[netcdfgroup] "Needing netcdf libraries to build netcdf."

Hello All:

I am in the progress of preparing our machines for pivoting from WRF to include 
now MPAS with the new PIO,  PNetCDF and NetCDF libraries using the Intel OneAPI 
libraries (2025.3.2) on Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS.

This for me is also one of the first times that I have had to build netcdf with 
parallel capacity and pnetcdf at all, let alone this “new PIO” library.

I made it up through getting HDF (1.14.6) and PNetCDF (1.14.1) in and made 
through the “configure” phase of NetCDF-C (4.10).  The configuration summary is 
below.

=======================================
# NetCDF C Configuration Summary
==============================

# General
-------
NetCDF Version: 4.10.0
Dispatch Version:       5
Configured On: Wed Mar 25 21:45:36 UTC 2026
Host System: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Build Directory: /root/GitHub/netcdf-c-4.10.0
Install Prefix:         /usr/local

# Compiling Options
-----------------
C Compiler: /opt/intel/oneapi/mpi/2021.17/bin/mpiicx
CFLAGS:  -O2 -fPIC -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/libxml2  
-fno-strict-aliasing
CPPFLAGS:  -O2 -fPIC -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/libxml2
LDFLAGS:
AM_CFLAGS:
AM_CPPFLAGS:
AM_LDFLAGS:
Shared Library: yes
Static Library: yes
Extra libraries: -lpnetcdf -lhdf5_hl -lhdf5 -lm -lz -lzip -lsz -lbz2 -lzstd 
-lxml2 -lcurl
XML Parser:             libxml2
Legacy Macros:          yes

# Features
--------
Benchmarks: no
NetCDF-2 API: yes
HDF4 Support: no
HDF5 Support: yes
CDF5 Support: yes
NC-4 Parallel Support: yes
PnetCDF Support: yes

DAP2 Support: yes
DAP4 Support: yes
Byte-Range Support: yes

S3 Support:         no
S3 SDK:          none

NCZarr Support: yes
NCZarr Zip Support:     yes

Diskless Support: yes
MMap Support: no
ERANGE Fill Support: yes
Relaxed Boundary Check: yes

Plugins Enabled:        yes
Plugin Install Dir:     /usr/local/hdf5/lib/plugin
Plugin Search Path:     /usr/local/hdf5/lib/plugin:/usr/local/hdf5/lib/plugin
UDF Self-Load:          yes

Quantization: yes
Logging:     no
SZIP Write Support:     yes
Standard Filters:       bz2 deflate szip zstd
ZSTD Support:           yes
Parallel Filters:       yes
=======================================


This isn’t all that different than my previous successful builds up to this 
point.  When I began the “make” process, I got the following error,

=======================================
libtool: compile:  mpiicx -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.. -I../include -I../include 
-I.. -I.. -I../oc2 -I../libnczarr 
-I/localdisk/conan/.conan/data/libxml/2.12.10.9/staging/CD-3/package/80f7d555ab6867780ca174690c1abac96d6cef96/include/libxml2
 -O2 -fPIC -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/libxml2 -O2 -fPIC 
-I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/libxml2 -fno-strict-aliasing -MT 
ncxml_xml2.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/ncxml_xml2.Tpo -c ncxml_xml2.c  -fPIC -DPIC -o 
.libs/ncxml_xml2.o
libtool: compile:  mpiicx -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.. -I../include -I../include 
-I.. -I.. -I../oc2 -I../libnczarr 
-I/localdisk/conan/.conan/data/libxml/2.12.10.9/staging/CD-3/package/80f7d555ab6867780ca174690c1abac96d6cef96/include/libxml2
 -O2 -fPIC -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/libxml2 -O2 -fPIC 
-I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/libxml2 -fno-strict-aliasing -MT 
ncxml_xml2.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/ncxml_xml2.Tpo -c ncxml_xml2.c -o ncxml_xml2.o 
>/dev/null 2>&1
/bin/bash ../libtool  --tag=CXX   --mode=link mpiicx  -O2 -fPIC 
-I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/libxml2    -o libncxml.la  ncxml_xml2.lo  
-lpnetcdf -lhdf5_hl -lhdf5 -lm -lz -lzip -lsz -lbz2 -lzstd -lxml2 -lcurl
libtool:   error: cannot find the library '/usr/local/lib/libnetcdf.la' or 
unhandled argument '/usr/local/lib/libnetcdf.la'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:557: libncxml.la] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/root/GitHub/netcdf-c-4.10.0/libncxml'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:821: all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/root/GitHub/netcdf-c-4.10.0'
make: *** [Makefile:663: all] Error 2
=======================================

This implying that I need /usr/local/lib/libnetcdf.la which… I’m supposed to be 
making here for the first time.  (Also that “/localdisk/conan” is also new and 
I am not sure as to its origins (we have no such directory on our file 
systems).  I’ve built netCDF from source scores of times, and this is the first 
time I have encountered this particular error.

Has anyone encountered this must-have-it-to-make-it error?  Or better still, is 
there a gentle “best-practice” pathway as we used to see with the Portland 
Group compilers on how to assemble the necessary parts develop a complete 
HDF/PnetCDF/NetCDF suite ready for PIO with Intel OneAPI without having too 
many locally bespoke customized netcdf/hdf builds for "this application" and 
another for “that application.”   My Mac using conga-forge has "one build to 
rule them all” regarding PIO, NetCDF, PNetCDF etc and can build WRF and MPAS so 
in theory it ought to be doable.

Much obliged and thanks for your patience,
Bill Capehart
South Dakota Mines.