Skip to content

2. Linux installation

Compiling MONICA on Linux

Currently, MONICA does not provide a precompiled ZIP version for Linux.
However, you can easily install and build it locally using the following steps (tested on Debian/Ubuntu systems).

1. Prerequisites

Before building MONICA, make sure the following software is installed on the system:

  • Python 3.6+
  • CMake
  • Git
  • Curl
  • Unzip
  • Tar

Install all dependencies on Debian/Ubuntu with:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install python3-dev
sudo apt-get install curl unzip tar
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install libtool autoconf
These packages provide the basic tools and libraries required to build MONICA from source.

2. Create a working folder (e.g, ~/zalf-rpm)

Create a directory to store MONICA and its dependencies:

mkdir zalf-rpm
cd zalf-rpm

3. Clone MONICA and Dependencies

Clone the MONICA source code along with its submodules and the parameter repository:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/zalf-rpm/monica.git
git clone https://github.com/zalf-rpm/monica-parameters.git

4. Setup Up vcpkg for Dependent Libraries

MONICA uses vcpkg to manage external libraries. Clone the vcpkg repository using the version tag specified in the vcpkg_tag.txt file found in the MONICA repository root.

git clone -b 2024.09.30 https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git

Build vcpkg:

cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh

5. Install Required Libraries via vcpkg

Install the following dependencies: 

./vcpkg install zeromq:x64-linux
./vcpkg install capnproto:x64-linux
./vcpkg install libsodium:x64-linux
./vcpkg install tomlplusplus:x64-linux

These libraries enable communication, serialization, encryption, and configuration parsing within MONICA.

6. Build MONICA

After installing all dependencies, build MONICA using its provided build script.

cd ~/zalf-rpm/monica
sh create_cmake_release.sh
cd _cmake_release
make
The script creates a CMake build directory named _cmake_release and compiles MONICA. The resulting executable (monica-run) will be located inside this folder.

7. Run MONICA

Once the build completes successfully, verify the installation:

./monica-run --help

If you see a list of available options and commands, MONICA has been built correctly.

8. Running a Test Simulation

To perform a test run, user can use one of the included example simulation files, for instance:

./monica-run -o ../../output_csv/out.csv ../installer/Hohenfinow2/sim-min.json

This command runs a short test simulation and writes results to output_csv/out.csv.