Install SystemDS from Source

This guide helps in the install and setup of SystemDS from source code.

Once the individual environment is set up, you can continue with the common build steps below.

1. Install on Windows

First setup Java and maven to compile the system note the Java version is 17, we suggest using Java OpenJDK 17.

Setup your environment variables with JAVA_HOME and MAVEN_HOME. Using these variables add the JAVA_HOME/bin and MAVEN_HOME/bin to the path environment variable. An example of setting it for Java can be found here: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/set-java_home-in-windows-10

To run the system we also have to setup some Hadoop and Spark specific libraries. These can be found in the SystemDS repository. To add this, simply take out the files, or add ‘src/test/config/hadoop_bin_windows/bin’ to PATH. Just like for JAVA_HOME set a HADOOP_HOME to the environment variable without the bin part, and add the %HADOOP_HOME%/bin to path.

On Windows, cloning large repositories via GitHub Desktop may stall in some environments. If this happens, cloning via the Git command line is a reliable alternative. Example:

git clone https://github.com/apache/systemds.git

To make the build go faster set the IDE or environment variables for Java: ‘-Xmx16g -Xms16g -Xmn1600m’. Here set the memory to something close to max memory of the device you are using.

To start editing the files remember to import the code style formatting into the IDE, to keep the changes of the files consistent.

A suggested starting point would be to run some of the component tests from your IDE.

2. Install on Ubuntu (22.04 / 24.04)

2.1 Install Java 17 and Maven

First setup Java, maven and git to compile the system note that the Java version is 17.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk maven
sudo apt install -y git

Verify the install with:

java -version
mvn -version
git --version

This should return something like:

openjdk 17.x.x
Apache Maven 3.x.x
git version 2.x.x

2.2 Set JAVA_HOME for Javadocs

Set JAVA_HOME (required for generating Javadocs during the Maven build):

export JAVA_HOME=$(dirname $(dirname $(readlink -f $(which javac))))
export PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH"

2.3 Clone Source Code

Clone the source code:

cd /opt
git clone https://github.com/apache/systemds.git
cd systemds

2.4 Testing

R should be installed to run the test suite, since many tests are constructed to compare output with common R packages. One option to install this is to follow the guide on the following link: https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-r-on-ubuntu-20-04/

R can be installed using the CRAN repository.

Ubuntu 22.04

sudo apt install dirmngr gnupg apt-transport-https ca-certificates software-properties-common
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys E298A3A825C0D65DFD57CBB651716619E084DAB9
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu focal-cran40/'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install r-base

Ubuntu 24.04

sudo apt install dirmngr gnupg apt-transport-https ca-certificates software-properties-common
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys E298A3A825C0D65DFD57CBB651716619E084DAB9
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu noble-cran40/'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install r-base

Verify the installation:

R --version

Install R Dependencies for Integration Tests (Optional) If you want to run integration tests that depend on additional R packages, install them via:

Rscript ./src/test/scripts/installDependencies.R

3. Install on MacOS

Prerequisite install homebrew on the device.

# To allow relative paths:
brew install coreutils
# To install open jdk 17.
brew install openjdk@17
# Install maven to enable compilation of SystemDS.
brew install maven

Then afterwards verify the install:

java --version
mvn --version

This should print Java version.

Note that if you have multiple java versions installed then you have to change the used version to 17, on both java and javadoc. This is done by setting the environment variable JAVA_HOME to the install path of open JDK 17 :

export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v 17`

For running all tests r-base has to be installed as well since this is used as a secondary system to verify the correctness of our code, but it is not a requirement to enable building the project.

Optionally, you need to install the R dependencies for integration tests, like this: (use sudo mode if the script couldn’t write to local R library)

Rscript ./src/test/scripts/installDependencies.R

4. Build the Project

To compile the project use in the directory of the source code:

mvn package -P distribution

Example output:

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  31.730 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2020-06-18T11:00:29+02:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first time you package the system it will take longer since maven will download the dependencies. But successive compiles should become faster. The runnable JAR files will appear in target/.

(Optional) Add SystemDS CLI to PATH

After building SystemDS from source, you can add the bin directory to your PATH in order to run systemds directly from the command line:

export SYSTEMDS_ROOT=$(pwd)
export PATH="$SYSTEMDS_ROOT/bin:$PATH"

This allows you to run systemds from the repository root. For running the freshly built executable JAR (e.g., target/SystemDS.jar) on Spark, see the Spark section in Execute SystemDS.

5. Run A Component Test

As an example here is how to run the component matrix tests from command line via maven.

mvn test -Dtest="**.component.matrix.**"

To run other tests simply specify other packages by modifying the test argument part of the command.

6. Next Steps

Now everything is setup and ready to go! For running scripts in Spark mode or experimenting with federated workers, see the Execution Guide: Execute SystemDS