Installing Mathematica

Requirements for Installing Mathematica

Mathematica is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. For a complete list of platform availability, visit www.wolfram.com/mathematica/system-requirements.html. Any supported machine can act as a client for running Mathematica, provided the following two conditions are met:

A license server can also function as its own client. However, this is not recommended. If the machine has to be rebooted for any reason, the serving of licenses to all other clients on the network may be disrupted.

If you wish to license Mathematica from a MathLM license server, MathLM should already be installed and running on a license server on the network (see "Installing MathLM" for details). To complete the Mathematica installation, you will need to know the name or IP address of the license server running MathLM.

To install Mathematica, you must be logged in with administrative privileges, or be able to elevate to administrative privileges. You also must activate Mathematica using the Wolfram User Portal in order to run it (see "Activating Mathematica" for details).

Installing Mathematica from a File Server

One convenient way to install Mathematica on a client is to run the installer remotely from a file server. This is an efficient way of making Mathematica available to a large number of users without having to supply a CD/DVD to each one. You can install Mathematica from a file server on a client running any supported platform. It is not necessary that the client platform be the same as the file server platform.

To install Mathematica from a file server, you first must make the installer and Mathematica files available to the clients. You can do this by copying the contents of the CD/DVD to the file server and exporting the directory, or by exporting the CD/DVD mount point on the file server. Then, mount the directory with the Mathematica distribution on the client and change to this directory, and run the installer as usual.

Installing Mathematica from a file server requires first copying the installer executable and all files in the Mathematica distribution from the DVD onto the file server.

Starting the Mathematica Installer

The Windows Installer

Open the Windows directory from the DVD. Double-click the file Setup.exe to launch the installer and follow the prompts. The main Windows installer includes a custom setup option which allows you to control whether to install secondary components, including support for the Mathematica web browser plugin and components for indexing notebooks on the file system.

The Macintosh Installer

Mathematica may be installed by dragging the Mathematica application bundle into the Applications folder, as illustrated by the startup window when you insert the DVD. The DVD also includes an installer to install secondary components, including support for the Mathematica web browser plugin and for Spotlight and Quick Look support of Mathematica-created documents.

The Linux Installer

To install Mathematica under Linux,

Installing Mathematica from a Script

If you are installing Mathematica on multiple machines, it can be time consuming to respond to all of the installer prompts on each individual machine. By supplying command-line options to the installer, you can customize various features of the installation process or automate it entirely.

Windows

Mathematica Installer supported command-line options.

Creating a Script That Performs a Silent Mathematica Installation:

The following instructions explain how to write a simple script to silently install Mathematica from a file server. These instructions require that you have a mathpass file with a valid password. See "Registrations and Passwords" for more information on sitewide mathpass configurations.

@echo off
echo Installing Mathematica...
\\server\math\setup.exe /silent /suppressmsgboxes /log="C:\Windows\Temp\install.log"
echo Creating password file...
copy \\server\math\mathpass "C:\Directory\Name"
echo Mathematica installation complete.

Performing a Silent Mathematica Installation:

Installing Mathematica...
Creating password file...
Mathematica installation complete.

Installing Mathematica in this way eliminates the need to take the DVD to each client machine, and saves time by allowing you to run a simple script instead of responding to the installer questions.

Linux

MathInstaller command-line options.

Valid input for -createdir is y for yes or n for no. By default, this value is set to y.

The default directory for -execdir is /usr/local/bin. This option only works with an automatic installation.

The values for -method may vary by product. When this option is applicable, the values can be determined by running the installer. The default value for this option is Full.

Valid input for -overwrite is y for yes or n for no. By default, this value is set to y. This option only works with an automatic installation.

The default for -platforms is the system you are installing on, if that information is available to the installer. This option only works with an automatic installation.

Valid input for -selinux is y for yes or n for no. By default, this value is set to n.

The option -silent suppresses any output from being displayed on the screen. The output is instead written to a file named InstallerLog-number. If the installation is unsuccessful, the log file is saved in the /tmp directory. Otherwise, the file is moved to the target directory and renamed InstallerLog.

The directory specified for -targetdir corresponds to the value of the global variable $InstallationDirectory. The default value is /usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.2. This option only works with an automatic installation.

To complete the installation in one step, run a command like the following.

./MathInstaller -auto -targetdir=/home/mathematica

To do the same using the sudo command, you may need to use sudo's -- flag.

sudo ./MathInstaller -- -auto -targetdir=/home/mathematica

This allows you to complete the installation automatically in one step, while still being able to customize various details such as the directory to install to. You are not prompted to enter your password using this method, so you will need to enter a password the first time Mathematica is launched.

If you are doing many installations, you might find it convenient to include the MathInstaller command with all the relevant options in a shell script. Running the shell script is then an easy way to do an identical customized installation on multiple machines. You can further simplify the installation process by including a line in your script that copies an existing mathpass file to the appropriate location on the newly installed machine. Note that MathInstaller must be run from the directory in which it is located, so your script may require a command to change directory. See "Registrations and Passwords" for information on sitewide mathpass configurations.