Hmm, we've been suppressing that module for a long time now (the special code for not packaging it is still present in Fedora to this day).  I believe the only reason has been that cmake harness for it is unfinished or buggy.  I'll take a look at what's wrong and why we are keeping this out.

This is the immediate dependency error that the spec file is referring to:

c++ [...] -Wl,-soname,mpi.so -o ../../../lib/mpi.so [...] ../../../lib/libboost_python-mt-d.so.5 [...]

We don't ship the -d libraries at all, so mpi.so ends up with the wrong DT_NEEDED.

Created attachment 568974 [details]
A fix

This changes the cmake harness and the mpi.so rule to fix building of mpi.so.

For proper support across MPI libraries, we are blocked by bug 801945.  Mpich2 should work, but I don't have it configured at the moment, and mpirun gives me an exception.  At least the import line passes.

(In reply to comment #0)
> this is correctly packaged in recent ubuntu versions, and i contacted with
> Denis Arnaud (the library packager) to report the problem so he is aware of it.

About this, do you mean cmake upstream packager, or Fedora packager?  If the latter, then the proper interface for reporting bugs is not a private mail to one of the maintainers, but a ticket in bugzilla.

Hello,
      sorry for the delay in answering, i did not see this message before.

I was meaning the Fedora Packager. I tried to signal this bug everywhere, on the boost mailing list on the ubuntu mailing list etc. I signaled it also here but to be honest i did not expect anyone to answer to me since i am not a paying user...so thank you for your attention

concerning the  bug 801945

the solution implemented by Ubuntu is quite clean in this sense:
on ubuntu 11.10

locate mpi.so

gives

/etc/alternatives/libmpi.so
/usr/lib/libboost_mpi.so
/usr/lib/libboost_mpi.so.1.46.1
/usr/lib/libexempi.so.3
/usr/lib/libexempi.so.3.2.1
/usr/lib/libmpi.so
/usr/lib/libmpi.so.0
/usr/lib/libmpi.so.0.0.2
/usr/lib/openmpi/lib/libmpi.so
/usr/lib/openmpi/lib/libmpi.so.0.0.2
/usr/lib/pyshared/python2.6/boost/mpi.so
/usr/lib/pyshared/python2.7/boost/mpi.so
/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/boost/mpi.so
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/boost/mpi.so


if i look within the last directories:

ls -l /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/boost/
total 724
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     44 2011-06-04 16:26 __init__.py -> ../../../../share/pyshared/boost/__init__.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    404 2011-12-02 01:31 __init__.pyc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 734144 2011-06-04 16:26 mpi.so

the mpi.so file is "standard" and is correctly compiled even by the bjam.
The problem is that in order to be compatible with openmpi > 1.3 the __init__.py file is fundamental as it contains details on how to load the lib within python:

rrossi@mybook:~$ more /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/boost/__init__.py

gives

import sys
if sys.platform == 'linux2':
    import DLFCN as dl
    flags = sys.getdlopenflags()
    sys.setdlopenflags(dl.RTLD_NOW|dl.RTLD_GLOBAL)
    import mpi
    sys.setdlopenflags(flags)
else:
    import mpi

BOTH mpi.so and __init__.py should be located within a directory boost in the path that contains the python modules.
the idea is that once you are in python
you will do

import boost.mpi

and this will eventually load the __init__.py which has the settings needed to correctly load the mpi.so. Without it it does not work :-(



the problem for me is that the bjam compilation shipped with boost only
creates the mpi.so which is installed together with the other boost libraries and not in a subdirectory
"boost". Furthermore the file __init__.py is not created so the lib can not be imported.
 
I have been trying to report this problem, but honestly i don't know where i should do it so most probably i never contacted the right people. If you have any contact with the boost mantainers please inform them of this ...

let me know if you need any other detail

thank you
Riccardo

This request was not resolved in time for the current release.
Red Hat invites you to ask your support representative to
propose this request, if still desired, for consideration in
the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

This request was erroneously removed from consideration in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4, which is currently under development.  This request will be evaluated for inclusion in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4.

This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for
inclusion in the current release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Because the affected component is not scheduled to be updated
in the current release, Red Hat is unable to address this
request at this time.

Red Hat invites you to ask your support representative to
propose this request, if appropriate, in the next release of
Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Created attachment 871607 [details]
Additional fixes.

This should be applied in addition to attachment 568974 [details].  It patches the spec file and adds wrapper script as Riccardo advises in comment 7.

When testing, please make sure that "ssh" client is available on the machine (or in mock), otherwise "import boost.mpi" will fail with a spew of error messages.

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2014-1440.html