel.

S TARTING

THE LICENSE MANAGER MANUALLY

To start the license manager manually, browse to the license\win32 (Windows

32-bit) or license\win64 (Windows 64-bit) folder. Now, in a Windows command
window enter
lmgrd -c ..\license.dat -l ..\comsol43b.log

The license manager is now ready to distribute licenses over the network. It writes
debug information to the log file COMSOL43b\license\comsol43b.log.

Ve rifying that the License Man age r is Runn in g

Once you started the license manager, it is good practice to verify that the license
manager service is running. Start the Windows Task Manager and go to the
Services page. Check that the COMSOL License Manager service is running.

License Manager Installation on Windows

| 43

Starting COMSOL
After the installation is complete and the license manager daemons are running on
the license server, you can start using COMSOL. For more information on how
to run COMSOL, see Running COMSOL on Windows on page 46.

Changing the License

If you have received a new license filefor example, when adding COMSOL
products to an existing licensereplace the current license file with the new one.
Double-check the contents of this file to make sure it lists the products that the
license includes. See also The Feature Names on page 39.
When the license file has changed, you must restart the license manager;
otherwise, it continues to use the old license file still in memory.
RESTARTING THE LICENSE MANAGER

To restart the license manager, follow these steps:

1 In the Windows Start menu, choose COMSOL4.3b>License Tools>LMTOOLS.
2 In the FlexNet Control Panel, click, in this order, Stop Server, Reread License

File, and Start Server.

OBTAINING A HOSTID

If you need to verify the hostid of the license server, you can follow the steps for
Obtaining the Hostid on page 9. Alternatively, if COMSOL is already installed
on the license server, you can determine the hostid by executing the lmhostid
command
COMSOL43b/license/win32/lmutil lmhostid

or
COMSOL43b/license/win64/lmutil lmhostid

for Windows 32-bit and Windows 64-bit, respectively.

The hostid is typically the Ethernet address (also called a MAC address) of the
network card of your computer. An Ethernet address has six bytes, each with two
hexadecimal digits. Thus, the full hostid has twelve hexadecimal digits.
Alternatively, the hostid can be the volume serial number of your C hard drive.

44 | License Manager Installation on Windows

The volume serial number has 4 bytes, each with two hexadecimal digits. In this
case, the full hostid has eight hexadecimal digits.

Tro u bl e s h o o t i n g L i c e n s e E rro r s
If you have questions or problems with your installation, see Troubleshooting
License Errors on page 96.

License Manager Installation on Windows

| 45

Running COMSOL on Windows

After the installation is finished there is a COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b shortcut
icon on the Windows desktop:

as well as a COMSOL 4.3b folder on the Windows Start menu. To start

COMSOL, double-click the desktop icon or select COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b
from the Windows Start menu. For Windows 8 instructions, see Running
COMSOL on Windows 8 on page 47.

T h e C O M S O L Fol d e r o n T h e W i n d ow s S t a r t M e nu
The COMSOL 4.3b folder on the Start menu contains a selection of the items in
the following list depending on which COMSOL products and software
components you have licensed and installed:
COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b: Starts the COMSOL Desktop.
Model Animations: Launches a web browser with a selection of model
animations at: www.comsol.com/showroom/animations
Uninstall COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b: Starts the COMSOL Uninstaller.
For more information, see Removing (Uninstalling) the COMSOL
Installation on page 25.
32-bit: COMSOL 32-bit executables
Client Server
- COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b Client: Starts a COMSOL Client that can be
connected to a COMSOL Server.
- COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b Server: Starts a COMSOL Server that a
COMSOL Client can connect to.
For more information on running COMSOL in client-server mode, see
Running COMSOL in Client-Server Mode on page 49.
COMSOL with MATLAB: This is available if you have licensed the LiveLink
for MATLAB. It starts MATLAB and sets up all necessary paths. Also starts

46 | Running COMSOL on Windows

a COMSOL Server connected to MATLAB. See also Running COMSOL

with MATLAB on page 54.
Documentation: A folder that contains COMSOL documentation
shortcuts.
License Tools: Starts the FlexNet license manager control panel
(LMTOOLS). For more information, see License Manager Installation on
Windows on page 35.

R u n n i n g C O M S O L o n W i n d ow s 8
On Windows 8, COMSOL can be started from three different locations:
The COMSOL Multiphysics tile on the Windows Start Screen:

Running COMSOL on Windows

| 47

 There are two icons on the Window Desktop for COMSOL Multiphysics
and COMSOL Help Desk:

The Windows All apps page has three tiles for COMSOL Help Desk,
COMSOL Launchers, and COMSOL Multiphysics:

S ta r t i n g C O M S OL fo r a C l a s ski t L i c e n se
If you have a Classkit License, you start it by double clicking its dedicated
Windows desktop icon:

For Windows 8, corresponding tiles and desktop icons are added.

48 | Running COMSOL on Windows

C re a t i n g D e s k t o p S h o r t c u t s M a nu a l ly
Sometimes it is necessary to create the COMSOL shortcuts manually, for example
when COMSOL is installed on a shared network drive.
1 Locate the COMSOL executable. Its default location is
C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\bin\win64\comsol.exe

or
C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\bin\win32\comsol.exe

for Windows 64-bit and Windows 32-bit, respectively

2 Right-click comsol.exe and select Create shortcut. Now a shortcut named
comsol.exe - Shortcut.

If this shortcut is not created on the Desktop, then

move it there by drag-and-drop.

C REATING D ESKTOP S HORTCUTS M ANUALLY

FOR A

C LASSKIT L ICENSE

If you manually create a desktop shortcut for a Classkit License, then, in addition
to the steps above, the shortcuts Target needs to be modified with additional
options. Right-click the COMSOL shortcut icon and select Properties. Change the
text string in the Target field to
"C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\bin\win64\comsol.exe" --launcher.ini
"C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\bin\win64\comsolclasskit.ini"

(The complete text string must be written on a single row.)

or
"C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\bin\win32\comsol.exe" --launcher.ini
"C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b\bin\win32\comsolclasskit.ini"

for Windows 64-bit and Windows 32-bit, respectively.

Here, C:\Program Files\COMSOL\COMSOL43b represents the default COMSOL
installation directory and this may be changed in the Target field text string if your
installation is placed in a different folder.

R u n n i n g C O M S O L i n C l i e n t- S e r ver M o d e
When you start COMSOL by, for example, double-clicking the Windows desktop
icon, COMSOL is run as a single application including the functionality of both
the COMSOL Client and COMSOL Server, as explained later in this section.
However, the COMSOL Client/Server architecture lets you access the COMSOL
Serverthe COMSOL computational engineas a separate process. For
Running COMSOL on Windows

| 49

example, the COMSOL Desktop can act as a COMSOL Client when connected
to a COMSOL Server.
The license server is not the same as a COMSOL Server. The license
manager can run on a computer different from both the ones used by
COMSOL Desktop and COMSOL Server.
You need a Floating Network License to run the COMSOL Server and the
COMSOL Client on separate computers. However, any COMSOL license is
sufficient for running the Client and the Server on the same computer.
The Client and Server need not run on the same platform. For example, you can
run the COMSOL Desktop on Windows connecting to a COMSOL Server on a
Linux or Mac computer. This enables offloading your personal laptop or desktop
computer from heavy-duty computations and to run just the COMSOL Desktop
graphical user interface on your personal computer. A typical use would be to run
the COMSOL Server on a computer with large amounts of memory (RAM) and
processing power and to use your personal computer for pre- and postprocessing
with the COMSOL Desktop.
STARTING A COMSOL SERVER

The COMSOL server is single user server allowing multiple session of the same
user, one session at a time. To start the COMSOL Server, click COMSOL
Multiphysics Server in the Client Server folder under your COMSOL folder on the
Windows Start menu. (On Windows 8 you find this on the All apps page under
COMSOL Launchers.) When you start the COMSOL Server from the Windows
Start menu, a command window appears asking you for a user name and password.
You can use any user name and password of your choice, it is only used in the
context of connecting a COMSOL Client with a COMSOL Server.

When the COMSOL Server starts, it listens for a COMSOL Client connection on
the port listed in the command window. In the example above it is port 2036.

50 | Running COMSOL on Windows

CONNECTING A COMSOL CLIENT TO A COMSOL SERVER

You can start a COMSOL Client session by clicking COMSOL Multiphysics

Client in the Client Server folder below your COMSOL folder on the Windows
Start menu. (On Windows 8 you find this on the All apps page under COMSOL
Launchers.) You can also connect to a COMSOL server from the COMSOL
Desktop by selecting Connect to Server from the File menu in the COMSOL
Desktop. When you start the Client, a Connect to Server window appears
prompting you for: computer name (Server) where the COMSOL Server is
running, Port number, Username, and Password.

Once you have filled out this information and clicked OK, the COMSOL Server
command window displays information that a COMSOL Client has connected.
For more information on running COMSOL in Client/Server mode, see the
COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.

Running COMSOL in Batch Mode

You can submit COMSOL batch jobs from the COMSOL Desktop and the
command line. To run a COMSOL batch job, you need to make the Batch feature
visible: in the Model Builder tree, click the Show button ( ) and select Advanced
Study Options. In the Model Builder, right-click on a Study node and select Batch
to create batch jobs. From the Windows command window, you can start batch
jobs using the comsolbatch command. This is an example of how such a command
could look like:
comsolbatch -inputfile in.mph -outputfile out.mph

To run a specific study add the command line option -study <tag> where <tag>
is the tag of the study to run, for instance, std1. To see the tag, select View>Model
Builder Node Label>Show Name and Tag in the COMSOL Desktop.
The COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual has a dedicated section on
running COMSOL from the Windows command window, including a list of
COMSOL commands, and associated syntax.

Running COMSOL on Windows

| 51

R u n n i n g C O M S O L o n M u l t i c o re C o m p u t e r s
COMSOL supports two modes of parallel operation: shared-memory parallel
operations and distributed-memory parallel operations, including cluster support.
This section covers shared-memory processing, or multithreading, which is
important for the performance of COMSOL computations. Some terms that are
frequently used in when describing multithreading are:
Core: The core is a processor core used in shared-memory parallelism by a
computational node with multiple processors.
Speedup is how many times faster a job runs on N cores compared to 1 core,
on a specific compute node. The speedup depends on the simulation type,
the hardware used, and hardware drivers used.
On Windows, the default number of processor cores used by COMSOL is the
total number of available physical cores. For example, if you have a 2 x dual core
machine, 4 cores are used in parallel by a COMSOL process.
Here is how to find out how many processor cores your Windows machine has
(applicable for computers that do not have Intel Hyper-Threading Technology
and AMD computers that are not based on Bulldozer):
1 In the Windows file browser, right-click Computer or My Computer, select

Properties.
2 Click Advanced system settings. Go to the Advanced tab.
3 Click the Environment Variables button and look in the System variables list.

Look for NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS and check its value. This is actually

the number of cores. If you have two processors with 2 cores each, this number
is 4. Alternatively, start a Windows command window and type
echo %NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS%

If you want COMSOL to leave out one or more processor cores you can set the
number of cores used for a computational job in the Preferences dialog box under
Memory and processors (by first selecting the Number of processors check box
and then entering the number of processor cores to use).
You can also change the default behavior of COMSOL by setting the environment
variable COMSOL_NUM_THREADS to the desired number of cores. See the COMSOL
Multiphysics Reference Manual for more information.

52 | Running COMSOL on Windows

Running COMSOL on Clusters

You can launch COMSOL cluster jobs from the COMSOL Desktop and the
command line. To run COMSOL on a cluster, you need to make the cluster
features visible: in the Model Builder tree, click the Show button ( ) and select
Advanced Study Options. Then in the Model Builder, right-click a Study node
and select Cluster Computing or Cluster Sweep to create cluster jobs. Cluster
computing requires a Floating Network License.
The following terms occur frequently when describing the hardware for cluster
computing and shared memory parallel computing:
Compute node: The compute nodes are where the distributed computing
occurs. Each distributed COMSOL process resides in a compute node and
communicates with other compute nodes using MPI (message-passing
interface).
Host: The host is a physical machine (hardware) with a network adapter and
unique network address. The host is part of the cluster. It is sometimes
referred to as a physical node.
Core: The core is a processor core used in shared-memory parallelism by a
computational node with multiple processors.
The number of used hosts and the number of computational nodes are usually the
same. For some special problem types, like very small problems with many
parameters, it might be beneficial to use more than one computational node on
one host.
A tutorial model for cluster testing is included in the Model Library under
COMSOL Multiphysics>Tutorial models>micromixer_cluster
QUICK TROUBLESHOOTING

Your first stop is to make sure you have the latest release installed. Check
that you have COMSOL 4.3b or later also make sure to install the latest
product updates.
For Windows HPCS, log in to each node with remote desktop and start the
COMSOL Desktop GUI. No error messages should be displayed.
If you get the error message Process status indicates that process is
running, then cancel any running jobs in the Windows HPCS Job manager
or other scheduler that you use. In the COMSOL Desktop, locate the
External Process page at the bottom right. Click the Clear Status button.

Running COMSOL on Windows

| 53

For more information about how to run COMSOL in parallel on Windows

clusters, see the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual. For installation on
Clusters, see Cluster Installation on page 33.

Running COMSOL on th e Cloud

COMSOL supports cloud computing using Linux through Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). See the PDF version of Running COMSOL
on the Amazon Cloud for further information: www.comsol.com/ec2_manual.

R u n n i n g C O M S O L w i t h M AT L A B
Running COMSOL with MATLAB requires a LiveLink for MATLAB license.
To run COMSOL with MATLAB, double-click the COMSOL 4.3b with
MATLAB icon on the desktop.

For Windows 8, corresponding tiles and desktop icons are added.

Alternatively, start COMSOL with MATLAB from the Start menu by pointing to
Programs, then to COMSOL 4.3b, and then select COMSOL 4.3b with
MATLAB. In Windows 8, you can click COMSOL 4.3b with MATLAB on the
start screen to launch COMSOL.
Running COMSOL with MATLAB starts a COMSOL Server and a MATLAB
Desktop. The COMSOL Desktop is not involved. You can change the path to the
MATLAB installation in the Preferences window accessed from the Options menu
of the COMSOL Desktop. For more information, see the LiveLink for
MATLAB documentation.
STARTING COMSOL WITH MATLAB USING THE GRAPHICS MODE

To display the plot in a COMSOL graphics window you need to run COMSOL
with MATLAB using the graphics mode. To do so, append the flag -graphics
to the COMSOL with MATLAB target path.

54 | Running COMSOL on Windows

Installing on Mac OS X

I n s ta l l a t i o n O ve r t h e I n t e r n e t

INSTALLATION OF A TRIAL LICENSE OVER THE INTERNET

A trial license may be given to you with the intention to test the software without
any payment obligation for non-commercial or non-production use. This option
may not be available in all regions.
Installation of a Single User Trial License on Mac requires a license passcode. A
passcode has a form similar to:
FFFFFFFF-TYUS-123456-1234567-123456789

This is usually sent to you by your COMSOL representative by email. Once you
locate your passcode, follow these steps to prepare for download and installation:
1 Click the link for downloading the software as given in the software download

email from your COMSOL representative. This link will be identical or similar
to: www.comsol.com/support/download/trial.

Installing on Mac OS X

| 55

2 If you havent already created a COMSOL Access account, you are now

prompted to create it. While creating the account, enter your trial passcode to
associate it with your account information.

If you already have created a COMSOL Access account, then the link
www.comsol.com/support/download/trial directs you to a page where you
can enter the passcode:

3 Click Download.
4 Continue with the instructions in the section Downloading the COMSOL

Installer on page 60.

56 | Installing on Mac OS X

INSTALLATION OF A PAID - FOR LICENSE OVER THE I NTERNET

Installation of any paid-for license on Mac requires a license file which is sent to
you by your COMSOL representative by email. To be able to generate the license
file, information about your hardware is needed in the form of a hostid (host ID).
The hostid is used to lock the license to your hardware and needs to be sent by
you to a COMSOL representative prior to the license file being generated.

Obtaining the Hostid

Follow these steps to obtain a hostid:
1 Launch the application Network Utility found in the Applications/Utilities folder.
2 Click the Info tab to the left.
3 Select Network Interface (en0). This corresponds to your Ethernet card.
4 The hostid is the Hardware Addressas shown in the figure below, but with

the colons (:) removed. If you plan to install on a computer with a wireless
network card, report the hardware address for both Network Interface (en0)
and Network Interface (en1).

Obtaining the Host Name

If you have been informed by your COMSOL representative that you need to run
the FlexNet license manager for your installation, then you also need the Host
Name:
1 To get the Host Name, launch the Terminal application.
2 Enter hostname at the terminal prompt.

If your network administrator prefer to use a fixed IP address for this particular
computer, this IP Address could be optionally used in place of the Host Name.

Installing on Mac OS X

| 57

For more information on license manager installation see License Manager

Installation on Mac OS X on page 65.

Obtaining the License File from a COMSOL Representative

Send the hostid information, as well as Host Name, if applicable, in an email to
your COMSOL representative, who will respond with an email with an attached
license file (license.dat). Save this file to any location on your computer. You will
need to reference it during installation. The license file is a text file and below is
an example of the contents of a license.dat file for a Single User License on Mac.
This example license file shows that the licensed products are COMSOL
Multiphysics, Particle Tracing Module, Subsurface Flow Module, and LiveLink
for Excel.
#-----------------------------------------------------------------# COMSOL 4.3b NSL License No: 1234567 Windows/Mac
# Visit www.comsol.com/install for latest installation instructions
#-----------------------------------------------------------------FEATURE SERIAL LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
VENDOR_STRING=C,18000100200 HOSTID=ANY sort=100 SN=1234567 \
TS_OK SIGN=8045890A6FE4
FEATURE COMSOL LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted HOSTID="70f2b13f4dfd \
0116b8cc761a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n i86_mac x64_mac" \
SN=2076312 SIGN=E607EB680852
FEATURE PARTICLETRACING LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
HOSTID="70f1a12f4dfc 0026b9cc760a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n \
i86_mac x64_mac" SN=2076312 SIGN=3835733C6290
FEATURE SUBSURFACEFLOW LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
HOSTID="70f1a12f4dfc 0026b9cc760a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n \
i86_mac x64_mac" SN=2076312 SIGN=3A9BA162C9E4
FEATURE LLEXCEL LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted HOSTID="70f1a12f4dfc \
0026b9cc760a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n i86_mac x64_mac" \
SN=2076312 SIGN=EE9C11E44356
FEATURE COMSOLGUI LMCOMSOL 4.32 permanent uncounted \
HOSTID="70f1a12f4dfc 0026b9cc760a" PLATFORMS="i86_n x64_n \
i86_mac x64_mac" SN=2076312 SIGN=0D0A83382550

A Single User License file can normally not be edited or changed in any way by
the user but has to be identical to the one sent to you by a COMSOL
representative. If you were sent a license file that requires a license manager, then
minor edits may be required. For information on the type of license file required
for installations using a license manager, see The License File on page 66.

Registering with COMSOL Access

Once you have saved your license file, follow these steps to register or login to
COMSOL Access and to start the installation:
1 Click the link for downloading the software as given in the software download

email from your COMSOL representative. This link will be identical or similar
to: www.comsol.com/support/download.

58 | Installing on Mac OS X

2 If you havent already created a COMSOL Access account, you are now

prompted to create it. While creating the account, point to your license file
(license.dat) to associate it with your account information.

If you already created a COMSOL Access account, then you can associate the
license file with your account under Manage Licenses at www.comsol.com/
access/licenses/

3 Continue with the instructions in the next section.

Installing on Mac OS X

| 59

D OWNLOADING

THE

COMSOL I NSTALLER

1 You are now given the option of Installing COMSOL over the Internet. (For the

DVD option see Installation from Downloaded DVD Image on page 60.) In
addition, there are two further options of Compact Install or Full Install:
a Compact Install: Includes the on-line documentation. The Model Library

tutorials are stripped of solutions, which reduces download time. The size of
this download ranges from 600 MB to 1.6 GB depending on your license.
b Full Install: Includes the full documentation and the complete Model Library

with meshes and solutions for your licensed products. The size of this
download ranges from 1.0 GB to 4.6 GB depending on your license.
If you have problems downloading (such as Error downloading file.
Connection refused: connect), please review this knowledge base entry:
www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1149. If you still have
problems, please contact your local COMSOL representative or technical
support on the Support Center page: www.comsol.com/support.
2 For Installing COMSOL over the Internet, in the Mac section, click one of the

buttons for Compact Install or Full Install.

Clicking one of the install buttons starts the download of the COMSOL Installer.
For Mac, the file to download is called COMSOL43b_mac.zip for the full
installation and COMSOL43b_compact_mac.zip for the compact installation.
STARTING THE INSTALLER FOR INSTALLATION OVER THE INTERNET

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. Start the COMSOL Installer by first unzipping the
downloaded file and then running the COMSOL Installer application COMSOL
Installer.app. The COMSOL 4.3b Installer window should now appear. Now
continue with the instructions in the section Running The COMSOL Installer
on page 62.

I n s t a l l a t i o n f ro m D ow n l o a d e d DV D I m age
Installation from a DVD where the DVD image is downloaded from COMSOL
for off-line installation requires you to first create a COMSOL Access account as
described in the section Registering with COMSOL Access on page 58.
1 Once you are logged in to COMSOL Access, you are now given the options of

Installing COMSOL over the Internet or to Download the DVD Image for Offline

60 | Installing on Mac OS X

Installation. This section covers the DVD Image option. In addition, there are
two further options of Compact Install or Full Install:
a Compact Install: Includes the on-line documentation. The Model Library

tutorials are stripped of solutions, which reduces download time. The size of
this download ranges from 600 MB to 1.6 GB depending on your license.
b Full Install: Includes the full documentation and the complete Model Library

with meshes and solutions for your licensed products. The size of this
download ranges from 1.0 GB to 4.6 GB depending on your license.
If you have problems downloading (such as Error downloading file.
Connection refused: connect), please review this knowledge base entry:
www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1149. If you still have
problems, please contact your local COMSOL representative or technical
support from the Support Center page at www.comsol.com/support.
2 For the DVD Image option, click one of the buttons for Compact Install or Full

Install. Clicking one of the install buttons starts the download of the COMSOL
DVD Image. The file to download is called COMSOL43b_dvd.iso.
3 When you have downloaded the DVD image, burn the DVD image to a disc to

be able to install. Alternatively, you can install directly from the downloaded
DVD image by double-clicking it to mount it.
If you want to burn the DVD image to a disc:
4 Launch the Disk Utility application from Applications/Utilities.
5 Click the Burn toolbar button. Select the DVD image in the file dialog box and

open it.
6 Insert an empty DVD in the DVD drive and click Burn in the dialog box in Disk

Utility.

S ta r t i n g th e In s t al l er f ro m DV D o r DV D Im age
This section applies if you have received a DVD from a COMSOL representative
or if you have burnt a DVD image downloaded from COMSOL for off-line
installation.
The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. To start the installer:
1 Insert the COMSOL DVD into the DVD drive (or mount the image).
2 Launch the COMSOL Installer application from the Finder.

Installing on Mac OS X

| 61

3 The COMSOL 4.3b Installer window appears. Now continue with the

instructions in the section Running The COMSOL Installer below.

I n s t a l l a t i o n f ro m U S B F l a s h D r i ve
This section applies if you have received a USB Flash Drive from a COMSOL
representative.
STARTING THE INSTALLER FROM A USB FLASH DRIVE

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. To start the installer:
1 Connect the USB Flash Drive to your computer.
2 Launch the COMSOL Installer application from the Finder.
3 The COMSOL 4.3b Installer window appears. Now continue with the

instructions in the section Running The COMSOL Installer below.

Running The COMSOL Installer

The steps for running the COMSOL Installer are independent of the installation
media option you used. If you have followed the above instructions, the
COMSOL Installer should now appear. Now continue with the instructions for
Windows in the section Running the COMSOL Installer on page 16. The
procedure is the same for Mac OS X with the following exceptions:
COMSOL does not work if the path to the COMSOL folder, or the name
of the COMSOL folder itself, contain spaces.
You cannot browse to the MATLAB installation directory directly. You
need to enter it manually. MATLAB is installed in the /Applications
directory, for example, as /Applications/MATLAB_R2012a.app.

62 | Installing on Mac OS X

R e m ov i n g ( U n i n s t a l l i n g ) t h e C O M S O L I n s t a l l a t i o n
The COMSOL 4.3b installation adds files only in the COMSOL43b folder. To
remove the COMSOL installation, delete the COMSOL43b folder including all
subfolders.

A u t o m a t e d I n s ta l l a t i o n
You can install COMSOL using an automated installation process with minimal
user interaction. This method requires installation from DVD or DVD image. The
documentation on how to create an answer file is available in the template,
setupconfig.ini, which is available on the DVD. When an answer file is
created, start the installation by running
<path to DVD>/setup -s <answer file path>

where <answer file path> is the path to the answer file.

P ro d u c t U p d a t e s a n d M o d e l L i b r a r y U p d a t e
COMSOL periodically releases product updates with improvements and
corrections to reported problems. By default, COMSOL checks for updates at
startup. You can turn this feature on and off from the COMSOL Desktop
Preferences Window. Here you can also configure settings for the Model Library
Update.
The Model Library is updated on a regular basis by COMSOL. From the
COMSOL Desktop, by choosing the menu option View>Model Library Update you
can get the latest updates to the model library. This connects you to the
COMSOL Model Update website where you can access the latest models and
model updates. This includes models that have been added or improved since the
latest product release.
Using the Updates section in the Preferences window you can configure proxy
server settings as well as model and documentation directories for the Model
Library Update. See the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual for more
information including command-line options for the Model Library.

Installing on Mac OS X

| 63

C h a n g i n g t h e Pat h t o t h e M AT L A B I n s t a l l a t i o n
You can change the path to the MATLAB installation in the Preferences window
accessed from the Options menu of the COMSOL Desktop. For more
information, see the LiveLink for MATLAB documentation.

64 | Installing on Mac OS X

License Manager Installation on Mac OS X

Many of the instructions for installing the FlexNet license manager is similar to
that on Windows. This section covers only the differences when installing on Mac
OS X. For general information on the license manager software, see License
Manager Installation on Windows on page 35.

F l ex N e t L i c e n s e M a n ager S o f t w a re C o m p o n e n t s
The license manager consists of the following software components:
License manager daemon (lmgrd)
Vendor daemon (LMCOMSOL)
FlexNet utility program (lmutil and others)
The two daemons (lmgrd and LMCOMSOL) run on the license server. When a user
starts COMSOL on a client computer, communication is established through the
network from the client to the license server and the license manager daemon
(lmgrd). That daemon in turn makes a request to the vendor daemon (LMCOMSOL),
which releases licenses according to information in the license.dat file. The
FlexNet utility programs are used to handle license server management tasks.

F l ex N e t L i c e n s e M a n ager D o c u m e n ta t i o n
For detailed information on the FlexNet license manager software, select
Help>Documentation from the COMSOL Desktop main menu, and scroll to the
bottom of the page to locate a PDF copy of the FlexNet License Administration
Guide.

License Manager Installation on Mac OS X

| 65

T h e Li c e n s e F i l e
The license file for use on Mac OS X is identical to that of Windows. See The
License File on page 37 for more information.

I n s t a l l i n g t h e L i c e n s e M a n age r
The FlexNet license manager is automatically installed when installing COMSOL
unless otherwise specified on the Features page of the COMSOL Installer; see
Features Page on page 20. The check box for the license manager components
can be found last in the list of software components.
If you want to install COMSOL on the same computer as the license manager, first
perform a complete COMSOL installation including the license manager software
components. When finished, skip the remainder of this section and continue with
Starting the License Manager on page 66.
To install only the license manager, follow the installation instructions for
COMSOL earlier in this document and on the Features page, clear all check boxes
except the one for the license manager.
AUTOMATED LICENSE MANAGER INSTALLATION

Alternatively, the license manager can be installed using an automated installation

process with minimal user interaction, see Automated Installation on page 63.
Set licmanager = 1 in the answer file to install the license manager.

S t a r t i n g t h e L i c e n s e M a n ager
Either start the license manager manually or let it run automatically at startup.
STARTING THE LICENSE MANAGER MANUALLY

To start the license manager manually:

1 Launch the Terminal application.
2 Change directory to the license/maci32 (32-bit) or license/maci64 (64-bit)

directory

66 | License Manager Installation on Mac OS X

cd /Applications/COMSOL43b/license/maci32

or
cd /Applications/COMSOL43b/license/maci64

3 Then enter
./lmgrd -c ../license.dat -l /var/tmp/comsol43b.log

The server is now ready to distribute licenses over the network. It writes any debug
information to the log file /var/tmp/comsol43b.log.
STARTING THE LICENSE MANAGER AUTOMATICALLY AT STARTUP

A folder COMSOL_Lmgr located in the folder COMSOL43b/license/maci32 (32-bit) or

COMSOL43b/license/maci64 (64-bit) contains a script that can automatically start
the license manager when you start the computer.By installing and configuring
this folder, the license manager does not need to be started manually.
1 Go to the top level /Library folder on your startup disk.
2 In the Library folder, create a folder StartupItems if it does not already exist.
3 Move or copy the folder COMSOL_Lmgr to the StartupItems folder.
4 Open the file COMSOL_Lmgr in a text editor, for example, TextEdit.
5 Edit the line
FP=<COMSOLPATH>

by replacing <COMSOLPATH> with the path to the COMSOL folder. If

COMSOL is installed in the Applications folder this path is
FP=/Applications/COMSOL43b

6 Edit the line

USERNAME=<username>

by replacing <username> with your username.

To run the COMSOL_Lmgr file it must have the correct file permission that
include executable permission for the root user. To make sure that it has
the correct permission, enter the following commands:
sudo chown root:wheel /Library/StartupItems/COMSOL_Lmgr/COMSOL_Lmgr
sudo chmod 0755 /Library/StartupItems/COMSOL_Lmgr/COMSOL_Lmgr

Restart the computer to test the license manager installation. During

startup a message Starting COMSOL License Manager should appear.

License Manager Installation on Mac OS X

| 67

Ve rifying that the License Man age r is Runn in g

Once you started the license manager, it is good practice to verify that the license
manager processes are running. Start the Activity Monitor and check for the
vendor daemon (LMCOMSOL) and the license manager (lmgrd) in the list of
processes.

Starting COMSOL
After the installation is complete and the license manager daemons are running on
the license server, you can start using COMSOL. For more information on how
to run COMSOL, see Running COMSOL on Mac OS X on page 70.

Changing the License

If you have received a new license filefor example, when adding COMSOL
products to an existing licensereplace the current license file with the new one.
Double-check the contents of this file to make sure it lists the products that the
license includes.
When the license file has changed, you must restart the license manager;
otherwise, it continues to use the old license file still in memory.
RESTARTING THE LICENSE MANAGER

To restart the license manager:

1 Launch the Terminal application.
2 Change directory to the license/maci32 (32-bit) or license/maci64 (64-bit)

directory
cd /Applications/COMSOL43b/license/maci32

or
cd /Applications/COMSOL43b/license/maci64

3 Enter the commands

./lmdown -c ../license.dat
./lmgrd -c ../license.dat -l /var/tmp/comsol43b.log

68 | License Manager Installation on Mac OS X

OBTAINING A HOSTID

If you need to verify the hostid of the license server, you can follow the steps in
Obtaining the Hostid on page 57. Alternatively, if COMSOL is already installed
on the license server, you can determine the hostid by executing the lmhostid
command
COMSOL43b/license/$arch/lmhostid

where $arch is maci32 (32-bit) or maci64 (64-bit).

The hostid is typically the Ethernet address (also called a MAC address) of the
network card of your computer. An Ethernet address has six bytes, each with two
hexadecimal digits. Thus, the full hostid has twelve hexadecimal digits.

Tro u bl e s h o o t i n g L i c e n s e E rro r s
If you have questions or problems with your installation, see Troubleshooting
License Errors on page 96.

License Manager Installation on Mac OS X

| 69

Running COMSOL on Mac OS X

The COMSOL Applications

After the installation is finished there are several COMSOL applications available.
How many are available depends which products and licenses you have:
COMSOL Multiphysics This is the primary application for running COMSOL
Multiphysics. It launches COMSOL Multiphysics as a standalone application.
COMSOL Multiphysics (Classkit License) This application launches COMSOL
Multiphysics for a Classkit License. This application is only available if you have a
Classkit License.
COMSOL with MATLAB Use this application for running COMSOL with
LiveLink for MATLAB. This application is only available if you have a
LiveLink for MATLAB license.

The COMSOL with MATLAB application requires that you use the X11
application together with MATLAB. The X-Windows application
OroborOSX is not supported. On Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard you
need to quit the Terminal application prior to running the COMSOL with
MATLAB application.
COMSOL Multiphysics Server This application launches the Terminal

application and starts a COMSOL Server in a terminal window.

COMSOL Updates This application checks for available product updates on

www.comsol.com.
The COMSOL applications do not work if moved outside the COMSOL
folder. Create an alias if, for example, a desktop icon is required.

70 | Running COMSOL on Mac OS X

R u n n i n g C O M S O L f ro m a Te r m i n a l W i n d ow
COMSOL can also be launched from a terminal window using the shell script
COMSOL43b/bin/comsol.
To run the comsol command more easily, include the COMSOL43b/bin directory
in the path or make a symbolic link from /usr/bin/comsol to the comsol script.
Those with administrator privileges can create a symbolic link with the command
sudo ln -s /Applications/COMSOL43b/bin/comsol /usr/bin/comsol

(assuming COMSOL is installed in the Applications folder). This command asks

for a password before creating the link.
The comsol command must not be moved from the COMSOL43b/bin folder.
The COMSOL applications also use this script.
RUNNING A CLASSKIT LICENSE

To start COMSOL using a Classkit License, start COMSOL from the terminal
window using the -ckl option, for example
comsol -ckl

R u n n i n g C O M S O L i n C l i e n t- S e r ver M o d e
When you start COMSOL by, for example, launching the COMSOL Multiphysics
application, COMSOL is run as a single application including the functionality of
both the COMSOL Client and COMSOL Server, as explained later in this section.
However, the COMSOL Client/Server architecture lets you access the COMSOL
Serverthe COMSOL computational engineas a separate process. For
example, the COMSOL Desktop can act as a COMSOL Client when connected
to a COMSOL Server.
The license server is not the same as a COMSOL server. The license
manager can run on a computer different from both the ones used by
COMSOL Desktop and COMSOL Server.
You need a Floating Network License to run the COMSOL Server and the
COMSOL Client on separate computers. However, any COMSOL license is
sufficient for running the Client and the Server on the same computer.
The Client and Server need not run on the same platform. For example, you can
run the COMSOL Desktop on Mac connecting to a COMSOL Server on a
Windows or Linux computer. This enables offloading your personal laptop or
Running COMSOL on Mac OS X

| 71

desktop computer from heavy-duty computations and to run just the COMSOL
Desktop graphical user interface on your personal computer. A typical use would
be to run the COMSOL Server on a computer with large amounts of memory
(RAM) and processing power and to use your personal computer for pre- and
postprocessing with the COMSOL Desktop.
STARTING A COMSOL SERVER

To start the COMSOL Server, run the COMSOL Server application. A terminal
window appears asking you for a user name and password. You can use any user
name and password of your choice, it is only used in the context of connecting a
COMSOL Client with a COMSOL Server.
When the COMSOL Server starts, it listens for a COMSOL Client connection on
the port listed in the command window.

Connecting a COMSOL Client to a COMSOL Server

You can start a COMSOL Client session from the COMSOL Desktop by selecting
Connect to Server from the File menu in the COMSOL Desktop. When you start
the Client, a Connect to Server window appears prompting you for: computer
name (Server) where the COMSOL Server is running, Port number, Username,
and Password.

Once you have filled out this information and clicked OK, the COMSOL Server
terminal window displays information that a COMSOL Client has connected. For
more information on running COMSOL in Client/Server mode, see the
COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.

Running COMSOL in Batch Mode

You can submit COMSOL batch jobs from the COMSOL Desktop and the
command line. To run a COMSOL batch job, you need to make the Batch feature
visible: in the Model Builder tree, click the Show button ( ) and select Advanced
Study Options. In the Model Builder, right-click on a Study node and select Batch

72 | Running COMSOL on Mac OS X

to create batch jobs. From the terminal window, you can start batch jobs using the
comsol batch command. This is an example of how such a command could look
like:
comsol batch -inputfile in.mph -outputfile out.mph

To run a specific study add the command line option -study <tag> where <tag>
is the tag of the study to run, for instance, std1. To see the tag, select View>Model
Builder Node Label>Show Name and Tag in the COMSOL Desktop.
The COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual includes a dedicated section on
running COMSOL from the terminal window, including a list of COMSOL
commands, and associated syntax.

R u n n i n g C O M S O L o n M u l t i c o re C o m p u t e r s
COMSOL supports two modes of parallel operation: shared-memory parallel
operations and distributed-memory parallel operations, including cluster support
for Windows and Linux. This section covers shared-memory processing, or
multithreading, which is important for the performance of COMSOL
computations. Some terms that are frequently used in when describing
multithreading are:
Core: The core is a processor core used in shared-memory parallelism by a
computational node with multiple processors.
Speedup is how many times faster a job runs on N cores compared to 1 core,
on a specific compute node. The speedup depends both on the simulation
type, the hardware used, and hardware drivers used.
On Mac OS X, the default number of processor cores used by COMSOL is the
total number of available physical cores. For example, if you have a 2 x dual core
machine, 4 cores are used in parallel by a COMSOL process.
SHARED - MEMORY OPTIONS

From the terminal window, use the comsol command option -np to control the
number of cores and processors used. The default is to use all available cores and
processors. For example:
comsol -np 2

launches COMSOL using 2 cores (if available).

Running COMSOL on Mac OS X

| 73

You may need to experiment to find the options that work best for your
configuration. For more information see the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference
Manual.

Running COMSOL on Clusters

You can launch COMSOL cluster jobs from the COMSOL Desktop and the
command line. To run COMSOL on a cluster, you need to make the cluster
feature visible: in the Model Builder tree, click the Show button ( ) and select
Advanced Study Options. Then in the Model Builder, right-click a Study node and
select Cluster Computing or Cluster Sweep to create cluster jobs. Cluster computing
requires a Floating Network License.
COMSOL cannot be run on a cluster running Mac OS X, however, you
can use the Cluster Computing or Cluster Sweep feature to connect to a
Windows or Linux cluster.
A tutorial model for cluster testing is included in the Model Library under
COMSOL Multiphysics->Tutorial models->micromixer_cluster.
For more information about how to run COMSOL in parallel on clusters, see the
COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual. For installation on Clusters, see
Cluster Installation on page 33 for Windows and Cluster Installation on page
84 for Linux.

Running COMSOL on th e Cloud

COMSOL supports cloud computing using Linux through Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). See the PDF version of Running COMSOL
on the Amazon Cloud for further information: www.comsol.com/ec2_manual.

74 | Running COMSOL on Mac OS X

Installing on Linux
INSTALLATION OVER THE INTERNET

Installation of any paid-for license on Linux requires a license file, which is sent to
you by your COMSOL representative by email. To be able to generate the license
file, information about your hardware is needed in the form of a hostid (host ID).
The hostid is used to lock the license to your hardware and needs to be sent by
you to a COMSOL representative prior to the license file being generated.
A trial license may be given to you with the intention to test the software
without any payment obligation for non-commercial or non-production
use. This option may not be available in all regions. For installation of a
Single User Trial License on Linux, you can follow the same instructions
as for a paid-for license.

Obtaining the Hostid

Follow these steps to obtain a hostid:
1 Start a Terminal window
2 Enter /sbin/ifconfig eth0

This displays the Ethernet address (also called a MAC address) which consists
of six bytes displayed as six pairs of hexadecimal digits such as
00:40:05:16:E5:25.

Obtaining the Host Name

If you have been informed by a COMSOL representative that you need to run the
FlexNet license manager for your installation, then you also need the Host Name:
1 To get the Host Name, start a Terminal window.
2 Enter hostname at the terminal prompt.

If your network administrator prefer to use a fixed IP address for this particular
computer, this IP Address could be optionally used in place of the Host Name.
For more information on license manager installation see License Manager
Installation on Linux on page 85.

Obtaining the License File from a COMSOL Representative

Send the hostid information, as well as Host Name, if applicable, in an email to
your COMSOL representative, who will respond with an email with an attached
license file (license.dat). Save this file to any location on your computer. You will
need to reference it during installation. A trial license file for Linux can normally
not be edited or changed in any way by the user but has to be identical to the one
sent to you by a COMSOL representative. If you were sent a license file that
Installing on Linux

| 75

requires a license manager, then minor edits may be required. For information on
the type of license file required for installations using a license manager, see The
License File on page 37.

Registering with COMSOL Access

Once you have saved your license file, follow these steps to register or login to
COMSOL Access and to start the installation:
1 Click the link for downloading the software as given in the software download

email from your COMSOL representative. This link will be identical or similar
to: www.comsol.com/support/download

76 | Installing on Linux

2 If you havent already created a COMSOL Access account, you are now

prompted to create it. While creating the account, point to your license file
(license.dat) to associate it with your account information.

If you already created a COMSOL Access account, then you can associate the
license file with your account under Manage Licenses at www.comsol.com/
access/licenses

Installing on Linux

| 77

3 Continue with the instructions in the next section Downloading the COMSOL

Installer.
DOWNLOADING THE COMSOL INSTALLER
1 You are now given the option of Installing COMSOL over the Internet. (For the

DVD option see Installation from Downloaded DVD Image on page 79.) In
addition, there are two further options of Compact Install or Full Install:
a Compact Install for 32-bit or 64-bit Linux: Includes the on-line documentation.

The Model Library tutorials are stripped of solutions, which reduces

download time. The size of this download ranges from 600 MB to 1.6 GB
depending on your license.
b Full Install for 32-bit or 64-bit Linux: Includes the full documentation and the

complete Model Library with meshes and solutions for your licensed
products. The size of this download ranges from 1.0 GB to 4.6 GB
depending on your license.
If you have problems downloading (such as Error downloading file.
Connection refused: connect), please review this knowledge base entry:
www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1149. If you still have
problems, please contact your local COMSOL representative or technical
support from the Support Center page at www.comsol.com/support.
2 For Installing COMSOL over the Internet, in the Linux section, click one of

the buttons for Compact Install or Full Install, 32-bit or 64-bit.

Clicking one of the install buttons starts the download of the COMSOL Installer.
For Linux, the file to download is given a name depending on if it is for 32-bit or
64-bit Linux and if it is for a compact or full installation:
comsol43b_compact_glnx86.zip (Compact, 32-bit)
comsol43b_compact_glnxa64.zip (Compact, 64-bit)
comsol43b_glnx86.zip (Full, 32-bit)
comsol43b_glnxa64.zip (Full, 64-bit)
STARTING THE INSTALLER FOR INSTALLATION OVER THE INTERNET

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. Start the COMSOL Installer by first unzipping the
downloaded file and then running the setup script. The COMSOL 4.3b Installer
window should now appear. Now continue with the instructions in the section
Running The COMSOL Installer on page 81.

78 | Installing on Linux

I n s t a l l a t i o n f ro m D ow n l o a d e d DV D I m age
Installation from a DVD where the DVD image is downloaded from COMSOL
for off-line installation requires you to first create a COMSOL Access account as
described in the section Registering with COMSOL Access on page 76.
1 Once you are logged in to COMSOL Access, you are now given the options of

Installing COMSOL over the Internet or to Download the DVD Image for Offline
Installation. This section covers the DVD Image option. In addition, there are

two further options of Compact Install or Full Install:

a Compact Install: Includes the on-line documentation. The Model Library

tutorials are stripped of solutions, which reduces download time. The size of
this download ranges from 600 MB to 1.6 GB depending on your license.
b Full Install: Includes the full documentation and the complete Model Library

with meshes and solutions for your licensed products. The size of this
download ranges from 1.0 GB to 4.6 GB depending on your license.
If you have problems downloading (such as Error downloading file.
Connection refused: connect), please review this knowledge base entry:
www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1149. If you still have
problems, please contact your local COMSOL representative or technical
support from the Support Center page at www.comsol.com/support.
2 In the section For the DVD Image option, click one of the buttons for Compact

Install or Full Install. Clicking one of the install buttons starts the download of

the COMSOL DVD Image. The file to download is called

COMSOL43b_dvd.iso.
3 When you have downloaded the DVD image, burn the DVD image to a disc.

Use a DVD burning tools or command such as cdrecord to burn the DVD.
Alternatively, directly mount the DVD using a loopback device
mount -o loop COMSOL43b_dvd.iso /mnt

S t a r t i n g t h e I n s t a l l e r f ro m D ow n l o a d e d DV D I m age
This section applies if you have burnt a DVD image downloaded from COMSOL
for off-line installation.

Installing on Linux

| 79

S TARTING

THE INSTALLER FROM A DOWNLOADED DVD IMAGE

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. To start the installer:
1 Make sure the COMSOL DVD is in the DVD drive (or mount the image).
2 Type /mnt/setup
3 The COMSOL 4.3b Installer window appears. Now continue with the

instructions in the section Running The COMSOL Installer on page 81.

I n s t a l l a t i o n f ro m DV D
This section applies if you have received a DVD from a COMSOL representative.
STARTING THE INSTALLER FROM A DVD

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. To start the installer:
1 Insert the COMSOL 4.3b DVD into the DVD drive.
2 If the DVD is not mounted automatically by your operating system, use the
mount

command to mount it.

3 To start the installation, enter the command

sh drivepath/setup

where drivepath is the mount point of the DVD drive, for example /media/
cdrom.
You may have to mount the DVD with the option -o exec if your Linux mounts
the DVD without execute options by default.
The COMSOL 4.3b Installer window appears. Now continue with the
instructions in the section Running The COMSOL Installer on page 81.

I n s t a l l a t i o n f ro m U S B F l a s h D r i ve
This section applies if you have received a USB Flash Drive from a COMSOL
representative.

80 | Installing on Linux

STARTING THE INSTALLER FROM A USB FLASH DRIVE

The COMSOL Installer is a user interface tool that guides you through the
installation process. To start the installer:
1 Connect the USB Flash Drive to your computer.
2 If the USB Flash Drive is not mounted automatically by your operating system,

use the mount command to mount it.

3 To start the installation, enter the command
sh drivepath/setup

where drivepath is the mount point of the USB Flash Drive, for example /
media/usb.
You may have to mount the USB Flash Drive with the option -o exec if your
Linux mounts the USB Flash Drive without execute options by default.
4 The COMSOL 4.3b Installer window appears.Now continue with the

instructions in the section Running The COMSOL Installer below.

Running The COMSOL Installer

The steps for running the COMSOL Installer are independent of the installation
media option you used. If you have followed the above instructions, the
COMSOL Installer should now appear. For a detailed description and screen
shots of the different COMSOL Installer steps, see the instructions for Windows
in the section Running the COMSOL Installer on page 16.The procedure for
running the COMSOL Installer on Linux is similar and summarized below with
the differences from installation on Windows highlighted:
1 When the installer window appears, click New Installation.
2 Read the license agreement, select I accept the terms of the license agreement,

specify License information, and then click Next.

3 If you have a Named Single User License and you are installing the software on

the license server, a dialog box opens up and you are asked to enter the user to
bind the license to.
4 Select for which platforms (32-bit or 64-bit Linux) that you wish to install and

click Next.
5 Select the features to install and specify the path to the COMSOL installation

directory.
6 Click Next.
Installing on Linux

| 81

7 If you have licensed LiveLink for MATLAB, then specify the MATLAB root

folder.
8 Click Next.
9 Click Install to start the installation.
10 When the installation process is finished the Finish window appears. If errors

arose during installation, this window issues a notification. The installer also
writes a log entry into the text file comsolsetup.log, which resides in the
specified installation directory. Click Finish to quit the installer. If you installed
from DVD, use the unmount and eject commands to unmount and eject the
DVD. Some Linux configurations automatically unmount and eject the DVD
when you press the DVD drive button.
11 To make sure all users can easily start COMSOL, include the comsol43b/bin

directory in all users paths or make a symbolic link from /usr/local/bin/

to the comsol command (see the Linux ln command).

comsol

We b B rows e r fo r V i ewi n g t h e D o c u m e n t a t i o n
The file browser in the bin directory attempts to start common web browsers that
are available with the supported Linux versions. Edit the file in any text editor to
adjust it for your preferred web browser. The variable BROWSERS in this file contains
a list of web browsers in order of preference. If you want to make a specific browser
the preferred web browser, put it first in the list.

R e m ov i n g ( U n i n s t a l l i n g ) t h e C O M S O L I n s t a l l a t i o n
The COMSOL 4.3b installation adds files only in the comsol43b directory. To
remove the COMSOL installation, simply delete the comsol43b directory
including all subdirectories.

82 | Installing on Linux

A u t o m a t e d I n s ta l l a t i o n
You can install COMSOL using an automated installation process with minimal
user interaction. This method requires installation from DVD or DVD image. The
documentation on how to create an answer file is available in the template,
setupconfig.ini, which is available on the DVD. When you have created an
answer file, start the installation by running
<path to DVD>/setup -s <answer file path>

where <answer file path> is the path to your answer file.

P ro d u c t U p d a t e s a n d M o d e l L i b r a r y U p d a t e
COMSOL periodically releases product updates with improvements and
corrections to reported problems. By default, COMSOL checks for updates at
startup. You can turn this feature on and off from the COMSOL Desktop
Preferences Window. Here you can also configure settings for the Model Library
Update.
The Model Library is updated on a regular basis by COMSOL. From the
COMSOL Desktop, by choosing the menu option View>Model Library Update you
can get the latest updates to the model library. This connects you to the
COMSOL Model Update website where you can access the latest models and
model updates. This includes models that have been added or improved since the
latest product release.
Using the Updates section in the Preferences window you can configure proxy
server settings as well as model and documentation directories for the Model
Library Update. See the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual for more
information including command-line options for the Model Library.

C h a n g i n g t h e Pat h t o t h e M AT L A B I n s t a l l a t i o n
You can change the path to the MATLAB installation in the Preferences window
accessed from the Options menu of the COMSOL Desktop. For more
information, see the LiveLink for MATLAB documentation.

Installing on Linux

| 83

Cluster Installation
COMSOL supports two modes of parallel operation: shared-memory parallel
operations and distributed-memory parallel operations, including cluster support.
This section is dedicated to distributed-memory parallel installation.
COMSOL can distribute computations on compute clusters using the MPI
model. One large simulation can be distributed across many compute nodes. Also,
parametric sweeps can be distributed with individual parameter cases distributed
to each cluster node.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

The installation instructions above can be followed also for clusters. COMSOL
supports shared-memory parallelism and distributed-memory parallelism on
32-bit and 64-bit Linux. For details on system requirements, see
www.comsol.com/products/requirements/linux.
LICENSE MANAGER

COMSOL requires a Floating Network License for running on clusters. Please

check the license file for the CLUSTERNODE feature which needs to be present
to enable the cluster computing functionality. The license manager needs to be
accessible from all nodes in the cluster. Therefore it is often a good idea to have it
run on the head node.
INSTALLATION FOLDER

The COMSOL installation folder should be shared between all compute nodes
and the head node.
FEATURES

During installation, make sure the Cluster Components feature is selected.

ACCESS TO CLUSTER

If you work on a computer that is not on the cluster, install COMSOL on that
computer. Typically, you use a scheduler to launch jobs on the cluster. Make sure
the scheduler client software is installed on the that computer. You can configure
the installation to use the scheduler by changing the comsol.ini file according to
the section on MPI Options in the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.
For more information on installing and running COMSOL on clusters, see
Running COMSOL on Clusters on page 93 and the COMSOL Multiphysics
Reference Manual.

84 | Installing on Linux

License Manager Installation on Linux

You do not need to install the license manager if you are installing a trial version.
The paid-for version on Linux, however, always requires a running license
manager. Many of the instructions for installing the FlexNet license manager is
similar to that on Windows. This section covers only the differences when
installing on Linux. For general information on the license manager software, see
License Manager Installation on Windows on page 35.

F l ex N e t L i c e n s e M a n ager S o f t w a re C o m p o n e n t s
The license manager consists of the following software components:
License manager daemon (lmgrd)
Vendor daemon (LMCOMSOL)
FlexNet utility program (lmutil and others)
The two daemons (lmgrd and LMCOMSOL) run on the license server. When a user
starts COMSOL on a client computer, communication is established through the
network from the client to the license server and the license manager daemon
(lmgrd). That daemon in turn makes a request to the vendor daemon (LMCOMSOL),
which releases licenses according to information in the license.dat file. The
FlexNet utility programs are used to handle license server management tasks.

F l ex N e t L i c e n s e M a n ager D o c u m e n ta t i o n
For detailed information on the FlexNet license manager software, select
Help>Documentation from the COMSOL Desktop main menu, and scroll to the
bottom of the page to locate a PDF copy of the FlexNet License Administration
Guide.

License Manager Installation on Linux

| 85

T h e Li c e n s e F i l e
The license file for use on Linux is identical to that of Windows, except for a
Named Single User License which is described below. See The License File on
page 37 for general license file information.
LICENSE FILES FOR NAMED SINGLE USER LICENSE

If you have a Named Single User License the installer automatically creates an
options file that binds the license to the named user. This section describes the
format of the options file and how the license.dat file points to the options file.
Below is an example of an options file, LMCOMSOL.opt, for a user philip who has
access to COMSOL Multiphysics, the Structural Mechanics Module, and the
CAD Import Module. Notice that to access COMSOL Multiphysics, the options
file must include both the COMSOL and the COMSOLGUI features:
INCLUDE
INCLUDE
INCLUDE
INCLUDE
INCLUDE

COMSOL USER philip

COMSOLGUI USER philip
CADIMPORT USER philip
CADREADER USER philip
STRUCTURALMECHANICS USER philip

Each INCLUDE row in the LMCOMSOL.opt file has a corresponding FEATURE row in the
license.dat file (with the USER_BASED keyword). The second item on each
FEATURE row is the name of the feature for which you have a license.
For more information on which FEATURE items are available, see The License
File on page 37.
The license.dat file needs to point to the options file. The path to the options
file is indicated in the options file by the options keyword. If your options file is
placed here:
/usr/local/comsol43b/license/LMCOMSOL.opt

then the VENDOR row in license.dat should read

VENDOR LMCOMSOL port=1719 options=/usr/local/comsol43b/license/
LMCOMSOL.opt

I n s t a l l i n g t h e L i c e n s e M a n age r
The FlexNet license manager is automatically installed when installing COMSOL
unless otherwise specified on the Features page of the COMSOL Installer, see

86 | License Manager Installation on Linux

Features Page on page 20. The check box for the license manager components
can be found last in the list of software components.
If you want to install COMSOL on the same computer as the license manager, first
perform a complete COMSOL installation including the license manager software
components. When finished, skip the remainder of this section and continue with
Starting the License Manager below.
To install only the license manager, follow the installation instructions for
COMSOL earlier in this document and on the Features page, clear all check boxes
except the one for the license manager.
AUTOMATED LICENSE MANAGER INSTALLATION

Alternatively, the license manager can be installed using an automated installation

process with minimal user interaction, see Automated Installation on page 83.
Set licmanager = 1 in the answer file to install the license manager.

S t a r t i n g t h e L i c e n s e M a n age r
You can start the license manager manually or it can run automatically at boot.
STARTING THE LICENSE MANAGER MANUALLY

To start the license manager manually, make the license/$arch directory the
current directory and enter
./lmgrd -c ../license.dat -l /var/tmp/comsol43b.log

The server is now ready to distribute licenses over the network. It writes any debug
information to the log file /var/tmp/comsol43b.log.
STARTING THE LICENSE MANAGER AUTOMATICALLY AT BOOT

In order for the license manager to start automatically at boot, you need to add
Bourne shell commands to the appropriate boot script. You must be a superuser
(root) to edit boot scripts.
For security reasons, it is recommended that the daemons are not started
as root. Instead, use a dedicated username to start the license manager.

License Manager Installation on Linux

| 87

The procedure for editing boot scripts on each platform appears in the following
table:
PLATFORM

PROCEDURE

SuSe Linux

The following instructions should work for SuSE Linux distributions, where $arch
is either glnx86 (32-bit Linux), or glnxa64 (64-bit Linux).
In the comsol43b/license/$arch directory, enter the commands
cp rc.lm /etc/init.d/comsol43blm
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/comsol43blm

Edit /etc/init.d/comsol43blm, replacing dir with the full path to the

$arch platform directory, and replace username with an actual username.
Now create the following link
cd /etc/init.d/rc5.d
ln -s ../comsol43blm S91comsol43blm

Debian
Linux

The following instructions should work for Debian Linux distributions, where
$arch is either glnx86 (32-bit Linux), or glnxa64 (64-bit Linux).
Copy the file comsol43b/license/$arch/lm_comsol to /etc/init.d
Edit /etc/init.d/lm_comsol. Update the FP and MYUSER variables as
indicated in the file. Use the utility update-rc.d to automatically update the
system's init script links:
update-rc.d lm_comsol start 99 2 3 4 5 . stop 1 0 1 6 .

This means that the COMSOL license manager is started by runlevels 2, 3, 4, and
5, and stopped by runlevels 0, 1, and 6. Enter man update-rc.d for more
information on init scripts.
Linux,
General

The following instructions should work for most Linux distributions, where $arch
is either glnx86 (32-bit Linux) or glnxa64 (64-bit Linux).
Copy the file comsol43b/license/$arch/rc.lm and paste it at the end of
/etc/rc.d/rc.local.
Replace dir in the code fragment with the full path to the $arch platform
directory, and replace username with an actual username.

Ve rifying that the License Man age r is Runn in g

Once you started the license manager, it is good practice to verify that the license
manager processes are running. Use administrative commands such as top or ps to
check that both the vendor daemon (LMCOMSOL) and the license manager
(lmgrd) are running.

88 | License Manager Installation on Linux

Starting COMSOL
After the installation is complete and the license manager daemons are running on
the license server, you can start using COMSOL. For more information on how
to run COMSOL, see Running COMSOL on Linux on page 90.

Changing the License

If you have received a new license filefor example, when adding COMSOL
products to an existing licensereplace the current license file with the new one.
Double-check the contents of this file to make sure it lists the products that the
license includes.
When the license file has changed, you must restart the license manager;
otherwise, it continues to use the old license file still in memory.
RESTARTING THE LICENSE MANAGER

To restart the license manager, make the license/$arch directory under the
COMSOL installation directory the current directory, then enter the following
commands:
./lmdown -c ../license.dat
./lmgrd -c ../license.dat -l /var/tmp/comsol43b.log

OBTAINING A HOSTID

If COMSOL is already installed on your license server, you can determine the
hostid by executing the lmhostid command
comsol43b/license/$arch/lmhostid

where $arch is glnx86 (32-bit Linux) or glnxa64 (64-bit Linux).

Tro u bl e s h o o t i n g L i c e n s e E rro r s
If you have questions or problems with your installation, see Troubleshooting
License Errors on page 96.

License Manager Installation on Linux

| 89

Running COMSOL on Linux

Running COMSOL
If you are running a Linux version with a graphical desktop environment, you may
find a COMSOL Multiphysics icon that you can simply click to start COMSOL.
Alternatively, using a terminal window, you can run the comsol command. If it is
not available, ask your system manager to make it available to you, or, if you have
administrative privileges on your Linux system, add the comsol command to the
search path. The comsol command is located in the bin folder in the COMSOL
installation directory. This is a typical example of a command that adds comsol to
the search path is (assuming you are logged in as root):
ln -s /usr/local/comsol43b/bin/comsol /usr/bin/comsol

R u n n i n g C O M S O L o n M u l t i c o re C o m p u t e r s
COMSOL supports two modes of parallel operation: shared-memory parallel
operations and distributed-memory parallel operations, including cluster support
for Windows and Linux. This section covers shared-memory processing, or
multithreading, which is important for the performance of COMSOL
computations. Some terms that are frequently used in when describing
multithreading are:
Core: The core is a processor core used in shared-memory parallelism by a
computational node with multiple processors.
Speedup is how many times faster a job runs on N cores compared to 1 core,
on a specific compute node. The speedup depends both on the simulation
type, the hardware used, and hardware drivers used.
On Linux, the default number of processor cores used by COMSOL is the total
number of available physical cores. For example, if you have a 2 x dual core
machine, 4 cores are used in parallel by a COMSOL process.

90 | Running COMSOL on Linux

SHARED - MEMORY OPTIONS

From the Terminal window, use the comsol command option -np to control the
number of cores and processors used. The default is to use all available cores and
processors. For example:
comsol -np 2

launches COMSOL using 2 cores (if available).

You may need to experiment to find the options that work best for your
configuration. For more information see the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference
Manual.

Running COMSOL in Batch Mode

You can submit COMSOL batch jobs from the COMSOL Desktop and the
command line. To run a COMSOL batch job, you need to make the Batch feature
visible: in the Model Builder tree, click the Show button ( ) and select Advanced
Study Options. In the Model Builder, right-click on a Study node and select Batch
to create batch jobs. From a terminal window, you can start batch jobs using the
comsol batch command. This is an example of how such a command could look
like:
comsol batch -inputfile in.mph -outputfile out.mph

To run a specific study add the command line option -study <tag> where <tag>
is the tag of the study to run, for instance, std1. To see the tag, select View>Model
Builder Node Label>Show Name and Tag in the COMSOL Desktop.
The COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual has a dedicated section on
running COMSOL from a terminal window, including a list of COMSOL
commands, and associated syntax.

R u n n i n g C O M S O L i n C l i e n t- S e r ver M o d e
When you start COMSOL by, for example, entering the comsol command with
no additional arguments, COMSOL is run as a single application including the
functionality of both the COMSOL Client and COMSOL Server, as explained
later in this section. However, the COMSOL Client/Server architecture lets you
access the COMSOL Serverthe COMSOL computational engineas a separate
Running COMSOL on Linux

| 91

process. For example, the COMSOL Desktop can act as a COMSOL Client when
connected to a COMSOL Server.
The license server is not the same as a COMSOL Server. The license
manager can run on a computer different from both the ones used by
COMSOL Desktop and COMSOL Server.
You need a Floating Network License to run the COMSOL Server and the
COMSOL Client on separate computers. However, any COMSOL license is
sufficient for running the Client and the Server on the same computer.
The Client and Server need not run on the same platform. For example, you can
run the COMSOL Desktop on Windows connecting to a COMSOL Server on a
Linux computer. This enables offloading your personal laptop or desktop
computer from heavy-duty computations and to run just the COMSOL Desktop
graphical user interface on your personal computer. A typical use would be to run
the COMSOL Server on a computer with large amounts of memory (RAM) and
processing power and to use your personal computer for pre- and postprocessing
with the COMSOL Desktop.
STARTING A COMSOL SERVER

To start the COMSOL Server from a terminal window, run the comsol command
with the server argument:
comsol server

You are then prompted for a user name and password. You can use any user name
and password of your choice, it is only used in the context of connecting a
COMSOL Client with a COMSOL Server.
When the COMSOL Server starts, it listens for a COMSOL Client connection on
the port listed in the command window.

Connecting a COMSOL Client to a COMSOL Server

You can start a COMSOL Client session from the COMSOL Desktop by selecting
Connect to Server from the File menu in the COMSOL Desktop. You can also
star a COMSOL Client session from a terminal window by running the comsol
command with the client argument:
comsol client

92 | Running COMSOL on Linux

When you start the Client, a Connect to Server window appears prompting you
for: computer name (Server) where the COMSOL Server is running, Port
number, Username, and Password:

Once you have filled out this information and clicked OK, the COMSOL Server
terminal window displays information that a COMSOL Client has connected. For
more information on running COMSOL in Client/Server mode, see the
COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.

Running a Classkit License

To start COMSOL using a Classkit License, start COMSOL using the -ckl
option:
comsol -ckl

Running COMSOL on Clusters

You can launch COMSOL cluster jobs from the COMSOL Desktop and the
command line. To run COMSOL on a cluster, you need to make the cluster
feature visible: in the Model Builder tree, click the Show button ( ) and select
Advanced Study Options. Then in the Model Builder, right-click a Study node and
select Cluster Computing or Cluster Sweep to create cluster jobs. Cluster computing
requires a Floating Network License.
The following terms occur frequently when describing the hardware for cluster
computing and shared memory parallel computing:
Compute node: The compute nodes are where the distributed computing
occurs. Each distributed COMSOL process resides in a compute node and

Running COMSOL on Linux

| 93

communicates with other compute nodes using MPI (message-passing

interface).
Host: The host is a physical machine (hardware) with a network adapter and
unique network address. The host is part of the cluster. It is sometimes
referred to as a physical node.
Core: The core is a processor core used in shared-memory parallelism by a
computational node with multiple processors.
The number of used hosts and the number of computational nodes are usually the
same. For some special simulation types, like very small simulations with many
parameters, it might be beneficial to use more than one computational node on
one host.
A tutorial model for cluster testing is included in the Model Library under COMSOL
Multiphysics>Tutorial models>micromixer_cluster.
QUICK TROUBLESHOOTING

Your first stop is to make sure you have the latest release installed. Check
that you have COMSOL 4.3b or later also make sure to install the latest
product updates.
If you get the error message Process status indicates that process is running,
then cancel any running jobs in the scheduler that you use. In the COMSOL
Desktop, locate the External Process page at the bottom right. Click the Clear
Status button.
For more information about how to run COMSOL in parallel on Linux clusters,
see the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual. For installation on Clusters,
see Cluster Installation on page 84.

Running COMSOL on th e Cloud

COMSOL supports cloud computing using Linux through Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). See the PDF version of Running COMSOL
on the Amazon Cloud for further information: www.comsol.com/ec2_manual.

94 | Running COMSOL on Linux

R u n n i n g C O M S O L w i t h M AT L A B
Running COMSOL with MATLAB starts a COMSOL Server and a MATLAB
Desktop. No COMSOL graphical user interface is involved. For tutorial, see the
LiveLink for MATLAB Users Guide.
To launch MATLAB and connect it to a COMSOL Server, run the command
comsol server matlab

S TARTING

COMSOL WITH MATLAB USING THE GRAPHICS MODE

To display the plot in a COMSOL graphics window you need to run COMSOL
with MATLAB using the graphics mode. To do so, start COMSOL with
MATLAB from a terminal window with the -graphics flag:
comsol server matlab -graphics

Running COMSOL on Linux

| 95

Troubleshooting License Errors

If you have questions or problems with your installation, start by checking the
COMSOL Support Knowledge Base at www.comsol.com/support/
knowledgebase/ for up-to-date information about installation and license issues.
If this does not help, then please contact COMSOL technical support at
[email protected].
THE COMSOL SUPPORT KNOWLEDGE BASE

The most important Knowledge Base entries for installation questions and license
errors are the following:
SUBJECT

KNOWLEDGE BASE ENTRY

Could not obtain license for

COMSOL Multiphysics GUI

www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/903

Running COMSOL in parallel

on clusters

www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1001

Updating the COMSOL

License Manager

www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1022

COMSOL Installation
Companion

www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1077

Error: An error has occurred.

See the log file C:\Users...

www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1083

Selecting hardware for

clusters

www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1116

The COMSOL 4.3b tab is

not available in the Microsoft
Excel ribbon

www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1147

Error: Error downloading file.

Connection refused: connect

www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1149

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tutorials-howto.
LICENSE ERRORS

This section summarizes the most common post-installation error messages

generated by COMSOL, and it gives some advice how to troubleshoot them. For
a complete list of error messages, see the FlexNet license manager documentation.

96 | Troubleshooting License Errors

This documentation is shipped with your COMSOL installation, see FlexNet

License Manager Documentation on page 36 on where to find it.
If you need to review the license manager log file, or send it to COMSOL
technical support, this is where you usually find it (depending on choices you
made during the installation):
Windows: C:\Program Files\COMSOL43b\license\comsol43b.log
Mac OS X: /var/tmp/comsol43b.log
Linux: /var/tmp/comsol43b.log
If you need to access the license file, this is where you usually find it:
Windows: C:\Program Files\COMSOL43b\license\license.dat
Mac OS X: /Applications/COMSOL43b/license/license.dat
Linux: /usr/local/comsol43b/license/license.dat
ERROR MESSAGE

EXPLANATION

License error

A general license error has occurred. Check the error message for
details that might help solve the problem. If you need help in
interpreting the information, see the FlexNet License Manager
documentation or send the complete error message to
[email protected].

License error: -1.

Cannot find license
file.

The license file is missing or your system settings doesnt allow you to
read the file. Review the license manager installation steps above and
check that you have administrative rights on your computer.

License error: -2.

Invalid license file
syntax.

There is a formating problem with your license file. This can happen if
you edit it with a word processing software such as Microsoft Word
which inserts extra (invisible) characters. Use a plain text editor
instead (on Windows: Notepad, WordPad, or similar). Formating
problems can also happen if the file is corrupted while being copied
or emailed from one computer to another.

License error: -4.

Licensed number
of users already
reached.

The license manager has detected that all available licenses of a

certain COMSOL product have been used by other users. Contact
your license administrator and report this problem. You may need
more licenses of one of the add-on products.

License error: -5.

No such feature
exists.

The license manager has encountered a problem during startup.

Check the license manager log file for error messages.
Please send the log file to [email protected] if you want help in
interpreting the information.
NOTE: The license manager creates the log file. If there is no log file,
make sure to first start the license manager. Please refer to one of the
License Manager Installation sections of this manual for instructions
how to install and start the COMSOL license manager.

Troubleshooting License Errors

| 97

ERROR MESSAGE

EXPLANATION

License error: -10.

Feature has
expired.

This error message indicates that you have a time-limited (trial) license
and that your license has expired. Contact your license administrator
to see if a more recent license file is available. You may also need to
contact a COMSOL representative to renew your time-limited
license.

License error: -12.

Invalid returned
data from license
server system.

Check that no firewall on the COMSOL client is preventing the

connection from the COMSOL client to the license server.
Temporarily disable any firewall on the COMSOL client to see if that
helps.
Check that no firewall on the license server is preventing the
connection from the COMSOL client computer to the license
manager, or the connection from the lmgrd daemon and the
LMCOMSOL daemon.
If the problems remain, send the license manager log file to
[email protected].

98 | Troubleshooting License Errors

ERROR MESSAGE

EXPLANATION

License error: -15.

Cannot connect to
license server
system.

The COMSOL license manager has not been installed or started yet.
If the first line of your license.dat file looks like this:
SERVER mylicserver 000123456789 1718

a license manager is required. Please refer to the License Manager

Installation sections of this manual for instructions how to install and
start the COMSOL license manager.
Check that no firewall on the COMSOL client is preventing the
connection from the COMSOL client to the license server.
Temporarily disable any firewall on the COMSOL client to see if that
helps.
Check that no firewall on the license server is preventing the
connection from the COMSOL client computer to the license
manager.
Check that the license.dat file on the COMSOL client computer
points to the correct license server host name. First, find the
license.dat according to the instructions above.
Check that the first line has the correct license server Host Name.
For example, if your license server Host Name is apollo , the first
row in the license.dat file should look like this:
SERVER apollo 000123456789 1718

If the COMSOL client computer does not recognize apollo as a

proper Host Name, it might help to instead use the fully qualified
domain name (apollo.comsol.com) or the IP address. If neither of
these work, there might be a problem with DNS or the HOSTS file
on the client. Please ask your system administrator for advice on how
to connect with TCP/IP to the license server.
Finally, the license manager might have encountered a problem during
startup. Check the license manager log file for error messages.
NOTE: The log file is created by the license manager after it has been
started.
Please send the log file to [email protected] if you want help in
interpreting the information.
License error: -39.
User/host not on
INCLUDE list for
feature.

The error means that your user name does not match the one listed
in the license-manager options file, LMCOMSOL.opt. To get access to
COMSOL, ask your license/system administrator for help. When the
user name in the options file is changed, the license manager must be
shut down and restarted to give the new user immediate access to
COMSOL.

License error: -88.

System clock has
been set back.

The software has detected that a system clock has been set back.
Please make sure that your computers clock is set to the current local
time and date. If the problem remains check that there are no files on
your hard drive that have a future date.

Troubleshooting License Errors

| 99

ERROR MESSAGE

EXPLANATION

License error: -96.

License server
machine is down
or not responding.

Please make sure that the SERVER host name in the license.dat
file is valid and that the TCP/IP network connection between the
application computer and the license server is working properly.
This error could also indicate that your firewall is not configured
properly in order to let the license manager and vendor daemon
network traffic through (typically ports 1718 and 1719). It could also
indicate problems with other network security settings. Contact your
systems administrator for help.

License error: -97.

The desired
vendor daemon is
down.

The license manager has encountered a problem during startup.

Check the license manager log file for error messages.
NOTE: The log file is created by the license manager after it has been
started.
Please send the log file to [email protected] if you want help in
interpreting the information.

100 | Troubleshooting License Errors

Index
A

add feature 16

comsol command 71, 90

AutoCAD

COMSOL Conference 6

LiveLink for 31

COMSOL Exchange 6

Autodesk Inventor

COMSOL Server 5, 29, 46, 49, 50, 54,

LiveLink for 30

70, 71, 72, 91, 92, 95

automated installation

COMSOL Software License Agree-

Linux 83

ment 3

Mac OS X 63

core 53

Windows 27

CPU-Locked Single User License 4

automated license manager installation

Creo Parametric

Linux license server 87

Mac OS X license server 66

LiveLink for 32
D

Windows license server 41

B

dongle 6

boot script 88

downloading product 1, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14,

Bourne shell commands 87

browser, Linux file 82
C

55, 58, 60, 76, 78, 79, 96

E

change license, with COMSOL Installer

16

DirectX runtime binaries 22

errors, license 96
Ethernet address 9, 44, 69, 75

changing the license

FEATURE line, license file 39

FEATURE names 39

Linux 89

FlexNet

Mac OS X 68

control panel 36

Windows 44

License Administration Guide 36, 65,

Classkit License 5, 49

85

Linux 93

license manager 5

Macintosh 71

license manager, general information

Windows 48

35, 96

cluster computing

management 36, 65, 85

on Linux 93

utility program 36, 65, 85

on Windows 53

Floating Network License 4, 5, 34, 35,

with Mac OS X 74

39, 50, 53, 71, 74, 84, 92, 93

Comment line, license file 37

Community Discussion Forum 6

hard disk serial number 10

compute node 53

hardware address 57

COMSOL Access 6

hardware lock 6

COMSOL Client 5, 46, 50, 51, 71, 72, 92

host 53

|i

hostid

Windows 44

Linux 75, 89

license.dat 5, 10, 18, 35, 36, 37, 58,

Mac OS X 57, 58, 69

65, 68, 75, 86, 89, 97

Windows 9, 10, 38, 44

LiveLink for

HowTo Videos 1, 96
I

AutoCAD 31
Autodesk Inventor 30

INCREMENT line, license file 39

Creo Parametric 32

installation

Pro/ENGINEER 31

media options 1

Solid Edge 33

on Linux 75

SolidWorks 30

on Mac OS X 55

SpaceClaim 33

on Windows 7

lmgrd.exe 36, 65, 85

previous 2

lmhostid
K

Knowledge Base 1, 6, 96

License Agreement 3

Linux 89
Mac OS X 69

license errors 96

lmutil 36, 65, 85

license file 5, 97

Windows 44

Comment line 37
FEATURE line 39
INCREMENT line 39
SERIAL line 39
SERVER line 38
USE_SERVER line 38
VENDOR line 38
license manager
automated installation on Linux 87
automated installation on Mac OS X
66

automated installation on Windows

41

daemon 36, 65, 85

files for installation 40, 66, 86
installing files 40, 66, 86
log file 25, 42, 43, 67, 87, 97
starting 42, 66, 87
license server 18, 35, 50, 65, 85, 92
license, changing
Linux 89
Mac OS X 68

ii |

log file 25, 42, 43, 67, 87, 97

M

MAC address 9, 44, 69, 75

MATLAB
changing path to 54, 64, 83
running COMSOL Multiphysics on
Linux with 95
running COMSOL Multiphysics on
Mac OS X with 70
running COMSOL Multiphysics on
Windows with 54
message URL http
//www.comsol.com 6, 70
//www.comsol.com/ec2_manual 74
//www.comsol.com/sla/ 3
//www.comsol.com/support/ 60
//www.comsol.com/support/download/ 58, 76
//www.comsol.com/support/download/trial/ 7, 56
//www.comsol.com/support/knowledgebase/1149/ 60
Model Library Update

configuring on Linux 83

Trial License 5

configuring on Mac OS X 63

Linux 75

configuring on Windows 28

Mac OS X 55

multicore computing 3

Windows 7

multiprocessor computing 3
N

tutorials 1, 96

Named Single User License 4, 81, 86

network access of license 4

troubleshooting license errors 96

unattended installation
Linux 83

operating system 3

Max OS X 63

options file 86

Windows 27
P

passcode 7

uninstalling COMSOL

physical address 9

on Linux 82

port number 18

on Mac OS X 63

previous installation 2

on Windows 25

Pro/ENGINEER

updates, product 1, 6

LiveLink for 31

USE_SERVER line, license file 38

product downloads 1, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14,

utility program 36, 65, 85

55, 58, 60, 76, 78, 79, 96

product updates 1, 6
proxy server 23, 29, 63, 83
for software updates 27

vendor daemon 36, 65, 85

VENDOR line, license file 38
Videos, HowTo 1, 96
volume serial number 10

Remote Desktop 4
remove feature 16
root 87

W web browsers, for Linux 82

Windows Remote Desktop 4

SERIAL line, license file 39

SERVER line, license file 38
shared-memory computing 3
Software License Agreement 3
Solid Edge
LiveLink for 33
SolidWorks
LiveLink for 30
SpaceClaim
LiveLink for 33
system requirements 1, 2

teaching assistants 5
technical support 1, 6, 96
three-server redundancy 18

| iii

iv |