CouchDB BAMF Installation

Well I promised that I would teach you how to install CouchDB "with nothing but a magnetized needle and a steady hand." So let's do that.

Most people can install CouchDB with apt-get install. There are occasions when that's not the case. In fact, I'm assuming the worst case scenario:

1. You have no package management system.


2. You don't have root access


3. You have really nothing except make, gmake, tar, wget, and a generous helping of badass

SpiderMonkey 1.7.0


wget http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/js/js-1.7.0.tar.gz
tar xvzf js-1.7.0.tar.gz
cd js/src/
make -f Makefile.ref # (add BUILD_OPT=1 for non-debug build?)
JS_DIST=[where you want to install spidermonkey] make -f Makefile.ref export


ICU 4.2.1


wget http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4c/4.2.1/icu4c-4_2_1-src.tgz
tar xvzf icu4c-4_2_1-src.tgz
cd icu/source
./runConfigureICU Linux --prefix=[where you want to install icu]
gmake install
cd [where you installed icu]


Curl 7.21.0

CouchDB requires a fairly recent version of curl (>=7.18.0), which you might not have. You can check with curl --version

wget http://curl.haxx.se/download/curl-7.21.0.zip
unzip curl-7.21.0.zip
cd curl-7.21.0
./configure --prefix=[where you want to install curl]
make && make install
cd [where you installed curl]


Erlang R13B02


wget http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_R13B02.tar.gz
tar xzvf otp_src_R13B02.tar.gz
cd otp_src_R13B02
./configure --prefix=[where you want to install erlang]
make && make install
cd '[where you installed erlang]


Fix $PATH

You need to put a place on your $PATH that you can control. /home/[user]/bin works fine. Then you need to put symbolic links (ln -s) to the binaries in ICU, curl, and Erlang. You can also just copy the binaries from those directories into your $PATH folder. This is not recommended for obvious reasons, but it does work.

CouchDB!


wget http://www.takeyellow.com/apachemirror/couchdb/0.11.0/apache-couchdb-0.11.0.tar.gz
tar xzvf apache-couchdb-0.11.0.tar.gz
cd apache-couchdb-0.11.0
./configure --with-js-lib=[your spidermonkey install]/lib64 --with-js-include=[your spidermonkey install]/include
--with-erlang=[your erlang install]/lib/erlang/usr/include/ --prefix=[where you want to install couchdb]