kerl ==== Easy building and installing of [Erlang/OTP](http://www.erlang.org) instances Kerl aims to be shell agnostic and its only dependencies, excluding what's required to actually build Erlang/OTP, are curl and git. Unless explicitly disabled, [agner](http://erlagner.org) is installed automatically in the sandboxes for supported Erlang/OTP versions. All is done so that, once a specific release has been built, creating a new installation is as fast as possible. Downloading =========== You can download the script directly from github: $ curl -O https://github.com/evax/kerl/raw/master/kerl Then ensure it is executable $ chmod a+x kerl and drop it in your $PATH How it works ============ Kerl keeps tracks of the releases it downloaded, built and installed, allowing easy installations to new destinations (without complete rebuilding) and easy switches between Erlang/OTP installations. Usage ===== List the available releases (kerl ignores releases < 10): $ kerl list releases Getting the available releases from erlang.org... R10B-0 R10B-2 R10B-3 R10B-4 R10B-5 R10B-6 R10B-7 R10B-8 R10B-9 R11B-0 R11B-1 R11B-2 R11B-3 R11B-4 R11B-5 R12B-0 R12B-1 R12B-2 R12B-3 R12B-4 R12B-5 R13A R13B R13B01 R13B02 R13B03 R13B04 R14A R14B R14B01 R14B02 Run "./kerl update releases" to update this list from erlang.org Pick your choice and build it: $ kerl build R14B02 r14b02 Downloading otp_src_R14B02.tar.gz to /home/evax/.kerl/archives (curl progresses...) Verifying archive checksum... (curl progresses...) Checksum verified (229fb8f193b09ac04a57a9d7794349b7) Extracting source code Building Erlang/OTP R14B02 (r14b02), please wait... Erlang/OTP R14B02 has been successfully built Fetching and building agner... Agner has been successfully built Note that named builds allow you to have different builds for the same Erlang/OTP release with different configure options: $ KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS=--disable-hipe kerl build R14B02 r14b02_nohipe Verifying archive checksum... Checksum verified (229fb8f193b09ac04a57a9d7794349b7) Extracting source code Building Erlang/OTP R14B02 (r14b02_nohipe), please wait... Erlang/OTP R14B02 (r14b02_nohipe) has been successfully built Fetching and building agner... Agner has been successfully built You can verify your build has been registered: $ kerl list builds R14B02,r14b02 R14B02,r14b02_nohipe Now install a build to some location (optionally you can disable agner support by adding KERL_DISABLE_AGNER=yes to your $HOME/.kerlrc file, or on the contrary define a list of additional packages to install using the KERL_AGNER_AUTOINSTALL directive in the same file): $ kerl install r14b02 /path/to/install/dir/ Installing Erlang/OTP R14B02 (r14b02) in /path/to/install/dir... Installing agner in /path/to/install/dir... You can activate this installation running the following command: . /path/to/install/dir/activate Later on, you can leave the installation typing: kerl_deactivate Here again you can check the installation's been registered: $ kerl list installations r14b02 /path/to/install/dir And at last activate it: $ . /path/to/install/dir/activate Activation will backup your $PATH, prepend it with the installation's bin/ directory and do the right thing with AGNER_* vars to constrain agner operations to the sandbox. Thus it's only valid for the current shell session, and until you activate another installation or call kerl_deactivate. You're now ready to work with your r14b02 installation: $ erl -version Erlang (SMP,ASYNC_THREADS,HIPE) (BEAM) emulator version 5.8.3 $ agner version 0.4.16 You can use agner to install packages in your activated installation, they'll be directly available: $ agner install cowboy (...) Installed to: /path/to/install/dir/lib/cowboy-@master $ erl (...) Eshell V5.8.3 (abort with ^G) 1> application:start(cowboy). ok Note that you can also define a list of packages to be autoinstalled on agner enabled installations using the KERL_AGNER_AUTOINSTALL entry in you $HOME/.kerlrc file When your done just type: $ kerl_deactivate Anytime you can check which installation, if any, is currently active with: $ kerl active No Erlang/OTP kerl installation is currently active You can get an overview of the current kerl state with: $ kerl status Available builds: R14B02,r14b02 R14B02,r14b02_nohipe ---------- Available installations: r14b02 /path/to/install/dir ---------- Currently active installation: The current active installation is: /path/to/install/dir You can delete builds and installations with the following commands: $ kerl delete build r14b02 The r14b02 build has been deleted $ kerl delete installation /path/to/install/dir The installation in /path/to/install/dir has been deleted You can update the agner version associated with a specific build (this will only affect installations made after that): $ kerl update agner r14b02 Updating agner for build r14b02... agner has been updated successfully As an experimental feature, you can build Erlang directly from a git repository with a command of the form "kerl build git " where can be either a branch, a tag or a commit id as it will be passed to "git checkout": $ kerl build git https://github.com/erlang/otp.git dev r14b02_dev Checking Erlang/OTP git repositoy from https://github.com/erlang/otp.git... Building Erlang/OTP r14b02_dev from git, please wait... Erlang/OTP r14b02_dev from git has been successfully built Fetching and building agner... Agner has been successfully built Tuning ====== You can tune kerl using the .kerlrc file in your $HOME directory. You can set the following variables: - KERL_DOWNLOAD_DIR where to put downloaded files, defaults to $HOME/.kerl/archives - KERL_BUILD_DIR where to hold the builds, defaults to $HOME/.kerl/builds - KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS options to pass to Erlang's ./configure script, e.g. --without-termcap - KERL_DISABLE_AGNER if non-empty will disable agner support - KERL_AGNER_AUTOINSTALL a list of packages to pre-install - KERL_SASL_STARTUP use SASL system startup instead of minimal - KERL_USE_AUTOCONF use autoconf in the builds process Glossary ======== Here are the abstractions kerl is handling: - **releases**: Erlang/OTP releases from [erlang.org](http://erlang.org) - **builds**: the result of configuring and compiling releases or git repositories - **installations**: the result of deploying builds to filesystem locations (also referred to as "sandboxes") Commands reference ================== build ----- Create a named build either from an official Erlang/OTP release or from a git repository ### Syntax kerl build kerl build git ### Examples $ kerl build R14B02 r14b02 $ kerl build git https://github.com/erlang/otp dev r14b02_dev ### Tuning #### Disable agner You can disable agner support by setting KERL_DISABLE_AGNER=yes in your $HOME/.kerlrc file #### Configure options You can specify the configure options to use when building Erlang/OTP with the KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS variable, either in your $HOME/.kerlrc file or prepending it to the command line. $ KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS=--disable-hipe kerl build R14B02 r14b02_nohipe #### Enable autoconf You can enable the use of autoconf in the build process setting KERL_USE_AUTOCONF=yes in your $HOME/.kerlrc file *Note*: autoconf is always enabled for git builds install ------- Install a named build to the specified filesystem location ### Syntax kerl install [path] If path is ommited the current working directory will be used ### Example $ kerl install r14b02 /srv/otp/r14b02 ### Tuning #### Auto-installing packages You can auto-install agner packages listing them in the KERL_AGNER_AUTOINSTALL variable in your $HOME/.kerlrc file, e.g. KERL_AGNER_AUTOINSTALL="erlzmq cowboy" #### SASL startup You can have SASL started automatically setting KERL_SASL_STARTUP=yes in your $HOME/.kerlrc file update ------ Update the releases list or the agner version of the specified named build ### Syntax kerl update releases kerl update agner list ---- List the releases, builds or installations available ### Syntax kerl list delete ------ Delete the specified build or installation ### Syntax kerl delete build kerl delete installation ### Examples $ kerl delete build r14b02 The r14b02 build has been deleted $ kerl delete installation /srv/otp/r14b02 The installation in /srv/otp/r14b02 has been deleted active ------ Print the path of the currently active installation, if any ### Example $ kerl active The current active installation is: /srv/otp/r14b02 status ------ Print the available builds and installations as well as the currently active installation ### Example $ kerl status Available builds: R14B02,r14b02 git,r14b02_dev ---------- Available installations: r14b02 /srv/otp/r14b02 r14b02 /srv/otp/r14b02_dev ---------- No Erlang/OTP kerl installation is currently active