Appendix

MPI-enabled Python interpreter

Warning

These days it is no longer required to use the MPI-enabled Python interpreter in most cases, and, therefore, is not built by default anymore because it is too difficult to reliably build a Python interpreter across different distributions. If you know that you still really need it, see below on how to use the build_exe and install_exe commands.

Some MPI-1 implementations (notably, MPICH 1) do require the actual command line arguments to be passed at the time MPI_Init() is called. In this case, you will need to use a re-built, MPI-enabled, Python interpreter binary executable. A basic implementation (targeting Python 2.X) of what is required is shown below:

#include <Python.h>
#include <mpi.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
   int status, flag;
   MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
   status = Py_Main(argc, argv);
   MPI_Finalized(&flag);
   if (!flag) MPI_Finalize();
   return status;
}

The source code above is straightforward; compiling it should also be. However, the linking step is more tricky: special flags have to be passed to the linker depending on your platform. In order to alleviate you for such low-level details, MPI for Python provides some pure-distutils based support to build and install an MPI-enabled Python interpreter executable:

$ cd mpi4py-X.X.X
$ python setup.py build_exe [--mpi=<name>|--mpicc=/path/to/mpicc]
$ [sudo] python setup.py install_exe [--install-dir=$HOME/bin]

After the above steps you should have the MPI-enabled interpreter installed as prefix/bin/pythonX.X-mpi (or $HOME/bin/pythonX.X-mpi). Assuming that prefix/bin (or $HOME/bin) is listed on your PATH, you should be able to enter your MPI-enabled Python interactively, for example:

$ python2.7-mpi
Python 2.7.8 (default, Nov 10 2014, 08:19:18)
[GCC 4.9.2 20141101 (Red Hat 4.9.2-1)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.executable
'/usr/bin/python2.7-mpi'
>>>

Mac OS X and Universal/SDK Python builds

Mac OS X users employing a Python distribution built with support for Universal applications could have trouble building MPI for Python, specially if they want to link against MPI libraries built without such support. Another source of trouble could be a Python build using a specific deployment target and cross-development SDK configuration. Workarounds for such issues are to temporarily set the environment variables MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET, SDKROOT and/or ARCHFLAGS to appropriate values in the shell before trying to build/install MPI for Python.

An appropriate value for MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET should be any greater or equal than the one used to build Python, and less or equal than your system version. The safest choice for end-users would be to use the system version (e.g, if you are on Leopard, you should try MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5).

An appropriate value for SDKROOT is the full path name of any of the SDK’s you have at /Developer/SDKs directory (e.g., SDKROOT=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk). The safest choice for end-users would be the one matching the system version; or alternatively the root directory (i.e., SDKROOT=/).

Appropriate values for ARCHFLAGS have the form -arch <value>, where <value> should be chosen from the following table:

@	Intel	PowerPC
32-bit	i386	ppc
64-bit	x86_64	ppc64

For example, assuming your Mac is running Snow Leopard on a 64-bit Intel processor and you want to override the hard-wired cross-development SDK in Python configuration, you can build and install MPI for Python using any of the alternatives below. Note that environment variables may need to be passed/set both at the build and install steps (because sudo may not pass environment variables to subprocesses for security reasons)

• Alternative 1:

  $ env MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6 \
        SDKROOT=/                     \
        ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64'      \
        python setup.py build [options]
  
  $ sudo env MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6 \
             SDKROOT=/                     \
             ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64'      \
             python setup.py install [options]
  

• Alternative 2:

  $ export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6
  $ export SDKROOT=/
  $ export ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64'
  $ python setup.py build [options]
  
  $ sudo -s # enter interactive shell as root
  $ export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6
  $ export SDKROOT=/
  $ export ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64'
  $ python setup.py install [options]
  $ exit
  

Building MPI from sources

In the list below you have some executive instructions for building some of the open-source MPI implementations out there with support for shared/dynamic libraries on POSIX environments.

• MPICH

  $ tar -zxf mpich-X.X.X.tar.gz
  $ cd mpich-X.X.X
  $ ./configure --enable-shared --prefix=/usr/local/mpich
  $ make
  $ make install
  

• Open MPI

  $ tar -zxf openmpi-X.X.X tar.gz
  $ cd openmpi-X.X.X
  $ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/openmpi
  $ make all
  $ make install
  

• LAM/MPI

  $ tar -zxf lam-X.X.X.tar.gz
  $ cd lam-X.X.X
  $ ./configure --enable-shared --prefix=/usr/local/lam
  $ make
  $ make install
  

• MPICH 1

  $ tar -zxf mpich-X.X.X.tar.gz
  $ cd mpich-X.X.X
  $ ./configure --enable-sharedlib --prefix=/usr/local/mpich1
  $ make
  $ make install
  

Perhaps you will need to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable (using export, setenv or what applies to your system) pointing to the directory containing the MPI libraries . In case of getting runtime linking errors when running MPI programs, the following lines can be added to the user login shell script (.profile, .bashrc, etc.).

• MPICH

  MPI_DIR=/usr/local/mpich
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MPI_DIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  

• Open MPI

  MPI_DIR=/usr/local/openmpi
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MPI_DIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  

• LAM/MPI

  MPI_DIR=/usr/local/lam
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MPI_DIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  

• MPICH 1

  MPI_DIR=/usr/local/mpich1
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MPI_DIR/lib/shared:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:
  export MPICH_USE_SHLIB=yes
  

  Warning

  MPICH 1 support for dynamic libraries is not completely transparent. Users should set the environment variable MPICH_USE_SHLIB to yes in order to avoid link problems when using the mpicc compiler wrapper.