PowerShell/docs/building/linux.md

Build PowerShell on Linux
=========================

This guide will walk you through building PowerShell on Linux. We'll
start by showing how to set up your environment from scratch.

Environment
===========

These instructions are written assuming the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, since
that's the distro the team uses.

Git Setup
---------

Using Git requires it to be setup correctly; refer to the
[README](../../README.md) and
[Contributing Guidelines](../../.github/CONTRIBUTING.md).

This guide assumes that you have recursively cloned the PowerShell
repository and `cd`ed into it.

Toolchain Setup
---------------

We use the [.NET Command Line Interface][dotnet-cli] (`dotnet`) to
build the managed components, and [CMake][] to build the native
components. Install the following packages for the toolchain:

- `dotnet`: Must be installed from the `Start-PSBootstrap` module as described below. 
- `cmake`
- `make`
- `g++`

Unfortunately, the `apt-get` feed for `dotnet` has been deprecated,
and the latest version is only distributed in the form of three
separate packages, which require manual dependency resolution.

Installing the toolchain is as easy as running `Start-PSBootstrap` in
PowerShell. Of course, this requires a self-hosted copy of PowerShell
on Linux.

Fortunately, this is as easy as downloading and installing the
package. Unfortunately, while the repository is still private, the
package cannot be downloaded as simply as with `wget`. We have a
script that wraps the GitHub API and uses a personal access token to
authorize in order to obtain the package.

The `./download.sh` script will also install the PowerShell package.

> You can alternativelly download via a browser, upload it to your
> box via some other method, and manually install it.

In Bash:

```sh
GITHUB_TOKEN=<replace with your token> ./download.sh
powershell
```

You should now be in a `powershell` console host that is installed
separately from any development copy you're about to build. Just
import our module, bootsrap the dependencies, and build!

In PowerShell:

```powershell
Import-Module ./build.psm1
Start-PSBootstrap
```

The `Start-PSBootstrap` function does the following:

- Adds the LLVM package feed
- Installs our dependencies combined with the dependencies of the .NET
  CLI toolchain via `apt-get`
- Installs the .NET CLI host, shared framework, and SDK by downloading
  the three `.deb` packages and using `dpkg -i`

[dotnet-cli]: https://github.com/dotnet/cli#new-to-net-cli
[CMake]: https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v2.8.12/cmake.html

.NET CLI
--------

If you have any problems installing `dotnet`, please see their
[documentation][cli-docs].

The version of .NET CLI is very important, you need a recent build of
1.0.0 (**not** 1.0.1).

Previous installations of DNX, `dnvm`, or older installations of .NET
CLI can cause odd failures when running. Please check your version and
uninstall prior any prior versions.

[cli-docs]: https://dotnet.github.io/getting-started/

Build using our module
======================

We maintain a [PowerShell module](../../build.psm1) with
the function `Start-PSBuild` to build PowerShell. Since this is
PowerShell code, it requires self-hosting. If you have followed the
toolchain setup section above, you should have `powershell` installed.

> If you cannot or do not want to self-host, `Start-PSBuild` is just a
> convenience; you can execute each step of the build process yourself
> in Bash; see [Build manually][#Build manually] below.

```powershell
Import-Module ./build.psm1
Start-PSBuild
```

Congratulations! If everything went right, PowerShell is now built.
The `Start-PSBuild` script will output the location of the executable:
`./src/powershell/bin/Linux/netcoreapp1.0/ubuntu.14.04-x64/powershell`.

You can run our cross-platform Pester tests with `Start-PSPester`, and
our xUnit tests with `Start-PSxUnit`.

Build manually
==============

The following goes into detail about what `Start-PSBuild` does.

Build the native library
------------------------

The `libpsl-native.so` library consists of native functions that
`CorePsPlatform.cs` P/Invokes.

```sh
pushd src/libpsl-native
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug .
make -j
make test
popd
```

This library will be emitted in the `src/powershell` project, where `dotnet`
consumes it as "content" and thus automatically deploys it.

Build the managed projects
--------------------------

The `powershell` project is the .NET Core PowerShell host. It is the top level
project, so `dotnet build` transitively builds all its dependencies, and emits a
`powershell` executable. The `--configuration Linux` flag is necessary to ensure
that the preprocessor definition `LINUX` is defined (see [issue #673][]).

```sh
dotnet restore
cd src/powershell
dotnet build --configuration Linux
```

The executable will be in
`./bin/[configuration]/[framework]/[rid]/[binary name]`, where our
configuration is `Linux`, framework is `netcoreapp1.0`, runtime
identifier is `ubuntu.14.04-x64`, and binary name is `powershell`. The
function `Get-PSOutput` will return the path to the executable; thus
you can execute the development copy via `& (Get-PSOutput)`.

For deploying PowerShell, `dotnet publish` will emit a `publish`
directory that contains a flat list of every dependency required for
PowerShell. This can be copied to, say, `/usr/local/share/powershell`
or packaged.

[issue #673]: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/issues/673