Make and install programs from source (206.1)

Make and install programs from source (206.1)¶

Candidates should be able to build and install an executable program from source. This objective includes being able to unpack a file of sources.

Key Knowledge Areas¶

Unpack source code using common compression and archive utilities
Understand basics of invoking make to compile programs
Apply parameters to a configure script
Know where sources are stored by default

Terms and Utilities¶

/usr/src
gunzip
gzip
bzip2
xz
tar
configure
make
uname
install
patch

Unpacking source code¶

Most Open Source software is distributed as compressed tarballs containing source code and build scripts to compile and install the software. Preferably the source is extracted and compiled in /usr/src/ but any location will do.

These tarballs are generally compressed using gzip, bzip2 or xz. GNU tar supports these compression formats, and makes it easy to decompress such files. For example, to unpack a gzip compressed tarball:

1	`$ tar zxvf /path/to/tarball.tar.gz`

The z option tells tar to use the gzip algorithm, and the x option tells tar to extract the file. To extract a bzip2 compressed file use GNU tar's j option:

1	`$ tar jxvf /path/to/tarball.tar.bz2`

To extract a xz compressed file use GNU tar's J option:

1	`$ tar Jxvf /path/to/tarball.tar.xz`

Although GNU tar supports these compression alghorithms, several other tar implementations don't. To extract compressed tarballs on machines with such tar implementations, you first need to decompress the file, and then extract the contents.

For a gzip compressed tarball:

1	`$ gunzip /path/to/tarball.tar.gz`

For a bzip2 compressed tarball:

1	`$ bunzip2 /path/to/tarball.tar.bz2`

xz For a xz compressed tarball:

1	`$ unxz /path/to/tarball.tar.xz`

As an alternative, you can also use the '-d' (decompress) argument to the gzip, bzip2 and xz commands.

After decompression, you can extract the contents by calling tar without giving a compression argument:

1	`$ tar xvf /path/to/tarball.tar`

Building from source¶

Usually the build scripts are generated using GNU autoconf and automake. automake is used to generate GNU Coding standard compliant Makefile.in files. autoconf produces self-contained configure scripts which can then be used to adapt, build and install the software on the target system.

The usual way of building and installing software from source looks something like this:

    $ tar zxvf sue-2.0.3.tar.gz
    $ cd sue-2.0.3
    $ ./configure
    $ make
    $ su
    # make install

The ./configure command will check for both optional and mandatory dependencies. It will also adapt the source code to the target system (think system architecture, installed libraries, compiler flags, install directories, ...). If an optional dependency is missing, it will disable compilation to that dependency. In the case of missing required dependencies, it will print the error and exit.

According to GNU standards, the commands above would install the "sue" application under /usr/local. If you want to install the application under some other directory structure, for example /opt, the configure command would look like:

1	`$ ./configure --prefix=/opt`

Try ./configure --help to see all possible configure arguments.

The configure command also generates Makefiles which make uses to compile and install the software. The Makefile usually contains several "build targets" which you can call by giving them as an argument to make. Often used targets include "all" which is usually the default action, "clean" to clean up (remove) built object files from the source tree, and "install" to install the software after the build stage.

It is possible to install the software in a location other than the build directory. This is for useful if you want to build the software on one machine, and install it on another:

    $ tar zxvf sue-2.0.3.tar.gz
    $ cd sue-2.0.3
    $ ./configure --prefix=/opt/sue
    $ make DESTDIR=/tmp/sue_tmp install

This technique is often used to build software on one machine, and install it onto multiple others. In the above case, the /tmp/sue_tmp directory would only contain files installed by sue-2.0.3.

If not cross-compiling for another platform, configure will use uname to guess what machine it 's running on. Configure can usually guess the canonical name for the type of system it's running on. To do so it runs a script called config.guess, which infers the name using the uname command or symbols predefined by the C preprocessor.

    $ cd /tmp/sue_tmp
    $ tar zcf ../sue_2.0.3_built.tgz opt/

The c option (as opposed to the previously mentioned x option) to tar tells it to create a new archive.

If you copy the resulting tarball to the target machines in, let's say, the /tmp directory, you can execute the following commands to install the sue software into /opt/sue:

    # cd /
    # tar zxvf /tmp/sue_2.0.3_built.tgz

As alternative to using the make command you can use the install utility to copy binaries to the required location. When you copy the files with install, permissions and owner/group information will be set correctly. If the destination file(s) already exists they will be overwritten. But you can have install create a backup of these files by using the -b argument or using the VERSION_CONTROL enviroment variable.

Patch¶

patch is a program that updates files. In short: apply a diff file on a original file. patch takes a patchfile containing a difference listing produced by the diff program and applies those differences to one or more original files, producing patched versions. Normally the patched versions are put in place of the originals. The names of the files to be patched are usually taken from the patchfile, but if there's just one file to be patched it can specified on the command line as originalfile.

Here is an example of how patch works:

To apply a patch.

1	`$ patch -p1 < /path/to/path-x.y.z`

To revert a patch.

1	`$ patch -R -p1 < /path/to/patch-x.y.z`

Note Patching is not part of the LPIC-2 objectives, but is included here because it is used frequently when you build from source.