Installation

The following steps work installing the dependencies in Linux via apt-get or in macOS using brew or macports. While using package managers such as Anaconda, Miniforge, or Mamba might work, these are not tested. We will update the documentation when Python3.14 is supported (e.g., the resdata Python package is not yet available via pip install in Python 3.14).

Python package

To install the pofff executable from the development version:

pip install git+https://github.com/cssr-tools/pofff.git

If you are interested in modifying the source code, then you can clone the repository and install the Python requirements in a virtual environment with the following commands:

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/cssr-tools/pofff.git
# Get inside the folder
cd pofff
# Create virtual environment (to specific Python, python3.12 -m venv vpofff)
python3 -m venv vpofff
# Activate virtual environment
source vpofff/bin/activate
# Upgrade pip, setuptools, and wheel
pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
# Install the pofff package
pip install -e .
# Third party companions
pip install git+https://github.com/equinor/everest.git
# For macOS users, this will not work, then skip this and follow the steps below
pip install opm
# For contributions/testing/linting, install the dev-requirements
pip install -r dev-requirements.txt

Tip

Typing git tag -l writes all available specific versions.

OPM Flow

You also need to install:

OPM Flow (https://opm-project.org, Release 2025.04 or current master branches)

Tip

See the CI.yml script for installation of OPM Flow (binary packages) and the pofff package in Ubuntu.

Note

For not macOS users, to install the Python opm package execute in the terminal

pip install opm

This is equivalent to execute pip install -e .[opm] in the installation process.

For macOS users, see Source build in macOS.

Source build in Linux/Windows

If you are a Linux user (including the Windows subsystem for Linux, see this link for a nice tutorial for setting Python environments in WSL), then you could try to build Flow (after installing the prerequisites) from the master branches with mpi support by running in the terminal the following lines (which in turn should build flow in the folder ./build/opm-simulators/bin/flow):

CURRENT_DIRECTORY="$PWD"

mkdir build

for repo in common grid
do  git clone https://github.com/OPM/opm-$repo.git
    mkdir build/opm-$repo
    cd build/opm-$repo
    cmake -DUSE_MPI=1 -DWITH_NDEBUG=1 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/build/opm-common;$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/build/opm-grid" $CURRENT_DIRECTORY/opm-$repo
    if [[ $repo == simulators ]]; then
        make -j5 flow
    else
        make -j5 opm$repo
    fi
    cd ../..
done

Tip

You can create a .sh file (e.g., build_opm_mpi.sh), copy the previous lines, and run in the terminal source build_opm_mpi.sh

Source build in macOS

For macOS, there are no available binary packages, so OPM Flow needs to be built from source, in addition to the dune libraries (see the prerequisites, which can be installed using macports or brew). For example, with brew the prerequisites can be installed by:

brew install boost cmake openblas suite-sparse python@3.13

In addition, it is recommended to uprade and update your macOS to the latest available versions (the following steps have worked for macOS Tahoe 26.0.1 with Apple clang version 17.0.0). After the prerequisites are installed and the vpofff Python environment is created (see Python package), then building OPM Flow and the opm Python package can be achieved with the following lines:

CURRENT_DIRECTORY="$PWD"

deactivate
source vpofff/bin/activate

for module in common geometry grid istl
do   git clone https://gitlab.dune-project.org/core/dune-$module.git --branch v2.9.1
    ./dune-common/bin/dunecontrol --only=dune-$module cmake -DCMAKE_DISABLE_FIND_PACKAGE_MPI=1
    ./dune-common/bin/dunecontrol --only=dune-$module make -j5
done

mkdir build

for repo in common grid simulators
do  git clone https://github.com/OPM/opm-$repo.git
    mkdir build/opm-$repo
    cd build/opm-$repo
    cmake -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=$(which python) -DOPM_ENABLE_PYTHON=ON -DWITH_NDEBUG=1 -DUSE_MPI=0 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/boost@1.85/include;$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/dune-common/build-cmake;$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/dune-grid/build-cmake;$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/dune-geometry/build-cmake;$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/dune-istl/build-cmake;$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/build/opm-common;$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/build/opm-grid" $CURRENT_DIRECTORY/opm-$repo
    if [[ $repo == common ]]; then
        make -j5 opm$repo
        make -j5 opmcommon_python
    elif [[ $repo == simulators ]]; then
        make -j5 flow
    else
        make -j5 opm$repo
    fi
    cd ../..
done

echo "export PYTHONPATH=\$PYTHONPATH:$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/build/opm-common/python" >> $CURRENT_DIRECTORY/vpofff/bin/activate
echo "export PATH=\$PATH:$CURRENT_DIRECTORY/build/opm-simulators/bin" >> $CURRENT_DIRECTORY/vpofff/bin/activate

deactivate
source vpofff/bin/activate

This builds OPM Flow as well as the OPM Python library, and it exports the required PYTHONPATH to the opm Python package and the path to the flow executable.

Tip

See this repository dedicated to build OPM Flow from source in the latest macOS (GitHub actions), and tested with pycopm (another cssr tool). If you still face problems, raise an issue in the GitHub repository, or you could also send an email to the maintainers.