Self-extracting releases

Erlang.mk allows you to package Relx releases as self-extracting archives. These archives contain all the files in the release and come in the form of a script that will extract and run the release automatically.

This allows you to package the release as a single file that can then be executed.

This feature is currently experimental. Feedback is much appreciated.

Generating the self-extracting archive

To generate a self-extracting release, all you need to do is pass the SFX=1 variable to Make when you build the release:

$ make SFX=1

This will create a self-extracting archive in $RELX_OUTPUT_DIR/<name>.run. For example if the release is named hello_world and $RELX_OUTPUT_DIR is the default, the file will be located at _rel/hello_world.run.

Running the release

Simply execute the script to get started:

$ ./_rel/hello_world.run
Exec: /tmp/tmp.3eeEq7E1ta/erts-8.1/bin/erlexec ...
Root: /tmp/tmp.3eeEq7E1ta
/tmp/tmp.3eeEq7E1ta
Erlang/OTP 19 [erts-8.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:4:4] ...

Eshell V8.1  (abort with ^G)
(hello_world@localhost)1>

As you can see the archive is extracted to a temporary directory before the release can be started.

The self-extracting script currently only supports starting the release in console mode.