library path

[Albert65]

I am trying to compile python and packages behind firewall. The system is Power8, Redhat7/64, big endian. First, I compiled lapack, blas, openblas (the system itself is quite pristine - almost nothing useful installed). Compilation of Python 3.6.2 and Cython 0.26 was alright. Python passed all the tests except for networking (no Internet behind the firewall). The problem happened with numpy. Its installation script(s) has hardcoded path "/usr/lib" while Lapack/Blas lives in another directory as I have no root privileged. I tried something like that:
pip3 install --global-option "-L/mypath/lib" -e /path/to/numpy
This does not work. Also tried to tweak numpy installation files - no luck.
I am wondering what is a regular way to build Python for scientific computing behind firewall with limited (or absent) set of libraries like Blas?

[nilamo]

I'm not sure, but I think the standard solution is to use virtualenv to create a local environment that acts like it's actually root.

Something like (venv is bundled with python, so it should already be installed)...

> python -m venv the_env
> cd the_env
> ./Scripts/activate
> pip install numpy