This document helps you compile and install the MonetDB suite from scratch on Unix-like systems (this includes of course Linux, but also MacOS X and Cygwin). This document is meant to be used when you want to compile and install from Mercurial source. When you use the prepared tar balls, some of the steps described here should be skipped.
In case you prefer installing a pre-compiled binary distribution, please check out the binary distribution.
This document assumes that you are planning on compiling and installing MonetDB on a Unix-like system (e.g., Linux, IRIX, Solaris, AIX, Mac OS X/Darwin, or CYGWIN). For compilation and installation on a native Windows system (NT, 2000, XP) see the instructions in the file ../buildtools/doc/windowsbuild.rst.
The following are the most important parts of the MonetDB software suite:
- buildtools
- Tools used only for building the other parts of the suite. These tools are only needed when building from Mercurial. When building from the source distribution (i.e. the tar balls), you do not need this.
- common
- Fundamental libraries used in the other parts of the suite.
- clients
- Libraries and programs to communicate with the server(s) that are part of the suite.
- monetdb5
- The MAL-based server. This can be used with and is recommended for SQL.
- sql
- The SQL front-end built on top of MonetDB5.
- Mercurial
You only need this if you are building directly from our version control system. If you start with the source distribution from our download page you don't need Mercurial.
You need to have a working Mercurial (hg) and clone the main repository from: http://dev.monetdb.org/hg
- Python
- MonetDB uses Python (version 2.0.0 or better) during configuration of the software. See http://www.python.org/ for more information. (It must be admitted, version 2.0.0 is ancient and has not recently been tested, we currently use 2.6 and newer.)
- autoconf/automake/libtool
- MonetDB uses GNU autoconf (>= 2.60) and automake (>= 1.10) during the Bootstrap phase, and libtool (>= 1.5) during the Make phase. autoconf and automake are not needed when you start with the source distribution.
- iconv
A macrofile iconv.m4 is expected in /usr/share/aclocal/. On Ubuntu, you can search with apt-file what provides these files:
$ apt-file search iconv.m4 gettext: /usr/share/aclocal/iconv.m4 gnulib: /usr/share/gnulib/m4/iconv.m4
The .m4 that usually works is in gettext. Simply run,
$ sudo apt-get install gettext
- standard software development tools
To compile MonetDB, you also need to have the following standard software development tools installed and ready for use on you system:
- a C compiler (e.g. GNU's
gcc); - GNU
make(gmake) (nativemakeon, e.g., IRIX and Solaris usually don't work).
The following are not needed when you start with the source distribution:
- a C++ compiler (e.g. GNU's
g++); - a lexical analyzer generator (e.g.,
lexorflex); - a parser generator (e.g.,
yaccorbison).
The following are optional. They are checked for during configuration and if they are missing, the feature is just missing:
- perl
- php
- a C compiler (e.g. GNU's
- libxml2
The XML parsing library libxml2 is used by the xml module of monetdb5.
MonetDB5 cannot be compiled without libxml2. Current Linux distributions all come with libxml2.
- pcre
- The Perl Compatible Regular Expressions library pcre is used by monetdb5 and sql. Most prominently, complex SQL LIKE expressions are evaluated with help of the pcre library.
- openssl
- The OpenSSL toolkit implementing SSL v2/v3 and TLS protocols is used for its with full-strength world-wide cryptography functions. The client-server login procedures make use of these functions.
The packages take about this much space:
| Package | Source | Build | Install |
|---|---|---|---|
| buildtools | 1.5 MB | 8 MB | 2.5 MB |
| common | 2 MB | 21 MB | 4 MB |
| clients | 9 MB | 25 MB | 10 MB |
| monetdb5 | 26 MB | 46 MB | 12 MB |
| sql | 100 MB | 22.5 MB | 8 MB |
There are two ways to get the source code:
- checking it out from the Mercurial repository on dev.monetdb.org;
- downloading the pre-packaged source distribution from our download page.
The following instructions first describe how to check out the source code from the Mercurial repository; in case you downloaded the pre-packaged source distribution, you can skip this section and proceed to Bootstrap, Configure and Make.
This command should be done once. It makes an initial copy of the development sources on your computer.
hg clone http://dev.monetdb.org/hg/MonetDB
This will create the directory MonetDB in your current working directory with underneath all subcomponents.
In case you checked out the Mercurial version, you have to run
bootstrap first; in case you downloaded the pre-packaged source
distribution, you should skip bootstrap and start with configure
(see Configure).
This step is only needed when building from Mercurial.
In the top-level directory of the package type the command:
./bootstrap
Then in any directory (preferably a new, empty directory and not
in the MonetDB top-level directory) give the command:
.../configure [<options>]
where ... is replaced with the (absolute or relative) path to the
MonetDB top-level directory.
The directory where you execute configure is the place where all
intermediate source and object files are generated during compilation
via make.
By default, MonetDB is installed in /usr/local. To choose another
target directory, you need to call
.../configure --prefix=<prefixdir> [<options>]
Some other useful configure options are:
| --enable-debug | enable full debugging default=[see Configure defaults and recommendations below] |
| --enable-optimize | |
| enable extra optimization default=[see Configure defaults and recommendations below] | |
| --enable-assert | |
| enable assertions in the code default=[see Configure defaults and recommendations below] | |
| --enable-strict | |
| enable strict compiler flags default=[see Configure defaults and recommendations below] | |
You can also add options such as CC=<compiler> to specify the
compiler and compiler flags to use.
Use configure --help to find out more about configure options.
For convenience of both developers and users as well as to comply even more with open source standards, we now set/use the following defaults for the configure options
--enable-strict, --enable-assert, --enable-debug, --enable-optimize
When compiling from Mercurial sources (as mainly done by developers):
strict=yes assert=yes debug=yes optimize=no (*)
When compiling from packaged/distributed sources (i.e., tarballs) (as mainly done by users):
strict=no assert=no debug=no optimize=no (*)
For building binary distributions (RPMs):
strict=no assert=no debug=no optimize=yes
(*)
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Since --enable-optimize=yes is not the default for any case except
binary packages, it is strongly recommended to (re)compile everything from
scratch, explicitly configured with
--enable-debug=no --enable-assert=no --enable-optimize=yes
in case you want/need to run any performance experiments with MonetDB!
Please note:
--enable-X=yes is equivalent to --enable-X, and
--enable-X=no is equivalent to --disable-X.
In the same directory (where you called configure) give the
command
make
to compile the source code. Please note that parallel make
runs (e.g. make -j2) are currently known to be unsuccessful.
This step is optional and only relevant for the packages clients, MonetDB5 and sql.
If make went successfully, you can try
make check
This will perform a large number of tests, some are unfortunately still expected to fail, but most should go successfully. At the end of the output there is a reference to an HTML file which is created by the test process that shows the test results.
Give the command
make install
By default (if no --prefix option was given to configure above),
this will install in /usr/local. Make sure you have appropriate
privileges.
This step is optional and only relevant for the packages clients, MonetDB5 and sql.
Make sure that prefix/bin is in your PATH. Then
in the package top-level directory issue the command
Mtest.py -r [--package=<package>]
where package is one of clients, monetdb5 or sql
(the --package=<package> option can be omitted when
using a Mercurial checkout; see
Mtest.py --help
for more options).
This should produce much the same output as make check above, but
uses the installed version of MonetDB.
You need write permissions in part of the installation directory for
this command: it will create subdirectories var/dbfarm and
Tests.
The MonetDB5 engine can be used interactively or as a server. The SQL back-end can only be used as server.
To run MonetDB5 interactively, just run:
mserver5
A more pleasant environment can be had by using the system as a server
and using mclient to interact with the system. In that case it is
easiest to start monetdbd and create, start, stop, remove, etc.
databases using the monetdb tool.
When MonetDB5 is started interactively, it automatically starts the MAL server in addition to the interactive "console".
With mclient, you get a text-based interface that supports
command-line editing and a command-line history. The latter can even
be stored persistently to be re-used after stopping and restarting
mclient; see
mclient --help
for details.
At the mclient prompt some extra commands are available. Type
a single question mark to get a list of options. Note that one of the
options is to read input from a file using <.
bootstrap fails if any of the requisite programs cannot be found
or is an incompatible version.
bootstrap adds files to the source directory, so it must have
write permissions.
configure will fail if certain essential programs cannot be found
or certain essential tasks (such as compiling a C program) cannot be
executed. The problem will usually be clear from the error message.
E.g., if configure cannot find package XYZ, it is either not
installed on your machine, or it is not installed in places that
configure searches (i.e., /usr, /usr/local). In the first
case, you need to install package XYZ before you can configure,
make, and install MonetDB. In the latter case, you need to tell
configure via --with-XYZ=<DIR> where to find package XYZ on
your machine. configure then looks for the header files in
<DIR>/include, and for the libraries in <DIR>/lib.
In case one of bootstrap, configure, or make fails ---
especially after a hg pull -u, or after you changed some code
yourself --- try the following steps (in this order; if you are using
the pre-packaged source distribution, you can skip steps 2 and 3):
In case only
makefails, you can try running:make clean
in your build directory and proceed with step 5; however, if
makethen still fails, you have to re-start with step 1.Clean up your whole build directory (i.e., the one where you ran
configureandmake) by going there and running:make maintainer-clean
In case your build directory is different from your source directory, you are advised to remove the whole build directory.
Go to the top-level source directory and run:
./de-bootstrap
and type
ywhen asked whether to remove the listed files. This will remove all the files that were created duringbootstrap. Only do this with sources obtained through Mercurial.In the top-level source directory, re-run:
./bootstrap
Only do this with sources obtained through Mercurial.
In the build-directory, re-run:
/path/to/configure
as described above.
In the build-directory, re-run:
make make install
as described above.
If this still does not help, please contact us.
Bugs and other problems with compiling or running MonetDB should be reported using our bug tracking system (preferred) or emailed to info@monetdb.org. Please make sure that you give a detailed description of your problem!