Routines from the GK library (required by METIS and ParMETIS) not found during linking when building Trilinos with Zoltan2 examples

[eeprude]

Hi.

I am successfully using Trilinos with Zoltan2 in my MacBook Pro (2022, Apple M1 Pro, Sequoia 15.5). I have installed the following 4 libraries: GK, METIS, ParMETIS, and Scotch. I am also able to generate and run the Zoltan2 examples. I am using METIS 5.2.1 and ParMETIS 4.0.3 (both versions downloaded from their git repositories).

But I have to use a hack for the linking issue: adding "-L<INSTALL_PATH>/gklib/lib -lGKlib” to -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS:STRING="..." during the configuration of Trilinos.

What is the proper way to inform the building process where to find the GK library, instead of the hack mentioned above? Maybe I have to add something in packages/zoltan2/example/graph/CMakeLists.txt ?

Thank you in advance,

Ernesto.

PS 1: I added the gklib paths in the LIBRARY_DIRS and INCLUDE_DIRS of METIS and ParMETIS on the hope that the building process would find the GK library there, but without success
PS 2: I even copied the libGKlib.a file into parmetis/lib and metis/lib installations, but again without sucess
PS 3: I also tried -DTPL_ENABLE_GK + GK_LIBRARY_DIRS + GK_LIBRARY_INCLUDES, but those flags are ignored.

[cgcgcg]

@eeprude I don't think Trilinos is using GKlib anywhere. This would explain why it isn't exposed as a TPL. You could check how the spack package for METIS is set up. It also looks like the TPL detection in Trilinos for METIS and ParMETIS has not been updated to use CMake find_package, so maybe that's a way of fixing it.

[cgcgcg]

Looks like neither CMake nor METIS/ParMETIS do provide the required CMake for find_package to work. On my system I don't seem to have GKlib. The spack package for METIS seems to apply patches for GKlib.

[eeprude]

Thanks, Christian, for the quick reply.

I am surprised that people have not got this issue before. Maybe not many people want to generate the Zoltan2 examples, but then what about the people that developed those examples? Have they not had to have GK available somewhere for METIS and ParMETIS?

[cgcgcg]

I don't remember having that issue. Maybe I always built static libraries?

[eeprude]

Thanks again, Christian. I have been using only static libraries for GK, METIS, ParMETIS, and Scotch (all ".a" files).

Have you ever tried with a Mac? Maybe this is an issue happening only on Macs?

[cgcgcg]

I checked the METIS & ParMETIS modules that we get from spack, and there is no GKlib. Maybe it's a recent change that there is a separate library or there is an option?

[eeprude]

Good hint! I took a quick look at the metis and parmetis github pages, and there are some issues/stories mentioning GKlib during 2022 and 2023.

Unfortunately, I reinstalled GK + METIS + ParMETIS all in the same installation directory, but the error during the Trilinos build persists... Putting all of them in the same installation directory is the only way to not mention gklib_path explicitly during the configuration. If I install the libraries in different places and do not mention gklib_path during the build of METIS, such build fails.

Three quick questions:

a- What are the versions of METIS and ParMETIS you see in your case? Just open include/metis.h and include/parmetis.h and look for the word "version". In my case, I am using METIS 5.2.1 and ParMETIS 4.0.3.

b- What dates does "ls -l" list for libmetis.a and libparmetis.a? Maybe from 2022?

c- Have your searched for libGKlib.a? That is the name listed in my installation.

[cgcgcg]

a - metis/5.1.0, parmetis/4.0.3

b - That's just the date when the libraries were built. Not sure what that will tell you. Mine is from Sept 2024.

c - I checked both my libmetis.so and libparmetis.so using ldd. There is no dependence on libGKlib

[jhux2]

@egboman @trilinos/zoltan2

[egboman]

I think GKlib is fairly new (well maybe a few years), at least it didn't exist when these examples were written. The confusing thing is that some versions of Metis need GKlib and others don't. In this case, using the latest version from Github might not be such a good idea since we don't test that :)