2. Installation

2.1. Supported Platforms

PolyORB has been compiled and successfully tested on the following platforms:

  • AIX

  • FreeBSD

  • HP-UX

  • Linux

  • MacOS X

  • Solaris

  • Tru64

  • VxWorks

  • Windows

Note: PolyORB should compile and run on every target for which GNAT and the `GNAT.Sockets` package are available.

2.2. Build requirements

GNU tar is required to unpack PolyORB source packages.

GNU make 3.80 or newer is required to build PolyORB.

Ada compiler:

  • GNAT Pro 6.2.* or later

  • GNAT GPL 2009 or later

  • FSF GCC 4.4 or later

For builds for cross targets, both a native and a cross compiler are required, as some tools (like an IDL-to-Ada compiler) are meant for use on the build host.

A Python interpreter is required for installation.

Optional:

  • (Only for older versions of GNAT, and only if you want to build the CORBA application personality): A C++ compiler. The OMG IDL specification mandates that IDL source files be preprocessed according to standard C++ preprocessing rules. Newer versions of GNAT provide an integrated IDL preprocessor. This feature is detected and used automatically. However, for older versions of GNAT, PolyORB relies on an external preprocessor provided by a suitable C++ compiler. Please refer to the documentation of your particular version of GNAT to know if it supports this feature.

  • XML/Ada (http://libre.adacore.com/libre/tools/xmlada/) if you want to build the SOAP protocol personality.

Note: per construction, the macro configure used to find your GNAT compiler looks first for the executable gnatgcc, then adagcc and finally gcc to find out which Ada compiler to use. You should be very careful with your path and executables if you have multiple GNAT versions installed. See the explanation below on the ADA environment variable if you need to override the default guess.

2.3. Build instructions

Developers building PolyORB from the version control repository will first need to build the configure script and other support files.

To do so, from the top-level source directory, run the following command initially, and after each update from the repository:

$ support/reconfig

In addition to the requirements above, developers will need autoconf 2.60 or newer, automake 1.6.3 or newer, and libtool 1.5.8 or newer.

To compile and install PolyORB, execute:

$ ./configure [some options]
$ make
$ make install

This will install files in standard locations. If you want to choose a prefix other than /usr/local, give configure a –prefix=whereveryouwant argument.

2.4. Additional instructions for cross platforms

The RANLIB environment variable must be set to the path of the cross ranlib prior to running configure with the appropriate –target option.

For example, for VxWorks 5 execute:

$ export RANLIB=ranlibppc
$ ./configure --target=powerpc-wrs-vxworks [some options]
$ make
$ make install

Only one PolyORB installation (native or cross) is currently possible with a given –prefix. If both a native and a cross installation are needed on the same machine, distinct prefixes must be used.

Use ./configure –help for a full list of available configuration switches.

2.5. Building the documentation and PolyORB’s examples

PolyORB’s documentation and examples are built separately.

To build the examples, run make examples in the root directory. The build process will only build examples that correspond to the personalities you configured. Note that some examples require the CORBA COS Naming and IR services to be enabled (using –enable-corba-services=”naming ir” on the configure command line).

Similarly, to build the documentation, run make docs.

You may install PolyORB’s documentation in a standard location using make install.

2.6. Build Options

Available options for the ‘configure’ script include:

  • –with-appli-perso=”…”: application personalities to build

    Available personalities: CORBA, DSA, MOMA

    e.g. –with-appli-perso=”corba moma” to build both the CORBA and MOMA personalities

  • –with-proto-perso=”…”: protocol personalities to build

    Available personalities: GIOP, SOAP

    e.g. –with-proto-perso=”giop soap” to build both the GIOP and SOAP personalities

  • –with-idl-compiler=”…”: select IDL compiler

    Available IDL compilers: iac (default), idlac

    e.g. –with-idl-compiler=’’iac’’ to build iac

  • –with-corba-services=”…”: CORBA COS services to build

    Available services: event, ir, naming, notification, time

    e.g. –with-corba-services=”event naming” to build only COS Event and COS Naming.

By default, only the CORBA and GIOP personalities are built, and no CORBA Services are built.

  • –with-openssl: build SSL support and SSL dependent features, including the IIOP/SSLIOP personality

  • –help: list all options available

  • –enable-shared: build shared libraries.

  • –enable-debug: enable debugging information generation and supplementary runtime checks. Note that this option has a significant space and time cost, and is not recommended for production use.

2.7. Compiler, Tools and Run-Time libraries Options

The following environment variables can be used to override configure’s guess at what compilers to use:

  • CC: the C compiler

  • ADA: the Ada compiler (e.g. gcc, gnatgcc or adagcc)

  • CXXCPP, CXXCPPFLAGS: the preprocessor used by the IDL-to-Ada compiler (only when setting up the CORBA application personality). CORBA specifications require this preprocessor to be compatible with the preprocessing rules defined in the C++ programming language specifications.

For example, if you have two versions of GNAT installed and available in your PATH, and configure picks the wrong one, you can indicate what compiler should be used with the following (assuming Bourne shell syntax):

$ ADA=/path/to/good/compiler/gcc ./configure [options]

PolyORB will be compiled with GNAT build host’s configuration, including run-time library. You may override this setting using ADA_INCLUDE_PATH and ADA_OBJECTS_PATH environment variables. See GNAT User’s Guide for more details.

You can add specific build options to GNAT using the EXTRA_GNATMAKE_FLAGS variable:

$ EXTRA_GNATMAKE_FLAGS=--RTS=rts-sjlj ./configure [options]

You can also pass compiler-only flags using the ADAFLAGS variable.

2.8. Platform notes

Solaris (all versions):

/usr/ucb/tr and /usr/bin/tr are not suitable to build PolyORB. Your PATH must be set to that tr(1) is /use/xpg4/bin/tr or GNU tr. (However note that if you have GNU make in /usr/local/bin, then /usr/xpg4/bin must occur after /usr/local/bin in your PATH, since /usr/xpg4/bin/make is not suitable to build PolyORB.

So, assuming GNU make is installed in /usr/local/bin, a suitable PATH setting would be: PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/xpg4/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/bin.

Tru64 5.1A:

The default maximal data segment size may not be sufficient to compile PolyORB. If a GNAT heap exhausted error message occurs during build, try raising this limit using:

ulimit -d unlimited

AIX 5.2:

PolyORB must be compiled with the -mminimal-toc compiler switch. This is taken care of automatically by the PolyORB configure script.

The ‘ulimit’ command may be needed as for Tru64 (see above).

HP-UX 11.00:

The version of install(1) from /opt/imake/bin on HP-UX is not suitable for installing PolyORB. Make sure that /opt/imake/bin is not on the PATH when building and installing PolyORB.