1 |
=head1 NAME |
2 |
|
3 |
staticperl - perl, libc, 50 modules all in one 500kb file |
4 |
|
5 |
=head1 SYNOPSIS |
6 |
|
7 |
staticperl help # print the embedded documentation |
8 |
staticperl fetch # fetch and unpack perl sources |
9 |
staticperl configure # fetch and then configure perl |
10 |
staticperl build # configure and then build perl |
11 |
staticperl install # build and then install perl |
12 |
staticperl clean # clean most intermediate files (restart at configure) |
13 |
staticperl distclean # delete everything installed by this script |
14 |
staticperl cpan # invoke CPAN shell |
15 |
staticperl instmod path... # install unpacked modules |
16 |
staticperl instcpan modulename... # install modules from CPAN |
17 |
staticperl mkbundle <bundle-args...> # see documentation |
18 |
staticperl mkperl <bundle-args...> # see documentation |
19 |
|
20 |
Typical Examples: |
21 |
|
22 |
staticperl install # fetch, configure, build and install perl |
23 |
staticperl cpan # run interactive cpan shell |
24 |
staticperl mkperl -M '"Config_heavy.pl"' # build a perl that supports -V |
25 |
staticperl mkperl -MAnyEvent::Impl::Perl -MAnyEvent::HTTPD -MURI -MURI::http |
26 |
# build a perl with the above modules linked in |
27 |
|
28 |
=head1 DESCRIPTION |
29 |
|
30 |
This script helps you creating single-file perl interpreters, or embedding |
31 |
a perl interpreter in your applications. Single-file means that it is |
32 |
fully self-contained - no separate shared objects, no autoload fragments, |
33 |
no .pm or .pl files are needed. And when linking statically, you can |
34 |
create (or embed) a single file that contains perl interpreter, libc, all |
35 |
the modules you need and all the libraries you need. |
36 |
|
37 |
With F<uClibc> and F<upx> on x86, you can create a single 500kb binary that |
38 |
contains perl and 50 modules such as AnyEvent, EV, IO::AIO, Coro and so |
39 |
on. Or any other choice of modules. |
40 |
|
41 |
The created files do not need write access to the file system (like PAR |
42 |
does). In fact, since this script is in many ways similar to PAR::Packer, |
43 |
here are the differences: |
44 |
|
45 |
=over 4 |
46 |
|
47 |
=item * The generated executables are much smaller than PAR created ones. |
48 |
|
49 |
Shared objects and the perl binary contain a lot of extra info, while |
50 |
the static nature of F<staticperl> allows the linker to remove all |
51 |
functionality and meta-info not required by the final executable. Even |
52 |
extensions statically compiled into perl at build time will only be |
53 |
present in the final executable when needed. |
54 |
|
55 |
In addition, F<staticperl> can strip perl sources much more effectively |
56 |
than PAR. |
57 |
|
58 |
=item * The generated executables start much faster. |
59 |
|
60 |
There is no need to unpack files, or even to parse Zip archives (which is |
61 |
slow and memory-consuming business). |
62 |
|
63 |
=item * The generated executables don't need a writable filesystem. |
64 |
|
65 |
F<staticperl> loads all required files directly from memory. There is no |
66 |
need to unpack files into a temporary directory. |
67 |
|
68 |
=item * More control over included files. |
69 |
|
70 |
PAR tries to be maintenance and hassle-free - it tries to include more |
71 |
files than necessary to make sure everything works out of the box. The |
72 |
extra files (such as the unicode database) can take substantial amounts of |
73 |
memory and file size. |
74 |
|
75 |
With F<staticperl>, the burden is mostly with the developer - only direct |
76 |
compile-time dependencies and L<AutoLoader> are handled automatically. |
77 |
This means the modules to include often need to be tweaked manually. |
78 |
|
79 |
=item * PAR works out of the box, F<staticperl> does not. |
80 |
|
81 |
Maintaining your own custom perl build can be a pain in the ass, and while |
82 |
F<staticperl> tries to make this easy, it still requires a custom perl |
83 |
build and possibly fiddling with some modules. PAR is likely to produce |
84 |
results faster. |
85 |
|
86 |
=back |
87 |
|
88 |
=head1 HOW DOES IT WORK? |
89 |
|
90 |
Simple: F<staticperl> downloads, compile and installs a perl version of |
91 |
your choice in F<~/.staticperl>. You can add extra modules either by |
92 |
letting F<staticperl> install them for you automatically, or by using CPAN |
93 |
and doing it interactively. This usually takes 5-10 minutes, depending on |
94 |
the speed of your computer and your internet connection. |
95 |
|
96 |
It is possible to do program development at this stage, too. |
97 |
|
98 |
Afterwards, you create a list of files and modules you want to include, |
99 |
and then either build a new perl binary (that acts just like a normal perl |
100 |
except everything is compiled in), or you create bundle files (basically C |
101 |
sources you can use to embed all files into your project). |
102 |
|
103 |
This step is very fast (a few seconds if PPI is not used for stripping, |
104 |
more seconds otherwise, as PPI is very slow), and can be tweaked and |
105 |
repeated as often as necessary. |
106 |
|
107 |
=head1 THE F<STATICPERL> SCRIPT |
108 |
|
109 |
This module installs a script called F<staticperl> into your perl |
110 |
binary directory. The script is fully self-contained, and can be used |
111 |
without perl (for example, in an uClibc chroot environment). In fact, |
112 |
it can be extracted from the C<App::Staticperl> distribution tarball as |
113 |
F<bin/staticperl>, without any installation. |
114 |
|
115 |
F<staticperl> interprets the first argument as a command to execute, |
116 |
optionally followed by any parameters. |
117 |
|
118 |
There are two command categories: the "phase 1" commands which deal with |
119 |
installing perl and perl modules, and the "phase 2" commands, which deal |
120 |
with creating binaries and bundle files. |
121 |
|
122 |
=head2 PHASE 1 COMMANDS: INSTALLING PERL |
123 |
|
124 |
The most important command is F<install>, which does basically |
125 |
everything. The default is to download and install perl 5.12.2 and a few |
126 |
modules required by F<staticperl> itself, but all this can (and should) be |
127 |
changed - see L<CONFIGURATION>, below. |
128 |
|
129 |
The command |
130 |
|
131 |
staticperl install |
132 |
|
133 |
Is normally all you need: It installs the perl interpreter in |
134 |
F<~/.staticperl/perl>. It downloads, configures, builds and installs the |
135 |
perl interpreter if required. |
136 |
|
137 |
Most of the following commands simply run one or more steps of this |
138 |
sequence. |
139 |
|
140 |
To force recompilation or reinstallation, you need to run F<staticperl |
141 |
distclean> first. |
142 |
|
143 |
=over 4 |
144 |
|
145 |
=item F<staticperl fetch> |
146 |
|
147 |
Runs only the download and unpack phase, unless this has already happened. |
148 |
|
149 |
=item F<staticperl configure> |
150 |
|
151 |
Configures the unpacked perl sources, potentially after downloading them first. |
152 |
|
153 |
=item F<staticperl build> |
154 |
|
155 |
Builds the configured perl sources, potentially after automatically |
156 |
configuring them. |
157 |
|
158 |
=item F<staticperl install> |
159 |
|
160 |
Wipes the perl installation directory (usually F<~/.staticperl/perl>) and |
161 |
installs the perl distribution, potentially after building it first. |
162 |
|
163 |
=item F<staticperl cpan> [args...] |
164 |
|
165 |
Starts an interactive CPAN shell that you can use to install further |
166 |
modules. Installs the perl first if necessary, but apart from that, |
167 |
no magic is involved: you could just as well run it manually via |
168 |
F<~/.staticperl/perl/bin/cpan>. |
169 |
|
170 |
Any additional arguments are simply passed to the F<cpan> command. |
171 |
|
172 |
=item F<staticperl instcpan> module... |
173 |
|
174 |
Tries to install all the modules given and their dependencies, using CPAN. |
175 |
|
176 |
Example: |
177 |
|
178 |
staticperl instcpan EV AnyEvent::HTTPD Coro |
179 |
|
180 |
=item F<staticperl instsrc> directory... |
181 |
|
182 |
In the unlikely case that you have unpacked perl modules around and want |
183 |
to install from these instead of from CPAN, you can do this using this |
184 |
command by specifying all the directories with modules in them that you |
185 |
want to have built. |
186 |
|
187 |
=item F<staticperl clean> |
188 |
|
189 |
Runs F<make distclean> in the perl source directory (and potentially |
190 |
cleans up other intermediate files). This can be used to clean up |
191 |
intermediate files without removing the installed perl interpreter. |
192 |
|
193 |
=item F<staticperl distclean> |
194 |
|
195 |
This wipes your complete F<~/.staticperl> directory. Be careful with this, |
196 |
it nukes your perl download, perl sources, perl distribution and any |
197 |
installed modules. It is useful if you wish to start over "from scratch" |
198 |
or when you want to uninstall F<staticperl>. |
199 |
|
200 |
=back |
201 |
|
202 |
=head2 PHASE 2 COMMANDS: BUILDING PERL BUNDLES |
203 |
|
204 |
Building (linking) a new F<perl> binary is handled by a separate |
205 |
script. To make it easy to use F<staticperl> from a F<chroot>, the script |
206 |
is embedded into F<staticperl>, which will write it out and call for you |
207 |
with any arguments you pass: |
208 |
|
209 |
staticperl mkbundle mkbundle-args... |
210 |
|
211 |
In the oh so unlikely case of something not working here, you |
212 |
can run the script manually as well (by default it is written to |
213 |
F<~/.staticperl/mkbundle>). |
214 |
|
215 |
F<mkbundle> is a more conventional command and expect the argument |
216 |
syntax commonly used on UNIX clones. For example, this command builds |
217 |
a new F<perl> binary and includes F<Config.pm> (for F<perl -V>), |
218 |
F<AnyEvent::HTTPD>, F<URI> and a custom F<httpd> script (from F<eg/httpd> |
219 |
in this distribution): |
220 |
|
221 |
# first make sure we have perl and the required modules |
222 |
staticperl instcpan AnyEvent::HTTPD |
223 |
|
224 |
# now build the perl |
225 |
staticperl mkperl -M'"Config_heavy.pl"' -MAnyEvent::Impl::Perl \ |
226 |
-MAnyEvent::HTTPD -MURI::http \ |
227 |
--add 'eg/httpd httpd.pm' |
228 |
|
229 |
# finally, invoke it |
230 |
./perl -Mhttpd |
231 |
|
232 |
As you can see, things are not quite as trivial: the L<Config> module has |
233 |
a hidden dependency which is not even a perl module (F<Config_heavy.pl>), |
234 |
L<AnyEvent> needs at least one event loop backend that we have to |
235 |
specify manually (here L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>), and the F<URI> module |
236 |
(required by L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>) implements various URI schemes as extra |
237 |
modules - since L<AnyEvent::HTTPD> only needs C<http> URIs, we only need |
238 |
to include that module. I found out about these dependencies by carefully |
239 |
watching any error messages about missing modules... |
240 |
|
241 |
=head3 OPTION PROCESSING |
242 |
|
243 |
All options can be given as arguments on the command line (typically |
244 |
using long (e.g. C<--verbose>) or short option (e.g. C<-v>) style). Since |
245 |
specifying a lot of modules can make the command line very cumbersome, |
246 |
you can put all long options into a "bundle specification file" (with or |
247 |
without C<--> prefix) and specify this bundle file instead. |
248 |
|
249 |
For example, the command given earlier could also look like this: |
250 |
|
251 |
staticperl mkperl httpd.bundle |
252 |
|
253 |
And all options could be in F<httpd.bundle>: |
254 |
|
255 |
use "Config_heavy.pl" |
256 |
use AnyEvent::Impl::Perl |
257 |
use AnyEvent::HTTPD |
258 |
use URI::http |
259 |
add eg/httpd httpd.pm |
260 |
|
261 |
All options that specify modules or files to be added are processed in the |
262 |
order given on the command line (that affects the C<--use> and C<--eval> |
263 |
options at the moment). |
264 |
|
265 |
=head3 MKBUNDLE OPTIONS |
266 |
|
267 |
=over 4 |
268 |
|
269 |
=item --verbose | -v |
270 |
|
271 |
Increases the verbosity level by one (the default is C<1>). |
272 |
|
273 |
=item --quiet | -q |
274 |
|
275 |
Decreases the verbosity level by one. |
276 |
|
277 |
=item --strip none|pod|ppi |
278 |
|
279 |
Specify the stripping method applied to reduce the file of the perl |
280 |
sources included. |
281 |
|
282 |
The default is C<pod>, which uses the L<Pod::Strip> module to remove all |
283 |
pod documentation, which is very fast and reduces file size a lot. |
284 |
|
285 |
The C<ppi> method uses L<PPI> to parse and condense the perl sources. This |
286 |
saves a lot more than just L<Pod::Strip>, and is generally safer, but |
287 |
is also a lot slower, so is best used for production builds. Note that |
288 |
this method doesn't optimise for raw file size, but for best compression |
289 |
(that means that the uncompressed file size is a bit larger, but the files |
290 |
compress better, e.g. with F<upx>). |
291 |
|
292 |
Last not least, in the unlikely case where C<pod> is too slow, or some |
293 |
module gets mistreated, you can specify C<none> to not mangle included |
294 |
perl sources in any way. |
295 |
|
296 |
=item --perl |
297 |
|
298 |
After writing out the bundle files, try to link a new perl interpreter. It |
299 |
will be called F<perl> and will be left in the current working |
300 |
directory. The bundle files will be removed. |
301 |
|
302 |
This switch is automatically used when F<staticperl> is invoked with the |
303 |
C<mkperl> command (instead of C<mkbundle>): |
304 |
|
305 |
# build a new ./perl with only common::sense in it - very small :) |
306 |
staticperl mkperl -Mcommon::sense |
307 |
|
308 |
=item --use module | -Mmodule |
309 |
|
310 |
Include the named module and all direct dependencies. This is done by |
311 |
C<require>'ing the module in a subprocess and tracing which other modules |
312 |
and files it actually loads. If the module uses L<AutoLoader>, then all |
313 |
splitfiles will be included as well. |
314 |
|
315 |
Example: include AnyEvent and AnyEvent::Impl::Perl. |
316 |
|
317 |
staticperl mkbundle --use AnyEvent --use AnyEvent::Impl::Perl |
318 |
|
319 |
Sometimes you want to load old-style "perl libraries" (F<.pl> files), or |
320 |
maybe other weirdly named files. To do that, you need to quote the name in |
321 |
single or double quotes. When given on the command line, you probably need |
322 |
to quote once more to avoid your shell interpreting it. Common cases that |
323 |
need this are F<Config_heavy.pl> and F<utf8_heavy.pl>. |
324 |
|
325 |
Example: include the required files for F<perl -V> to work in all its |
326 |
glory (F<Config.pm> is included automatically by this). |
327 |
|
328 |
# bourne shell |
329 |
staticperl mkbundle --use '"Config_heavy.pl"' |
330 |
|
331 |
# bundle specification file |
332 |
use "Config_heavy.pl" |
333 |
|
334 |
The C<-Mmodule> syntax is included as an alias that might be easier to |
335 |
remember than C<use>. Or maybe it confuses people. Time will tell. Or |
336 |
maybe not. Argh. |
337 |
|
338 |
=item --eval "perl code" | -e "perl code" |
339 |
|
340 |
Sometimes it is easier (or necessary) to specify dependencies using perl |
341 |
code, or maybe one of the modules you use need a special use statement. In |
342 |
that case, you can use C<eval> to execute some perl snippet or set some |
343 |
variables or whatever you need. All files C<require>'d or C<use>'d in the |
344 |
script are included in the final bundle. |
345 |
|
346 |
Keep in mind that F<mkbundle> will only C<require> the modules named |
347 |
by the C<--use> option, so do not expect the symbols from modules you |
348 |
C<--use>'d earlier on the command line to be available. |
349 |
|
350 |
Example: force L<AnyEvent> to detect a backend and therefore include it |
351 |
in the final bundle. |
352 |
|
353 |
staticperl mkbundle --eval 'use AnyEvent; AnyEvent::detect' |
354 |
|
355 |
# or like this |
356 |
staticperl mkbundle -MAnyEvent --eval 'use AnyEvent; AnyEvent::detect' |
357 |
|
358 |
Example: use a separate "bootstrap" script that C<use>'s lots of modules |
359 |
and include this in the final bundle, to be executed automatically. |
360 |
|
361 |
staticperl mkbundle --eval 'do "bootstrap"' --boot bootstrap |
362 |
|
363 |
=item --boot filename |
364 |
|
365 |
Include the given file in the bundle and arrange for it to be executed |
366 |
(using a C<require>) before anything else when the new perl is |
367 |
initialised. This can be used to modify C<@INC> or anything else before |
368 |
the perl interpreter executes scripts given on the command line (or via |
369 |
C<-e>). This works even in an embedded interpreter. |
370 |
|
371 |
=item --add "file" | --add "file alias" |
372 |
|
373 |
Adds the given (perl) file into the bundle (and optionally call it |
374 |
"alias"). This is useful to include any custom files into the bundle. |
375 |
|
376 |
Example: embed the file F<httpd> as F<httpd.pm> when creating the bundle. |
377 |
|
378 |
staticperl mkperl --add "httpd httpd.pm" |
379 |
|
380 |
It is also a great way to add any custom modules: |
381 |
|
382 |
# specification file |
383 |
add file1 myfiles/file1 |
384 |
add file2 myfiles/file2 |
385 |
add file3 myfiles/file3 |
386 |
|
387 |
=item --static |
388 |
|
389 |
When C<--perl> is also given, link statically instead of dynamically. The |
390 |
default is to link the new perl interpreter fully dynamic (that means all |
391 |
perl modules are linked statically, but all external libraries are still |
392 |
referenced dynamically). |
393 |
|
394 |
Keep in mind that Solaris doesn't support static linking at all, and |
395 |
systems based on GNU libc don't really support it in a usable fashion |
396 |
either. Try uClibc if you want to create fully statically linked |
397 |
executables, or try the C<--staticlibs> option to link only some libraries |
398 |
statically. |
399 |
|
400 |
=item any other argument |
401 |
|
402 |
Any other argument is interpreted as a bundle specification file, which |
403 |
supports most long options (without extra quoting), one option per line. |
404 |
|
405 |
=back |
406 |
|
407 |
=head2 F<STATCPERL> CONFIGURATION AND HOOKS |
408 |
|
409 |
During (each) startup, F<staticperl> tries to source the following shell |
410 |
files in order: |
411 |
|
412 |
/etc/staticperlrc |
413 |
~/.staticperlrc |
414 |
$STATICPERL/rc |
415 |
|
416 |
They can be used to override shell variables, or define functions to be |
417 |
called at specific phases. |
418 |
|
419 |
Note that the last file is erased during F<staticperl distclean>, so |
420 |
generally should not be used. |
421 |
|
422 |
=head3 CONFIGURATION VARIABLES |
423 |
|
424 |
=head4 Variables you I<should> override |
425 |
|
426 |
=over 4 |
427 |
|
428 |
=item C<EMAIL> |
429 |
|
430 |
The e-mail address of the person who built this binary. Has no good |
431 |
default, so should be specified by you. |
432 |
|
433 |
=back |
434 |
|
435 |
=head4 Variables you might I<want> to override |
436 |
|
437 |
=over 4 |
438 |
|
439 |
=item C<PERLVER> |
440 |
|
441 |
The perl version to install - default is currently C<5.12.2>, but C<5.8.9> |
442 |
is also a good choice (5.8.9 is much smaller than 5.12.2, while 5.10.1 is |
443 |
about as big as 5.12.2). |
444 |
|
445 |
=item C<CPAN> |
446 |
|
447 |
The URL of the CPAN mirror to use (e.g. L<http://mirror.netcologne.de/cpan/>). |
448 |
|
449 |
=item C<EXTRA_MODULES> |
450 |
|
451 |
Additional modules installed during F<staticperl install>. Here you can |
452 |
set which modules you want have to installed from CPAN. |
453 |
|
454 |
Example: I really really need EV, AnyEvent, Coro and IO::AIO. |
455 |
|
456 |
EXTRA_MODULES="EV AnyEvent Coro IO::AIO" |
457 |
|
458 |
Note that you can also use a C<postinstall> hook to achieve this, and |
459 |
more. |
460 |
|
461 |
=item C<PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT>, C<EV_EXTRA_DEFS>, ... |
462 |
|
463 |
Usually set to C<1> to make modules "less inquisitive" during their |
464 |
installation, you can set any environment variable you want - some modules |
465 |
(such as L<Coro> or L<EV>) use environment variables for further tweaking. |
466 |
|
467 |
=item C<STATICPERL> |
468 |
|
469 |
The directory where staticperl stores all its files |
470 |
(default: F<~/.staticperl>). |
471 |
|
472 |
=item C<PREFIX> |
473 |
|
474 |
The prefix where perl gets installed (default: F<$STATICPERL/perl>), |
475 |
i.e. where the F<bin> and F<lib> subdirectories will end up. |
476 |
|
477 |
=item C<PERL_CPPFLAGS>, C<PERL_OPTIMIZE>, C<PERL_LDFLAGS>, C<PERL_LIBS> |
478 |
|
479 |
These flags are passed to perl's F<Configure> script, and are generally |
480 |
optimised for small size (at the cost of performance). Since they also |
481 |
contain subtle workarounds around various build issues, changing these |
482 |
usually requires understanding their default values - best look at the top |
483 |
of the F<staticperl> script for more info on these. |
484 |
|
485 |
=back |
486 |
|
487 |
=head4 Variables you probably I<do not want> to override |
488 |
|
489 |
=over 4 |
490 |
|
491 |
=item C<MKBUNDLE> |
492 |
|
493 |
Where F<staticperl> writes the C<mkbundle> command to |
494 |
(default: F<$STATICPERL/mkbundle>). |
495 |
|
496 |
=item C<STATICPERL_MODULES> |
497 |
|
498 |
Additional modules needed by C<mkbundle> - should therefore not be changed |
499 |
unless you know what you are doing. |
500 |
|
501 |
=back |
502 |
|
503 |
=head3 OVERRIDABLE HOOKS |
504 |
|
505 |
In addition to environment variables, it is possible to provide some |
506 |
shell functions that are called at specific times. To provide your own |
507 |
commands, just define the corresponding function. |
508 |
|
509 |
Example: install extra modules from CPAN and from some directories |
510 |
at F<staticperl install> time. |
511 |
|
512 |
postinstall() { |
513 |
rm -rf lib/threads* # weg mit Schaden |
514 |
instcpan IO::AIO EV |
515 |
instsrc ~/src/AnyEvent |
516 |
instsrc ~/src/XML-Sablotron-1.0100001 |
517 |
instcpan Anyevent::AIO AnyEvent::HTTPD |
518 |
} |
519 |
|
520 |
=over 4 |
521 |
|
522 |
=item postconfigure |
523 |
|
524 |
Called after configuring, but before building perl. Current working |
525 |
directory is the perl source directory. |
526 |
|
527 |
Could be used to tailor/patch config.sh (followed by F<./Configure -S>) or |
528 |
do any other modifications. |
529 |
|
530 |
=item postbuild |
531 |
|
532 |
Called after building, but before installing perl. Current working |
533 |
directory is the perl source directory. |
534 |
|
535 |
I have no clue what this could be used for - tell me. |
536 |
|
537 |
=item postinstall |
538 |
|
539 |
Called after perl and any extra modules have been installed in C<$PREFIX>, |
540 |
but before setting the "installation O.K." flag. |
541 |
|
542 |
The current working directory is C<$PREFIX>, but maybe you should not rely |
543 |
on that. |
544 |
|
545 |
This hook is most useful to customise the installation, by deleting files, |
546 |
or installing extra modules using the C<instcpan> or C<instsrc> functions. |
547 |
|
548 |
The script must return with a zero exit status, or the installation will |
549 |
fail. |
550 |
|
551 |
=back |
552 |
|
553 |
=head1 AUTHOR |
554 |
|
555 |
Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de> |
556 |
http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/staticperl.html |