2 # INSTALL -- installation instructions
8 Please read all of the following instructions before you begin
11 You should check the MACHINES file to see if there are any specific
12 build instructions for your operating system. To build mmh, you will
13 need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.
15 0) If you have obtained mmh by checking it out of git, you will
16 need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some files.
17 (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in'
18 then this has already been done and you do not need to do it.)
19 You can regenerate the files by running the command
23 (Note that if you're doing mmh development, you should look at
24 docs/README.developers, since there is other developer-friendly
25 advice there as well.)
27 1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
31 This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
32 include file config.h, as well as the various Makefiles.
34 The configure script accepts various options. The options of
35 most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
36 of all available options, you can run
40 2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
41 of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
42 want to customize some #defines for your environment.
48 Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
49 the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
50 overwritten without any warning. The only directory this isn't
51 true for, is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the distributed
52 files are installed with a `.dist' suffix if they differ from the
53 existing file. Watch for information messages while make is processing
54 that directory to see if you need to merge changes.
56 5) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the mmh `etc' directory).
57 This file contains the default profile entries for the mmh commands
58 mhlist/mhstore/mhshow and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'.
59 This script will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for
60 programs to handle various content types (for example, xv to display
61 images). You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored
62 path. You may want to re-run this script later if you install new
63 programs to display content. An example of this is:
66 % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
68 and then move `mhn.defaults' into the mmh `etc' directory.
70 The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
71 If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
72 to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
73 described in section 9.4 of the book "MH & xmh: Email for Users and
74 Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek, on the Internet at
75 <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/mh/confmhn.htm>.
77 -----------------------------------------------
78 Compiler options, or using a different compiler
79 -----------------------------------------------
80 By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can use a
81 different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or linking that
82 the "configure" script does not know about, by either editing the user
83 configuration section of the top level Makefile (after running configure)
84 or giving "configure" initial values for these variables by setting them
85 in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell (such as sh,ksh,zsh),
87 you can do that on the command line like this:
88 CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix ./configure
90 Or on systems that have the "env" program, you can do it like this:
91 env CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-s ./configure
93 ----------------------------------------
94 Building mmh on additional architectures
95 ----------------------------------------
96 To build mmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
97 This should restore the mmh source distribution back to its original
98 state. You can then configure mmh as above on other architectures in
99 which you wish to build mmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
100 build directory for each architecture.
102 ---------------------------------
103 Using a different build directory
104 ---------------------------------
105 You can compile the mmh in a different directory from the one containing
106 the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
107 architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
108 "make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
109 the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
110 run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
111 source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
113 cd /usr/local/solaris/mmh
114 /usr/local/src/mmh-1.0/configure
117 ---------------------
118 Options for configure
119 ---------------------
120 --prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/mmh)
121 This will change the base prefix for the installation location
122 for the various parts of mmh. Unless overridden, mmh is installed
123 in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
125 --bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
126 mmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
128 --libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
129 mmh's support binaries (spost, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
131 --sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
132 mmh's config files (mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
134 --mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
135 mmh's man pages are installed here.
138 Enable debugging support.
140 --enable-mhe (DEFAULT)
141 Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
143 --with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
144 Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
145 "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
146 "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
147 requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
148 creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
151 In order to be effective, you should contact the site
152 administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
153 mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
154 reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
155 is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
160 markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
161 and the nmh team <nmh-workers@nongnu.org>
projects / mmh / blob