Intel MPI install in a system-wide location

[__aisha_h]

Hi,

I was currently trying to make a software package of the Intel MPI libraries and wrappers for Gentoo Linux (I am also the maintainer for the Intel MKL package in Gentoo) and was hoping to get some small additions to the MPI installation.

I was wondering if it was possible to allow for an installation of the libraries in a way which respects the file system hierarchy and install it in someplace such as /usr/bin and /usr/lib and others.

This would be tremendously helpful for allowing a lot of other packages to get better Intel MPI support by allowing them to use Intel MPI at compile time.

Currently, all users have to manually install all packages to make them work with Intel MPI. On the other hand, Gentoo allows automatic building of MPI aware packages using OpenMPI as OpenMPI is installed in a standard PATH and can be used for linking with all build systems (like cmake/autotools/ninja/etc.).

I am more than happy to work with you to allow this as an option, without removing the option for the /opt/intel installation, as it is needed for Parallel Studio still. Having this as a secondary option for people who wish to use Intel MPI outside of Parallel Studio would be really really awesome.

Thanks a lot,
Aisha

[PrasanthD_intel]

Hi Aisha,

Thanks for reaching out us.

We will be contacting the internal regarding your request to change the installation folder structure and get back to you soon.

Regards

Prasanth

[PrasanthD_intel]

Hi Aisha,

We have an option to choose the destination folder while installing Intel MPI. After installation, you can create a soft link between the destination folder and the folders you need them to be.

Let us know if this helps.

Regards

Prasanth

[__aisha_h]

>> After installation, you can create a soft link between the destination folder and the folders you need them to be. 

The problem is that it is unclear what these softlinks should be. Installing to a different prefix does not make it compliant with the standard directories as the subdirectories themselves are differently structured.

The default installation directories are not very simple to navigate and it is not easy to determine what way can I link them so that they can be used globally.

The mpi wrappers are quite large (each of them is ~700 lines and there are 6-7 of these) and to understand how the softlinks should be made, needs me to understand all the complexities of the wrappers. They do quite a lot of complex things with CPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH and other environment variables.

The nicest method would be to create smaller wrappers which work for the global installation directories. This should be easier as these would be a lot smaller, given most PATHs will already be there in the search path.

Let me know if you need more details from me.

[PrasanthD_intel · Accepted solution]

Hi Aisha,

Intel provides a script mpivars.sh which set up all the required environment for MPI to run. It will add required binaries and libraries to the system path's so we can run and access Intel MPI from anywhere.

From your early question, we have understood that you want the MPI binaries to be in the standard path for an easy build. Running mpivars.sh script will add all the required mpi wrappers to PATH and LD_LIBRARY so cmake and other build systems can easily access them.

I think this answers your question. if you need any info on how to build packages using intel mpi please let us know.

Regards

Prasanth

[PrasanthD_intel]

Hi Aisha,

We haven't heard back from you.

Could you please let us know running mpivars.sh solves your building issues?

Regards

Prasanth

[__aisha_h]

We were able to work around and use that as a solution.

Thanks for the response.

[PrasanthD_intel]

Hi Aisha,

Thanks for the confirmation.

As your issue has been resolved, we will no longer respond to this thread. If you require additional assistance from Intel, please start a new thread. Any further interaction in this thread will be considered community only

Regards

Prasanth