Installation - ALF — Algorithms for Lattice Fermions

Step-by-step instructions for building ALF from source.

Prerequisites¶

Requirement	Details
Fortran compiler	`gfortran` (GNU), `ifort`/`ifx` (Intel), or `pgfortran` (PGI)
LAPACK + BLAS	Linear algebra libraries (or Intel MKL)
Python 3	Required by the build system
MPI (optional)	For parallel runs: OpenMPI or Intel MPI (`mpifort`)
HDF5 (optional)	ALF can auto-download and compile HDF5 locally — see below
curl or wget	Needed only if HDF5 auto-install is used

macOS¶

Using Homebrew:

brew install gcc                    # provides gfortran
brew install lapack openblas        # linear algebra
brew install open-mpi               # optional, for MPI parallelization
brew install python3                # if not already present

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)¶

sudo apt install gfortran liblapack-dev libblas-dev python3
sudo apt install libopenmpi-dev     # optional, for MPI

Linux (Fedora/RHEL)¶

sudo dnf install gcc-gfortran lapack-devel blas-devel python3
sudo dnf install openmpi-devel      # optional, for MPI

Getting the Source¶

git clone https://github.com/ALF-QMC/ALF.git
cd ALF

Building ALF¶

ALF uses a two-step process: configure then make.

1. Configure¶

source configure.sh <MACHINE> [MODE] [STAB] [options...]

This sets environment variables (ALF_FC, ALF_FLAGS_PROG, etc.) that the Makefile reads. See [[Configuration]] for full details.

Minimal examples:

# Serial build with GNU compilers
source configure.sh GNU noMPI

# MPI build with GNU compilers
source configure.sh GNU MPI

# MPI + HDF5 output
source configure.sh GNU MPI HDF5

2. Compile¶

make          # builds libraries, program (ALF.out), and analysis tools (ana.out)

Or build components individually:

make lib      # libraries only
make program  # ALF.out only
make ana      # analysis tools only

The executable is created at Prog/ALF.out and the analysis tool at Analysis/ana.out.

HDF5 Setup¶

When you pass HDF5 to configure.sh, ALF checks for a locally compiled HDF5 matching your compiler. If not found, it offers to download and build HDF5 automatically into ALF/HDF5/<compiler_version>/. This is the recommended approach — ALF does not use system HDF5 installations.

To use a custom HDF5 directory, set ALF_HDF5_DIR before sourcing configure.sh:

export ALF_HDF5_DIR=/path/to/your/hdf5
source configure.sh GNU MPI HDF5

Verifying the Installation¶

Run the test suite to confirm everything works:

# Serial tests
source configure.sh GNU noMPI
make cleanlib cleanprog && make -j5 all
cd testsuite && mkdir test && cd test
cmake .. && make -j5 && ctest -j5 --output-on-failure
cd ../.. && rm -rf testsuite/test

A successful run produces output like:

100% tests passed, 0 tests failed out of N

See [[Test Suite]] for running MPI and tempering tests.