System Requirements - 5.1 COMSOL Server™

These requirements are common to all platforms
  • A working network card and internet connection is recommended during installation.
  • At least 1 GB memory, but 4 GB per processor core or more is recommended.
  • 1-5 GB of disk space, depending on your licensed products and installation options.
  • Adobe Acrobat® Reader 9.0 or later to view and print the COMSOL® documentation in PDF format.

COMSOL Server License (CSL)

The COMSOL Server license type is a networked license type and is supported on a heterogeneous network of computers running any of the Windows®, Linux®, and OS X operating systems. Both the license manager and the COMSOL Server software can run on either Windows®, Linux®, or OS X, and a single computer can run both of them.

Academic Server License (ASL)

System requirements for the Academic Server License type are similar to that of the COMSOL Server License type.

Operating System Requirements

In addition to the operating system requirements listed below see the Interfacing Product Suite Requirements for specific requirements for the CAD Import Module, the Design Module, and the LiveLink™ product suite.

Windows® Mac OS X Linux®
32-bit Operating Systems

Windows® 8.1
Windows® 8
Windows® 7
Windows Server® 2008
Windows Vista®

- -
64-bit Operating Systems

Windows® 8.1
Windows® 8
Windows® 7
Windows Server® 2012 R2
Windows Server® 2012
Windows Server® 2008 R2
Windows Server® 2008
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2
Windows HPC Server 2008
Windows Vista®

Mac OS X 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11

Debian® 5.0, 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 51, 6 and 71
Ubuntu® 12.04 LTS and 14.04 LTS1 OpenSUSE® 13.2

1 Only supported for server, batch, and cluster operation.

OS Specific System Requirements

Linux®

GNU C Library version 2.8 or later1
Linux® kernel 2.6.18 or later
Intel® Pentium® IV or AMD Athlon® XP processor or later
FLEXnet requires Linux Standard Base (LSB).

1 If you have an older version of libstdc++ than 6.0.9 you may need to start comsol with the option -forcegcc

Graphics System Requirements

COMSOL Server does not require graphics rendering. To use the COMSOL Server web interface, log in using the COMSOL Client for Windows or a recommended web browser, see Running COMSOL Applications. COMSOL Server can also be used in batch mode, for which no graphics rendering is required.

Parallel System Requirements *

Windows® Mac OS X Linux®
Shared-memory Parallelism All supported versions of Windows® All supported versions of Mac OS X All supported Linux® Distributions
Distributed-memory Parallelism

Windows Server® 2012 R2
Windows Server® 2012
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2
Windows HPC Server 2008

Not Supported

Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 5 and 6 Debian® 6
Ubuntu® 12.04

All computers in the cluster must use the same Linux® version and should have similar hardware. It is recommended that OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) 1.4 or higher is installed. If you are using an RDMA-capable network fabrics a DAPL 1.2 or later version compliant driver or library is required. The software is usually provided with your hardware.

* COMSOL is a proud member of the Intel® Cluster Ready program and certifies COMSOL Multiphysics with every new version. View Certificate. The certification process ensures that COMSOL Multiphysics will seamlessly work for parallel processing and cluster modeling on any hardware that has also been certified as being Intel Cluster Ready.

Intel Cluster Ready
Intel, Intel Cluster Ready and the Intel Cluster Ready text treatment are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

NOTE: This information is provided for your benefit but should not be used as a substitute for your own investigation of the system requirements that may be appropriate for your use of COMSOL® software or other software, given your particular circumstances. Systems and hardware change regularly, which may impact any determination of what system requirements are appropriate for you.