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.

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`
- `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.

**To ease this process, just run `./bootstrap.sh` and enter password
for `sudo` when prompted.**

The [bootstrap script](../../bootstrap.sh) 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 to `/tmp` 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/

Git Setup
---------

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

Please clone the superproject (this repo) and initialize a subset of
the submodules:

```sh
git clone https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell.git
cd PowerShell
git submodule update --init -- src/windows-build src/Modules/Pester src/libpsl-native/test/googletest
```

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

We maintain a [PowerShell module](../../PowerShellGitHubDev.psm1) with
the function `Start-PSBuild` to build PowerShell. Since this is
PowerShell code, it requires self-hosting. 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 and obtain the package.

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

```sh
GITHUB_TOKEN=<replace with your token> ./download.sh
sudo dpkg -i ./powershell.deb
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 and build!

> 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 ./PowerShellGitHubDev.psm1
Start-PSBuild
```

Congratulations! If everything went right, PowerShell is now built.
The `Start-PSBuild` script will output the location of the executable:
`./src/Microsoft.PowerShell.Host/bin/Linux/netstandardapp1.5/ubuntu.14.04-x64/powershell`.

> Note that the `./build.sh` script is deprecated and will be removed

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/Microsoft.PowerShell.Host`
project, where `dotnet` consumes it as "content" and thus
automatically deploys it.

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

The `Microsoft.PowerShell.Host` project is the cross-platform host for
PowerShell targetting .NET Core. 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/Microsoft.PowerShell.Host
dotnet build --configuration Linux
```

The executable will be in
`./bin/[configuration]/[framework]/[rid]/[binary name]`, where our
configuration is `Linux`, framework is `netstandardapp1.5`, 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