A virtual machine for using rake-compiler.

rake-compiler is totally awesome, and you should be using it if you maintain a Ruby gem with C or Java extensions to build native binaries for your users.

However, getting your local environment set up to build for all the assorted platforms can be a pain. Thankfully, we have the amazing tool Vagrant for "lightweight, reproducible, and portable development environments."

rake-compiler + Vagrant = easy native gems for all.

• Vagrant
• A supported Vagrant provider — VirtualBox, Hyper-V, and VMware Fusion should all work.

Easy-peasy:

$ git clone https://github.com/tjschuck/rake-compiler-dev-box.git $ cd rake-compiler-dev-box $ vagrant up 

That's it! Go grab a cup of coffee, though -- it can take a couple of minutes to build the first time.

Once you have your gem ready to package, clone or move your repo into the same directory as the rake-compiler-dev-box:

$ pwd /Users/tjschuck/Code/rake-compiler-dev-box $ git clone [email protected]:codahale/bcrypt-ruby.git Cloning into 'bcrypt-ruby'... [...], done. 

Now fire up your virtual machine (if you haven't already):

$ vagrant up 

And SSH in:

$ vagrant ssh 

You'll now be inside the virtual machine. The directory on your host machine with your gem in it and the scripts to build it will be mounted at /vagrant:

vagrant@precise32:~$ cd /vagrant vagrant@precise32:/vagrant$ ls bcrypt-ruby bin bootstrap.sh LICENSE.txt README.md sample_gem Vagrantfile 

To build all gem binaries (native, Java, and Windows versions), run:

vagrant@precise32:/vagrant$ package_all YOUR_GEM'S_DIR_NAME 

And wait for everything to build. Replace YOUR_GEM'S_DIR_NAME with the correct value -- above, it would be bcrypt-ruby. There's a sample_gem dir in there as well if you'd like to experiment.

All of your gem binaries will be put into pkg:

vagrant@precise32:/vagrant$ ls bcrypt-ruby/pkg/ bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0 bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0-x86-linux.gem bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0.gem bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0-x86-mingw32 bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0-java bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0-x86-mingw32.gem bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0-java.gem bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0-x86-mswin32-60 bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0-x86-linux bcrypt-ruby-3.1.0-x86-mswin32-60.gem 

Happy compiling!

Log out of the virtual machine (exit or ^D).

To shut down the virtual machine:

$ vagrant halt 

To start it up again:

$ vagrant up 

To completely remove the VM, clearing it from disk and destroying all contents:

$ vagrant destroy 

To reinstantiate it for future compiling, it can be recreated with:

$ vagrant up 

See the Vagrant docs for more info.

• Luis Lavena for rake-compiler
• rails-dev-box for the inspiration
• Harvest, my awesome employer. We're hiring!