CPDN control code for climate models running in climateprediction.net (CPDN)

This respository contains the instructions and code for building the controlling application used for controlling the climate models in the climateprediction.net project, at this point the ECMWF OpenIFS (43r3) and WRF models.

Prerequisite: BOINC library

To compile the controlling code you will need to download and build the BOINC code (this is available from: https://github.com/BOINC/boinc). For instructions on building this code see: BOINC github.

As only the libraries are required, the boinc client and manager can be disabled (reduces system packages required).

Install and build the boinc library to a directory outside this repository and note the install path.

Note the boinczip library is no longer used.

In short:

    git clone https://github.com/BOINC/boinc.git
    cd boinc
    ./_autosetup
    ./configure --disable-server --disable-fcgi --disable-manager --disable-client  \
                --enable-libraries --disable-boinczip  \
                --prefix=/PATH_TO_BOINC_INSTALL/boinc-install  \
                CXXFLAGS='-O2'
    make install
    cd ..

This installs the boinc libraries and include files to the directory specified in the --prefix argument. It's preferable not to install into the same directory as the source. When compiling the control code, specify the location of the include files using the -I argument and the libraries using -L argument on the compiler command line (see Makefile).

Prerequisite: ZipLib and cpdn_zip library

As of Oct 2025, the control code no longer uses the boinc zip routines as distributed in the boinc code. These old routines are not memory safe; they use fixed sized buffers and unbounded string copy routines.

The 'zip' directory now contains code to build cpdn_zip and cpdn_unzip functions to replace boinc_zip and boinc_unzip.

ZipLib

This project uses ZipLib. It's a modern C++ lightweight library based on STL streams. It's a fork of the repository at https://github.com/DreamyCecil/ZipLib with fixes and improved error reporting.

It supports zip, bzip2 and lzma compression techniques. bzip2 offers higher compression at increased execution time and could be suitable for CPDN.

ZipLib is already installed and setup as required by the cpdn_zip wrapper code. However, if ZipLib source needs to be upgraded follow these steps:

• To update ZipLib for this repo, download the ZipLib repo from github to a temporary location and not this repository.
• Copy the Zip/LibSource/ZipLib directory to ZipLib in this directory.
• Also copy the README.md and LICENSE files for reference into ZipLib.

cpdn_zip library

This is a simple wrapper around ZipLib to provide cpdn_zip and cpdn_unzip functions now called by the control code.

It is built as a static library, and combined with ZipLib object files and its compression library dependencies. cpdn_zip and unzip use the zip library by default.

CMake is the preferred build tool and the software is built in separate build and install directories to the source. See CMakeLists.txt in the zip folder for more details.

To build the cpdn_zip library and optionally run a small test:

1. cd CPDN_control_code/zip
2. mkdir build
3. cd build
4. cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../install ..
5. make
6. make install

To run a simple test of the code:

./test_zip

Build control code

OpenIFS 43r3 model

Linux

If not already present, obtain the RapidXml header for parsing XML files. This is downloaded from the site: RapidXml. We only need the file: 'rapidxml.hpp'. Download this file and put in the same folder as the code.

A Makefile is used to build the control code for the OpenIFS 43r3 model.

Ensure the Makefile uses ../zip/install/lib and ../zip/install/include and then run:

make clean
make

This creates 3 executables:

VERSION = 43r3_1.00
TARGET  = oifs_$(VERSION)_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
DEBUG   = oifs_$(VERSION)_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-debug
TEST    = oifs_43r3_test.exe

The DEBUG target is compiled with AddressSanitizer enabled and should be used for testing to check for memory leaks and memory corruption.

The default 'TARGET' is the build intended for production.

The version number of the executable is best left as-is and changed when transferring to CPDN.

Windows

Not yet ported to Windows.

ARM

To build OpenIFS on an ARM architecture machine modify the Makefile and set -D_ARM and the object file becomes oifs_43r3_1.00_aarch64-poky-linux.

macOS

Build the BOINC and cpdn_zip libraries using Xcode. Modify the Makefile to use clang++ as the compiler and the object file as oifs_43r3_100_x86_64-apple-darwin.

How to run the control code executable with OpenIFS

This creates the control code executable to control the OpenIFS model in the BOINC environment. In order for OpenIFS to run, its ancillary files need to be installed correctly. This is the responsibility of the control code.

The command to run the control in standalone mode with OpenIFS on Linux is:

    ./oifs_43r3_1.00_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu 2000010100 gw3a 0001 1 00001 1 oifs_43r3 1.00

Or for macOS:

    ./oifs_43r3_1.00_x86_64-apple-darwin 2000010100 gw3a 0001 1 00001 1 oifs_43r3 1.00

WRF

The WRF model currently does not work with the control code.

To build the WRF model:

    g++ wrf.cpp CPDN_control_code.cpp -I../boinc-install/include -L../boinc-install/lib  -lboinc_api -lboinc -lcpdn_zip -static -pthread -std=c++17 -o wrf_1.00_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

Control code command line parameters

The command line parameters are: [0] compiled executable, [1] start date in YYYYMMDDHH format, [2] experiment id, [3] unique member id, [4] batch id, [5] workunit id, [6] FCLEN, [7] app name, [8] nthreads, [9] app version id.

Note, [9] is only used in standalone mode.

Currently supports version 43r3 of OpenIFS and it's model variants.

The OpenIFS code is compiled separately and is installed alongside the OpenIFS controller in BOINC. To upgrade the controller code in the future to later versions of OpenIFS consideration will need to be made whether there are any changes to the command line parameters the compiled version of OpenIFS takes in, and whether there are changes to the structure and content of the supporting ancillary files.

Currently in the controller code the following variables are fixed (this will change with further development):

OIFS_DUMMY_ACTION=abort    : Action to take if a dummy (blank) subroutine is entered (quiet/verbose/abort)
OMP_SCHEDULE=STATIC        : OpenMP thread scheduling to use. STATIC usually gives the best performance.
OMP_STACKSIZE=128M         : Set OpenMP stack size per thread. Default is usually too low for OpenIFS.
OMP_NUM_THREADS=1          : Number of threads (cores). Defaults to 1, can be changed by argument.
OIFS_RUN=1                 : Run number
DR_HOOK=1                  : DrHook is OpenIFS's tracing facility. Set to '1' to enable.
DR_HOOK_HEAPCHECK=no       : Enable/disable DrHook heap checking. Usually 'no' unless debugging.
DR_HOOK_STACKCHECK=no      : Enable/disable DrHook stack checks. Usually 'no' unless debugging.
DR_HOOK_NOT_MPI=true       : If set true, DrHook will not make calls to MPI (OpenIFS does not use MPI in CPDN).
EC_MEMINFO=0               : Disable EC_MEMINFO messages in stdout.
NAMELIST=fort.4            : NAMELIST file