Zero Install

Zero Install is a decentralized cross-platform software-installation system available under the LGPL.

• Website
• Developer information

Source directory structure

• The directory src contains the Visual Studio solution with the actual source code.
• The directory lib contains pre-compiled 3rd party libraries which are not available via NuGet.
• The directory doc contains scripts for generating source code documentation.
• The directory nuget contains NuGet spec files used to generate NuGet packages for Zero Install.
• The directory publish contains scripts for creating release archives and feeds.
• The directory build contains the results of various compilation processes. It is created on first usage. It can contain the following subdirectories:
  • Debug|DebugNet35|DebugNet35: Contains Debug builds targeting the .NET Framework 4.0, 3.5 and 2.0 respectively.
  • Release|ReleaseNet35|ReleaseNet35: Contains Release builds targeting the .NET Framework 4.0, 3.5 and 2.0 respectively.
    • Backend: Contains the libraries forming the Zero Install Backend.
    • Frontend: Contains the executables for the Zero Install Frontend plus all required libraries (including the Backend).
    • Tools: Contains the executables for Zero Install Tools such as the Feed Editor plus all required libraries (including the Backend).
    • Samples: Contains the executables for the Zero Install API samples.
    • zero-install.exe: A single-file Zero Install bootstrapper.
  • Packages: Contains the generated NuGet packages.
  • Publish: Contains the generated release archives and feeds.
  • Documentation: Contains the generated source code documentation.
• The top-level directory contains local Zero Install feeds referencing the contents of the build directory. They can be registered with 0install add-feed in order to replace the online versions of Zero Install and its tools with your local builds.

VERSION contains the version number used by build scripts. Use .\Set-Version.ps1 "X.Y.Z" in PowerShall to change the version number. This ensures that the version also gets set in other locations (e.g. AssemblyInfo).

Building on Windows

build.cmd will call build scripts in subdirectories to create a Zero Install for Windows release.

If you wish to add an AuthentiCode signature to the compiled binaries set the signing_cert_path environment variable to the certificate's file path and signing_cert_pass to the password used to decrypt the file before executing the build scripts. For example:

set signing_cert_path=C:\mycert.pfx
set signing_cert_pass=mypass
build.cmd

If you wish to deploy the release after compilation as the default Zero Install instance in your user profile run build.cmd deploy. To deploy it for all users use build.cmd deploy --machine instead.

cleanup.cmd will delete any temporary files created by the build process or Visual Studio.

Building on Linux

build.sh will perform a partial debug compilation using Mono's xbuild. Some parts of a full release can currently only be built on Windows.

cleanup.sh will delete any temporary files created by the xbuild build process.

test.sh will run the unit tests using the NUnit console runner. Note: You must perform a Debug build first (using src/build.sh) before you can run the unit tests.

Environment variables

• ZEROINSTALL_PORTABLE_BASE: Set by the C# code to to inform the OCaml code of Portable mode.
• ZEROINSTALL_EXTERNAL_FETCHER: Set by the C# code to make the OCaml code delegate downloading files back to the C# implementation.
• ZEROINSTALL_EXTERNAL_STORE: Set by the C# code to make the OCaml code delegate extracting archives back to the C# implementation.