[daip] New Staff Reply - [!HQU-511535]: AIPS INSTALL on MAC OS X 10.6.8

[Eric Greisen]

New Staff Reply: AIPS INSTALL on MAC OS X 10.6.8

I hope you are not setting the DISPLAY variable - you must NOT do that on modern Mac systems.

The issue with shared memory failure is covered in detail on
the aips Manager FAQ page of the web site
 <dt> <strong>Shared memory id failure on Macs: Invalid Argument</strong>

 <dd><p><font color="red">After you follow the instructions below
      appropriate to your release of the Mac operating system, you
      must re-boot the computer.  The control file for shared memory
      is read at boot time only.  Note that a re-boot is not simply
      logging the current user out and then back in.  You must do a
      full restart.</font></p> 

      <p>The default Mac system limits shared memory pages to 4 Mbytes.
      When XAS starts it tells you that it is making a screen x pixels
      by y pixels.  The memory you will need is at least <code> 4 x y
      </code> bytes, but this rounds upward rapidly.  For the new
      large screens this is more than 8 Mbytes.  On 10.3 and 10.4
      systems, you can change this limit by changing (as root or
      admin) the rc file in /etc, adjusting the
      <code>kern.sysv.shm*</code> line to 
      <pre>
         #Setting the shared memory to something a bit more reasonable.
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=10485760
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmin=1
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmni=32
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmseg=8
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=4096
         </pre>
         If you are really lucky and have a 30-inch screen (2550 by
         1500 pixels) then you will have to make the shmmax line even
         larger<pre>
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=16777216
         </pre></p>

         <p> Note that these are upper limits, so it does not hurt to
         set a value that might be larger than necessary for your
         system.  The shmmax must be an integer multiple of the shmall
         which must be a power of 2 >= 1024.  A 3190 by 958 screen was
         found to require the larger value above.  I think this comes
         by n times (4096 / 4 bytes/word) has to be > 3190 leading to
         4096 words per row.  Then 958 * 4096 * 4 bytes = 15695872 or
         just a bit less than the 16777216.</p>

         <p> On the latest "leopard", "snow leopard", "lion", and
         "mountain lion" (X 10.5-10.8) systems,  /etc/rc is gone and 
         creating it will have no effect.  You need to create an 
         /etc/sysctl.conf file and put the values in it,<pre>
            kern.sysv.shmmax=10485760
            kern.sysv.shmmin=1
            kern.sysv.shmmni=32
            kern.sysv.shmseg=8
            kern.sysv.shmall=4096
         </pre>
         You should use the values you had when you were running
         tiger.  Those could be in /Previous\ System/etc/rc, assuming
         you have "Previous System". So three different OS upgrades
         and three different ways to adjust the default shared
         memory.  Note: You will need to reboot the system for the
         change in shared memory to take place. You can check if the
         shared memory changes happened by typing "sysctl kern.sysv"
         in a terminal or xterm window. Look for the kern.sysv.shm*
         values. If the values have not changed, make sure you haven't
         inadvertently left in "sysctl -w" in the /etc/sysctl.conf
         file or mis-typed one of the values.  If the /etc/sysctl.conf
         file is not properly formatted, or shmmax is not an integer
         multiple of shmall, the shared memory will not be adjusted
         after the reboot.</p>

         <p>On older Jaguar systems (X 10.2), you can change this limit
         by changing the SystemTuning file in <pre> 
            /System/Library/StartupItems/SystemTuning
         </pre>Look for the lines<pre>
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=4194304
            sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=1024
         </pre>Change the 4194304 to 10485760 (for 10 Mbytes) and
         change the 1024 to 4096 (allows 16 Megabytes).  You must then
         re-boot the computer to have these changes take effect.</p>     

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: HQU-511535
Department: AIPS Data Processing
Priority: Default
Status: Open
Link:  https://help.nrao.edu/staff/index.php?_m=tickets&_a=viewticket&ticketid=2392