File System Layout

Directory Hierarchy

The Altair Accelerator product suite follows a non-intrusive model of file installation. All the files installed for the product are within the single branch of the file system where the product is installed. No files are installed into other areas of the file system.

This leads to a convention that you should follow for managing the installed files. Establish a single directory to hold all Altair Accelerator products and only install Altair Accelerator releases into this area.

The intention is that this single Altair Accelerator directory will contain sub-directories for each release version of the products, named after the release. All the files installed for a given release version will be placed into the file system branch below their release directory.

Within the release directory, along with subdirectories holding commonly shared files, there are sub-directories for each platform (machine type) that is used within the network. These subdirectories hold the executables for those platforms. The expectation is that each machine in the network can access the installed files by mounting this area onto their system as a Network File System (NFS) mount. This allows them to use a local path on their system to access their executables in the installation area. 
Top Level Installation Directory Structure

/remote/tools/
    altair/
       /VOV/
        current/ --> 2023.1.1 <-- symbolic link
        2023.1.0/
            arvmv8/
                bin/
                    ...
            linux64/
                ...
        2022.1.1/
                ...

For instance, if the top level product installation directory is /remote/tools/altair/VOV, then it is recommended that you install the 2023.1.1 version into a subfolder with the path /remote/tools/altair/VOV/2023.1.1.

Later, when you install the 2023.1.2 version, you will install it into the path /remote/tools/altair/VOV/2023.1.2.

There are a set of files, such as configuration files, within each release that are expected to be changed locally. These site specific information and customization files are expected to be found under the release's common/local subdirectory, for example: /remote/tools/altair/VOV/common/local/*. Since these files are intended to be used with across all versions of the software, the default behavior of the installer is to create a local directory as a sibling to the release directory and use a symbolic in the common directory to route lookups to the release-agnostic location. 

Top Level Installation Directory Structure (showing release-independent /local directory)

    /remote/tools/altair/VOV/
        local/ <-- Holds changed files outside of a release.
            capsules/
            registry/
            ...
        current --> 2023.1.1

            ...        2022.1.0/
            armv8/
                bin/
                local/ --> ../common/local <-- symbolic link
                ...
            common/
                local/ --> ../../local <-- symbolic link
                ...
            linux64/
                ...
        2022.1.1/
            ...

Note that there is also a /local directory within each platform area that, by default, is also linked to the common/local directory. Although rare, this allows you to have different local directories for each platform by removing the symbolic link and creating an actual local directory at this location.

Similar to the local directory, Accelerator specifically creates a release-agnostic directory named /vnc that contains the files associated with Accelerator queues. See the documentation on Altair Accelerator User Guide for more information.

Similarly, Monitor creates a release-agnostic directory named /licmon that is the default location for the Altair Monitor User GuideMonitor configuration and data files for all instances of Monitor