=========================================================================== OpenSource Erlang/OTP =========================================================================== Please read the whole file before attempting to build and install Erlang. You can find more information about OpenSource Erlang at http://www.erlang.org/ Portability ----------- Erlang/OTP should be possible to build from source on any Unix system. Instructions for building from source on Windows are in the file README.win32. Binary releases for Windows can be found at http://www.erlang.org/ At Ericsson we have a "Daily Build and Test" that runs on: Operating system Version ----------------------------------------------------------- Solaris/Sparc 2.8 (1) Linux/RedHat x86 6.2 Linux/RedHat x86 7.1 Linux/Debian x86 2.2 Linux sparc Kernel 2.4.19, libc 2.1.3 Linux/Debian PowerPC 2.2 (2) FreeBSD x86 4.1.1 Darwin/Mac OS X PowerPC 10.2.1 (3) Windows 2000 (1) Older versions of Solaris should work well, but we don't test them any longer. (2) Runs on an Apple iMac. (3) Runs on an Apple iMac. See notes below. Required utilities ------------------ These are the tools you will need in order to unpack and build Erlang/OTP. Unpacking --------- GNU unzip, or a modern uncompress. A TAR program that understand the GNU TAR format for long filenames (such as GNU TAR). Compiling --------- GNU make GNU C compiler Perl 5 nawk Optional but needed to convert V2 SNMP MIBS to V1 MIBS. "gawk" will do but you have to create a link from "nawk" to the "gawk" executable. OpenSSL Optional but needed for building the Erlang/OTP applications 'ssl' and 'crypto'. You need the "development package" of OpenSSL, i.e. including the header files. For building the application 'ssl' the OpenSSL binary command program 'openssl' is also needed. At least version 0.9.7 of OpenSSL is required. Sun Java jdk-1.2.2 Optional but needed for building the Erlang/OTP application 'jinterface' and parts of 'ic' and 'orber'. X Windows Optional, but development headers and libraries are needed to build the Erlang/OTP application 'gs' on Unix/Linux. sed There seem to be some problems with some of the 'sed' version at Solaris. Make sure "/bin/sed" or "/usr/bin/sed" is used on the Solaris platform. Flex Optional, headers and libraries are needed to build the flex scanner for the megaco application on Unix/Linux. Installing ---------- An install program that can take multiple file names. How to build and install Erlang/OTP ----------------------------------- Start by unpacking the Erlang/OTP distribution file with your GNU compatible TAR 1) gunzip -c otp_src_R9C-0.tar.gz | tar xf - 1) zcat otp_src_R9C-0.tar.gz | tar xf - Now cd into the base directory 2) cd otp_src_R9C-0 On some platforms Perl may behave strangely if certain locales are set, so optionally you may need to set the LANG variable: 3a) LANG=C; export LANG #Bourne shell or 3b) setenv LANG C #C-shell Run the following commands 4) ./configure [ options ] If you upgraded the source with the patch you may need to clean up from previous builds before the new build. Do a "make clean", see "Caveats" below. 5) make 6) make install Let's go through them in some detail: Step 4 runs a configuration script created by the GNU autoconf utility, which checks for system specific features and the creates a number of makefiles. The configure script allows you to customize a number of parameters; type "./configure --help" for details. One of the things you can specify is where Erlang/OTP should be installed; by default Erlang/OTP will install in /usr/local/{bin,lib/erlang,man/man1}; to keep the same structure but install in a different place, let's call it rather than /usr/local use the --prefix argument. Like so: "./configure --prefix=". This step will also configure any additional libraries unpacked in step 3 (if you didn't add any of the extra libraries configure will issue a warning saying that there is no configuration information in lib, this warning can safely be ignored). You can also specify where the OpenSSL include and library files are located, or else disable the use of SSL and Crypto. Other options are: --disable-hipe Disable HiPE (High-Performance Erlang). HiPE will automatically be enabled on supported platforms (Ultra Sparc and x86-based machines running Linux or Solaris/x86). --enable-threads Enable threaded I/O support in the Erlang emulator. Step 5 first builds the Erlang emulator, this will take approximately five minutes on a reasonably fast machine. It then proceeds to build the Erlang/OTP libraries in the "lib" subdirectory using the built emulator and the bootstrap libraries provided in the "bootstrap" subdirectory. Compiling everything can take quite a long time, expect half an hour up to a couple of hours. After step 4 is completed you should have a working Erlang/OTP system which you can try by typing "bin/erl". This should start up Erlang/OTP and give you a prompt. Step 6 is optional. It installs Erlang/OTP (if you change your mind about where you wish to install you can rerun step 4, without having to do step 5 again). If you or your system has special requirements please read the Makefile for additional configuration information. How to install the Erlang/OTP documentation ------------------------------------------- For some graphical tools to find the on-line help you have to install the HTML documentation on top of the installed OTP applications, i.e. cd /lib/erlang gunzip -c otp_html_R9C-0.tar.gz | tar xf - For "erl -man " to work the Unix manual pages have to be installed in the same way, i.e. cd /lib/erlang gunzip -c otp_man_R9C-0.tar.gz | tar xf - GS (Graphic System) ------------------- GS now requires Tcl/Tk 8.3. It will be searched for when starting GS. Using HiPE ---------- If you are running on a platform supporting HiPE and if you have not disabled HiPE, you can compile an module into native code like this from the Erlang shell: c(Module, native). or c(Module, [native|OtherOptions]). Using the erlc program, write like this: erlc +native Module.erl The native code will be placed into the beam file and automatically loaded when the beam file is loaded. To add hipe options, write like this from the Erlang shell: c(Module, [native,{hipe,HipeOptions}|MoreOptions]). Use hipe:help_options(). to print out the available options. Darwin/Mac OS X --------------- Mac OS X version 10.2 (Jaguar) is needed. (Mac OS X 10.1.x will probably work as well, but we have not tested the final build any 10.1.x system.) IMPORTANT! Use the "gnutar" command to unpack the sources. (Using "tar" or Stuff-It Expander might seem to work, but it will not build successfully.) Erlang/OTP will read the network configuration files in "/etc" at startup. In Darwin these are normally not used by the operating system. The easiest way to force Erlang/OTP avoid reading the files is to put the line (including the ending '.') {lookup,["native"]}. into the "$HOME/.inetrc" file. Make sure that the command "hostname" return a valid fully qualified host name (this is configured in "/etc/hostconfig"). If you develop linked in drivers (shared library) you need to link using "cc" and the flags "-bundle -flat_namespace -undefined suppress". You also include "-fno-common" in CFLAGS when compiling. Use ".so" as the library suffix. Caveats ------- There are currently incorrect dependencies in the Makefiles, which means that if you modify any source code the system might not build properly. Also "make clean" does not clean out everything that should be cleaned. Make and the variable "ERL_TOP" ------------------------------- All the makefiles in the entire directory tree use the environment variable ERL_TOP to find the absolute path of the installation. The configure script will figure this out and set it in the top level Makefile (which, when building, it will pass on). However, when developing it is sometimes convenient to be able to run make in a subdirectory. To do this you must set the ERL_TOP variable before you run make. For example, assume your GNU make program is called "make" and you want to rebuild the Erlang/OTP part of stdlib, then you could do: cd lib/stdlib/src ; env ERL_TOP= make where would be what you find ERL_TOP is set to in the top level Makefile. More Information ---------------- More information can be found on http://www.erlang.org/ For commercial inquires (printed documentation, support etc) please visit http://www.erlang.se/