Building BOINC on Unix

The BOINC software consists of several components:

• Miscellaneous: the API and various shared code.
• Client: the core client and Manager.
• Server: the scheduler, file upload handler, daemons, and tools.

On UNIX systems, the BOINC software can be built by typing

./_autosetup
./configure [see options below]
make

in the top directory.

• If you're creating a project, you need to build the server and miscellaneous software (you don't need to build the client software; participants can get that from the BOINC web site). Use

./configure --disable-client

• If you're porting the BOINC client software to a new platform, you need the client and miscellaneous components. Use

./configure --disable-server

• If you're developing or porting a BOINC application, you need only the miscellaneous component. Use

./configure --disable-server --disable-client

Configuration

Usage:

./configure [OPTION]... [VAR=VALUE]...

You can use environment variables to override the choices made by configure or to help it to find libraries and programs with nonstandard names/locations. To assign environment variables (e.g., CC, CFLAGS...), specify them as VAR=VALUE. Example: to compile BOINC with strict compiler warnings, use

./configure CXXFLAGS="-Wall -W -Wshadow -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-qual -Wcast-align -Wwrite-strings -fno-common "

Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.

Configuration

-h, --help	display configuration options and exit
--host=HOST	Use HOST to identify platforms in executable names. For Linux/x86 builds, use --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu

Installation directories

--prefix=PREFIX

install architecture-independent files in PREFIX [/usr/local] By default, make install will install all the files in /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib etc. You can specify an installation prefix other than /usr/local using --prefix, for instance --prefix=. For better control, use the options below.

Optional Features

--disable-FEATURE	do not include FEATURE (same as --enable-FEATURE=no)
--enable-FEATURE[=ARG]	include FEATURE [ARG=yes]
--enable-debug	enable tracing and debugging flags for all components
--disable-server	disable building the server component
--disable-client	disable building the client component Default: --enable-server --enable-client: builds both server and client. If configure can't find wxWidgets it will build the core client but not the Manager. If you want to build only the core client, run configure with --with-wxdir=junk.
--enable-maintainer-mode	enable make rules and dependencies not useful (and sometimes confusing) to the casual installer
--enable-shared[=PKGS]	build shared libraries [default=yes]
--enable-static[=PKGS]	build static libraries [default=yes]
--disable-static-linkage	disable static linking of certain libraries
--enable-client-release	Try building a portable 'release-candidate' (currently implemented for Linux and Solaris only): this links libstd++ statically. You will probably need gcc-3.0 for this to produce a portable client-binary. It is therefore recommended to use CC=gcc-3.0 and CXX=g++-3.0 for this. (Default = no)

Optional Packages

--with-PACKAGE[=ARG]	use PACKAGE [ARG=yes]
--without-PACKAGE	do not use PACKAGE (same as --with-PACKAGE=no)
--with-x	use the X Window System
--with-apple-opengl-framework	use Apple OpenGL framework (Mac OS X only)
--with-wxdir=PATH	Use installed version of wxWidgets in PATH
--with-wx-config=CONFIG	wx-config script to use (optional)

Environment variables

CC	C compiler command
CFLAGS	C compiler flags
LDFLAGS	linker flags, e.g. -L<lib dir> if you have libraries in a nonstandard directory <lib dir>
CPPFLAGS	C/C++ preprocessor flags, e.g. -I<include dir> if you have headers in a nonstandard directory <include dir>
CXX	C++ compiler command
CXXFLAGS	C++ compiler flags.
CPP	C preprocessor
CXXCPP	C++ preprocessor
F77	Fortran 77 compiler command
FFLAGS	Fortran 77 compiler flags
MYSQL_CONFIG	mysql_config program

Source layout

The top-level Makefile.am contains the SUBDIRS= line which sets up directory recursion, and the rules for creating source distributions.

Each subdirectory's Makefile.am contains the rules for making the binaries and libraries in that directory and any extra files to distribute.

Usually you will want to run make from the top level (the directory containing the file configure), but sometimes it is useful to run make and make check in certain subdirectories (e.g. client/).

Adding new directories

If you create a new directory with another Makefile.am, you should

• make sure the directory is referenced by a SUBDIRS= line from its parent Makefile.am
• add it to the AC_CONFIG_FILES directive in configure.ac.

Version number

To set the BOINC client version:

set-version 5.12.47

in the BOINC top-level source directory. This updates the AC_INIT line in configure.ac and regenerates files that use the version numbers (config.h, py/version.py, test/version.inc, client/win/win_config.h, Makefiles)