Using CPLEX 11.0 and/or AMPL on RCS

The access.ilm file included in the distribution no longer works.

This page contains initial setup instructions on both personal computers and on your RCS account, further notes, and a timeline of updates to cplex (last update May, 2008).

Instructions for installing CPLEX 9.1 are here.

Installing AMPL and CPLEX on your Windows computer

Our license now allows you to install these programs on your own machine. Once you've installed the programs, you run them from a command prompt window. You can even run them from off-campus as long as you have Cisco VPN running.

Initial setup instructions on RCS

These instructions tell you how to configure your RCS account to be able to use CPLEX 11.0 and AMPL. The following steps need only be performed once:

Make a backup copy of .login_profile before editing it, in case anything goes wrong.

The access.ilm file included in the distribution no longer works.

Add the following four lines to your .login_profile file:

ILOG_LICENSE_FILE=/campus/ilog/cplex/11/common/access.ilm
export ILOG_LICENSE_FILE
PATH=/dept/math/math-programming/cplex11/@sys:/dept/math/math-programming/ampl11/@sys:$PATH
export PATH

NOTE: Modifying your .login_profile can have nasty consequences. Therefore, before you logout, type

source .login_profile

to make sure that you haven't damaged your .login_profile.

If you want to use AMPL or the CPLEX callable library, add the following two lines to your .bashrc file:
```
ILOG_LICENSE_FILE=/campus/ilog/cplex/11/common/access.ilm
export ILOG_LICENSE_FILE
```
Again, you should make sure that your .bashrc file is working properly before logging out, by typing
```
source .bashrc
```
Logout and log back in.

You can then run the programs by just typing cplex or ampl at a UNIX prompt.

Notes

If you've previously used other versions of CPLEX or AMPL, you can remove the appropriate lines from your .bashrc and .login_profile files.

Currently, the following solver is hooked into AMPL:

CPLEX 11.0: available on Sun and IBM workstations, as well as on machines running Linux. Note: the linux installation has not been tested extensively; if you have problems with it, please let me know.
Here is a pdf file containing the AMPL CPLEX 9.0 User Guide. (The first two pages are blank!)
Here is the local version of the CPLEX 9.0 documentation.
Here is a description of the optimization packages available on RCS.

Timeline and Updates

May 2008.
CPLEX 11, AMPL 11, and OPL 5.5 were purchased.

June 15, 2006.
We have updated the access.ilm file so we now use version 9.1 of cplex, and we can now solve quadratically constrained problems, including quadratically constrained integer programs. If you have previously installed cplex on your personal PC, you will need to download this updated file in order to take advantage of the added functionality. Instructions for getting this file are in Steps 2 and 3 of the instructions for installing the programs on your machine.
March 20, 2006.
Our license server was updated. Therefore, you may need to update your access.ilm file. Instructions for getting this file are in Steps 2 and 3 of the instructions for installing the programs on your machine.
March 2005.
CPLEX 9.0 was installed in March 2005. If you have difficulties running CPLEX 9.0, please let me know.

John Mitchell