# Installing Apptainer

Since you are reading this from the Apptainer source code, it will be assumed
that you are building/compiling from source.

For more complete instructions on installation options, including options
that install Apptainer from pre-compiled binaries, please check the
[installation section of the admin guide](https://apptainer.org/docs/admin/main/installation.html).

## Install system dependencies

You must first install development tools and libraries to your host.

On Debian-based systems, including Ubuntu:

```sh
# Ensure repositories are up-to-date
sudo apt-get update
# Install debian packages for dependencies
sudo apt-get install -y \
    build-essential \
    libseccomp-dev \
    libtalloc-dev \
    libattr1-dev \
    libprotobuf-c-dev \
    uidmap \
    fakeroot \
    cryptsetup \
    tzdata \
    dh-apparmor \
    curl wget git
```

Including for libsubid support (requires at least Ubuntu Noble or Debian Bookworm):

```sh
sudo apt-get install -y libsubid-dev
```

On RHEL or its derivatives or Fedora:

```sh
# Install basic tools for compiling
sudo dnf groupinstall -y 'Development Tools'
# Ensure EPEL repository is available (skip on Fedora)
sudo dnf install -y epel-release
# Enable the CodeReady Builder repository (skip on Fedora)
sudo crb enable
# Install RPM packages for dependencies
sudo dnf install -y \
    libseccomp-devel \
    libtalloc-devel \
    libattr-devel \
    protobuf-c-devel \
    fakeroot \
    cryptsetup \
    wget git
```

For including libsubid support, use --enablerepo=devel for el8 and el9 but not
for el10 or fedora:

```sh
sudo dnf --enablerepo=devel install -y shadow-utils-subid-devel
```

On SLE/openSUSE

```sh
# Install basic tools for compiling
# --replacefiles is needed to avoid pam conflict on Tumbleweed
sudo zypper install -y --replacefiles --allow-downgrade -t pattern devel_basis
# Install RPM packages for dependencies
sudo zypper install -y \
  libseccomp-devel \
  libtalloc-devel \
  libattr-devel \
  libprotobuf-c-devel \
  libuuid-devel \
  openssl-devel \
  fakeroot \
  cryptsetup sysuser-tools \
  diffutils wget which git
```

For libsubid support (requires openSUSE Tumbleweed):

```sh
sudo zypper install -y --allow-downgrade libsubid-devel
```

## Install Go

Apptainer is written in Go, and may require a newer version of Go than is
available in the repositories of your distribution. We recommend installing the
latest version of Go from the [official binaries](https://golang.org/dl/).

First, download the Go tar.gz archive to `/tmp`, then extract the archive to
`/usr/local`.

_**NOTE:** if you are updating Go from a older version, make sure you remove
`/usr/local/go` before reinstalling it._

```sh
export GOVERSION=1.25.7 OS=linux ARCH=amd64  # change this as you need

wget -O /tmp/go${GOVERSION}.${OS}-${ARCH}.tar.gz \
  https://dl.google.com/go/go${GOVERSION}.${OS}-${ARCH}.tar.gz
sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf /tmp/go${GOVERSION}.${OS}-${ARCH}.tar.gz
```

Finally, add `/usr/local/go/bin` to the `PATH` environment variable:

```sh
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
```

## Install golangci-lint

If you will be making changes to the source code, and submitting PRs, you should
install `golangci-lint`, which is the linting tool used in the Apptainer
project to ensure code consistency.

Every pull request must pass the `golangci-lint` checks, and these will be run
automatically before attempting to merge the code. If you are modifying
Apptainer and contributing your changes to the repository, it's faster to run
these checks locally before uploading your pull request.

In order to download and install the latest version of `golangci-lint`, you can
run:

<!-- markdownlint-disable MD013 -->

```sh
curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/golangci/golangci-lint/master/install.sh | sh -s -- -b $(go env GOPATH)/bin v2.3.1
```

<!-- markdownlint-enable MD013 -->

Add `$(go env GOPATH)` to the `PATH` environment variable:

```sh
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
```

## Clone the repo

With the adoption of Go modules you no longer need to clone the Apptainer
repository to a specific location.

Clone the repository with `git` in a location of your choice:

```sh
git clone https://github.com/apptainer/apptainer.git
cd apptainer
```

By default your clone will be on the `main` branch which is where development
of Apptainer happens.
To build a specific version of Apptainer, check out a
[release tag](https://github.com/apptainer/apptainer/tags) before compiling,
for example:

```sh
git checkout v1.5.1
```

## Compiling Apptainer

You can configure, build, and install Apptainer using the following commands:

```sh
./mconfig
cd $(/bin/pwd)/builddir
make
sudo make install
```

Now you can check your Apptainer version by running:

```sh
apptainer --version
```

The `mconfig` command accepts options that can modify the build and installation
of Apptainer. For example, to build in a different folder and to set the
install prefix to a different path:

```sh
./mconfig -b ./buildtree -p /usr/local
```

If you want a setuid-installation (formerly the default) use the
`--with-suid` option.

See the output of `./mconfig -h` for available options.

## Compiling dependent FUSE-based packages

In most cases Apptainer uses FUSE-based packages in order to mount
filesystems.  Often some of these packages are available in Linux
distributions but are out of date for Apptainer needs, so they need to be
compiled and installed with Apptainer following these directions.

First, make sure that additional required packages are installed.  On Debian:

```sh
sudo apt-get install -y autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libfuse3-dev \
    zlib1g-dev liblzo2-dev liblz4-dev liblzma-dev libzstd-dev
```

On RHEL or derivatives:

```sh
sudo dnf install -y fuse3-devel lzo-devel lz4-devel
```

On SLE/openSUSE:

```sh
sudo zypper install -y --allow-downgrade gzip fuse3-devel \
    lzo-devel liblz4-devel xz-devel libzstd-devel
```

To download the source code from the top level of the Apptainer source
tree do:

```sh
./scripts/download-dependencies
```

Then to compile and install do this:

```sh
./scripts/compile-dependencies
sudo ./scripts/install-dependencies
```

## Apparmor Profile (Ubuntu 23.10+)

Beginning with the 23.10 release and including the 24.04 LTS release,
Ubuntu does not permit applications to create unprivileged user
namespaces by default.

If you install Apptainer from a GitHub release `.deb` package then an
apparmor profile will be installed that permits Apptainer to create
unprivileged user namespaces.

If you install Apptainer from source you must either configure apparmor or
disable the restriction on unprivileged user namespaces.
To create an apparmor profile:

```sh
sudo tee /etc/apparmor.d/apptainer << 'EOF'
# Permit unprivileged user namespace creation for apptainer starter
abi <abi/4.0>,
include <tunables/global>
profile apptainer /usr/local/libexec/apptainer/bin/starter{,-suid} 
    flags=(unconfined) {
  userns,
  # Site-specific additions and overrides. See local/README for details.
  include if exists <local/apptainer>
}
EOF
```

Modify the path beginning `/usr/local` if you specified a non-default `--prefix`
when configuring and installing Apptainer.

Reload the system apparmor profiles after you have created the file:

```sh
sudo systemctl reload apparmor
```

Apptainer will now be able to create unprivileged user namespaces on your
system.

If instead you want to allow unprivileged users to create any unprivileged user
namespace do the following:

```sh
sudo sh -c 'echo kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns=0 \
    >/etc/sysctl.d/90-disable-userns-restrictions.conf'
sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/90-disable-userns-restrictions.conf
```

## Building & Installing from RPM

On a RHEL / Fedora /SUSE machine you can build an Apptainer into rpm
packages, and install it from them. This is useful if you need to install
Apptainer across multiple machines, or wish to manage all software via
`dnf` (or `zypper` for SUSE).

To build the rpms, in addition to the
[system dependencies](#install-system-dependencies)
and the extra required packages needed for
[dependent FUSE-based packages](#compiling-dependent-fuse-based-packages),
also install these extra packages:

```sh
sudo dnf install -y rpm-build golang
```

or on SLE/openSUSE:

```sh
sudo zypper install -y rpm-build go
```

The rpm build will use the OS distribution or EPEL version of Go,
or it will use a different installation of Go, whichever is first in $PATH.
If the first `go` found in $PATH is too old,
then the rpm build uses that older version to compile the newer go
toolchain from source.
This mechanism is necessary for rpm build systems that do not allow
downloading anything from the internet.
In order to make use of this mechanism, use the `mconfig --only-rpm` option
to skip the minimum version check.
`mconfig` will then create a `.spec` file that looks for a go source
tarball in the rpm build's current directory.
If you need it, download the go tarball:

```sh
wget https://dl.google.com/go/go$(scripts/get-min-go-version).src.tar.gz
```

Then download the latest
[apptainer release tarball](https://github.com/apptainer/apptainer/releases):

<!-- markdownlint-disable MD013 -->

```sh
VERSION=1.5.1  # this is the apptainer version, change as you need
# Fetch the source
wget https://github.com/apptainer/apptainer/releases/download/v${VERSION}/apptainer-${VERSION}.tar.gz
```

Next download the source for the FUSE-based dependencies:

```sh
tar xvf apptainer-${VERSION}.tar.gz apptainer-${VERSION}/scripts
tar xvf apptainer-${VERSION}.tar.gz apptainer-${VERSION}/dist/rpm
cd apptainer-${VERSION}
./scripts/download-dependencies ..
cd ..
rm -rf apptainer-${VERSION}
```

Then build the rpms from the tarball:

```sh
rpmbuild -tb apptainer-${VERSION}.tar.gz
# Install Apptainer using the resulting rpm
RPMVERSION="$(scripts/rpm-version "${VERSION}")"
sudo rpm -Uvh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/apptainer-${RPMVERSION}-1.el8.x86_64.rpm
# (Optionally) Install the setuid-root portion
sudo rpm -Uvh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/apptainer-suid-${RPMVERSION}-1.el8.x86_64.rpm
# (Optionally) Remove the build tree, source, and dependencies
rm -rf ~/rpmbuild apptainer-${VERSION}.tar.gz
./scripts/clean-dependencies

```

<!-- markdownlint-enable MD013 -->

Alternatively, to build RPMs from the latest source code you can
[clone the repo as detailed above](#clone-the-repo), and run `./mconfig`.
Then use the `rpm` make target to build Apptainer as rpm packages,
for example like this if you already have a new enough golang first
in your PATH:

<!-- markdownlint-disable MD013 -->

```sh
./mconfig
./scripts/download-dependencies
make -C builddir rpm
VERSION="$(scripts/get-version)"
RPMVERSION="$(scripts/rpm-version ${VERSION})"
sudo rpm -ivh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/apptainer-${RPMVERSION}-1.x86_64.rpm 
# (Optionally) Install the setuid-root portion
sudo rpm -ivh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/apptainer-suid-${RPMVERSION}-1.x86_64.rpm 
# (Optionally) Remove the build tree, source, and dependency sources
rm -rf ~/rpmbuild apptainer-${VERSION}.tar.gz
./scripts/clean-dependencies
```

<!-- markdownlint-enable MD013 -->

By default, the rpms will be built so that Apptainer is installed in
standard Linux paths under ``/``.

To build rpms with an alternative install prefix set RPMPREFIX on the make
step, for example:

```sh
make -C builddir rpm RPMPREFIX=/opt/apptainer
```

For more information on installing/updating/uninstalling RPMs, check out our
[admin docs](https://apptainer.org/docs/admin/main/admin_quickstart.html).

## Debian Package

Information on how to build Debian packages can be found in
[dist/debian/DEBIAN_PACKAGE.md](dist/debian/DEBIAN_PACKAGE.md).

## Run E2E tests

To run the E2E test suite see [e2e/README.md](e2e/README.md#running-the-e2e-suite).
