6.1 Quickstart: How to run COBOLD

The generation of a start file and the modification of the parameter file is a somewhat complex process. In short, the following steps have to be performed.

1. Produce an executable rhd.exe (see Sect. 3.1) and put it into your working directory.

2. Choose a start model (e.g. the final model of an earlier simulation or a model produced with an IDL routine).

3. Edit the parameter file rhd.par: typically, you will start with an existing file and edit it. You should check that the paths and names of EOS, opacity, and start file are set correctly (Watch the username!). For details about the parameter file see Sect. 5.3.1.

4. Start the simulation with
   nice nohup rhd.exe > rhd.out &

5. You can see how the simulation proceeds with
   tail -f rhd.out

6. The other data files usually are in a binary format (this can be changed to ASCII ``formatted'' in rhd.par). Their contents can be read and analyzed with IDL routines (see Sect. 4.7.3).

For machines with batch queue (CRAYs in Kiel, SUN1 in Uppsala) there is the script (originally) from Hans-Günter Ludwig, which can handle an entire sequence of simulations.