Installing libmesh fails due to missing tirpc

[aturner-epcc]

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I am trying to install MOOSE from source on a CPU-based HPE Cray EX system (UK National Supercomputing Service, ARCHER2) and running into problems at the step to install libmesh. Following instructions at:

https://mooseframework.inl.gov/getting_started/installation/hpc_install_moose.html

I use:

module load PrgEnv-gnu
module load cray-python
module load cmake

./update_and_rebuild_libmesh.sh CC=cc CXX=CC FC=ftn

(cc, 'CCandftnare the compiler wrappers within the Cray programming environement, equivalent tompif90` etc. on other clusters.)

I get the following error:

checking for built-in XDR support... no
checking for XDR support in /usr/include/tirpc... no
configure: error: *** XDR was not found, but --enable-xdr-required was specified.

Indeed, that path does not exist on the system:

auser@ln03:|~> ls /usr/include/tirpc
ls: cannot access '/usr/include/tirpc': No such file or directory

I found the source for libtirpc on the internet at: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/basicnet/libtirpc.html and installed it myself at: /work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE/libtirpc using the same compilers I am using for libmessh (and MOOSE).

I then added the following options to libmesh ./configure:

--with-xdr-include=/work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE/libtirpc/include/tirpc
--with-xdr-libname=/work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE/libtirpc/lib/libtirpc.so

retrying the configure gives:

checking for XDR support in /work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE/libtirpc/include/tirpc... no
configure: error: *** XDR was not found, but --enable-xdr-required was specified.

Any idea how I get past this issue?

(Optional) code in question / simulation log / errors

No response

Encountering Errors? Please include diagnostic output

No response

[GiudGiud]

Hello

Did you install libtirpc-devel ?
Usually the cluster administrators will do that one for you

[aturner-epcc]

Thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated. System adminstrators will not generally change the login node image or install dev packages for requirements for individual user software (as that way madness lies, you could end up having to install extra things all the time as root when your service has over 3000 users as ARCHER2 does). Starting expectation is that dependencies can be satified in user space. Is there no way of satisfying this dependency from a user space install?

I see I could also install it using Spack:

https://packages.spack.io/package.html?name=libtirpc

but I assume this would be the same as my manual install. Why can't libmesh use an install of libtirpc that has not been installed by root?

[GiudGiud]

You most likely can, I just never have.
My question was mostly did you install the devel version of that library

[aturner-epcc]

Ah, sorry, misunderstood! My local libtirpc install was from source so includes all headers and library files:

auser@ln04:/work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE> ls libtirpc
etc  include  lib  share
auser@ln04:/work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE> ls libtirpc/lib/
libtirpc.la  libtirpc.so  libtirpc.so.3  libtirpc.so.3.0.0  pkgconfig
auser@ln04:/work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE> ls libtirpc/include/tirpc/
netconfig.h  rpc  rpcsvc

[GiudGiud]

@roystgnr it seems xdr is still missing. Is there another library we should be installing?

[GiudGiud]

If you just want to get moving you can modify update_and_rebuild_libmesh to remove the need for xdr. This won't affect anything in moose iirc (since we switched to ascii checkpoint)

[roystgnr]

In the future posting config.log would be helpful so we can see exactly why something isn't being detected.

This time, though, it's unfortunately already clear. From libmesh_optional_packages.m4, "Note that we currently do not provide a way to specify a library PATH, but that could potentially be added." The --with-xdr-libname=foorpc lets you try to link to libfoorpc.so instead of libtirpc.so if you have a different third-party RPC library, but for some reason we seem to be still assuming that the library is in your libs path already.

You can try --with-xdr-include=/work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE/libtirpc/include/tirpc LIBS='-L /work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE/libtirpc/lib/ -Wl,-rpath -Wl,/work/z19/z19/auser/software/MOOSE/libtirpc/lib/' (assuming those flags work for your compiler and linker; looks like your OS is SUSE-based so probably?)

I'll see if I can fix it in libMesh but it'll be a few weeks until that gets downstream to MOOSE. In the meantime I'd also agree that (if my LIBS hack doesn't work) just disabling binary XDR is a decent workaround. IMHO .xda.gz has always been a strictly better option.

[aturner-epcc]

@roystgnr @GiudGiud Thanks both for the helpful suggestions. For the moment, I have gone with disablign XDR support. If it turns out that is critical for people then I may revisit this.

[GiudGiud]

Sounds good thanks for letting us know.

[roystgnr]

The configure option you need, in libMesh/libmesh#3985, just went into libMesh. We should have it available in MOOSE in a week or two.