Build Status: <img src=“https://travis-ci.org/MagLev/maglev.png?branch=master” alt=“Build Status” />

• 64-bit hardware. There are no plans for a 32-bit version.

• 64-bit Linux, Mac OS X, or Solaris X86 operating system

• a version of ruby and rake to use during installation

• root access so you can increase default shared memory settings (only during initial install)

There are several ways to install MagLev:

• Install from GitHub

• Install with Ruby Version Manager (RVM)

• Install with ruby-build/rbenv

• Use the installer

This version is best for MagLev contributors and for developers who want to live on the bleeding edge or use git functionality. It can be less stable than the .tar.gz version.

Create a new directory on a local (not NFS) file system to hold the MagLev source tree and other files. Change to that directory, then:

1. Clone the MagLev github repository

   git clone git://github.com/MagLev/maglev.git

2. Install the VM. If this is the first time you’re installing MagLev, run:

   ./install.sh

   If you’ve already run installMaglev.sh on the machine, then you can use the update script:

   ./update.sh

To use MagLev, you need to run install.sh at least once. After that, every time you git pull, you need to run update.sh to ensure you have the corresponding GemStone 3.x binaries. Otherwise, you might get version skew that prevents MagLev from running correctly. Watch @MagLev for any ‘git only’ updates, but if you’re more than one update behind you still might need to run update.sh. You don’t need to know a version number to install. The installer/updater figures that out from the version.txt file.

You’ll have all the functionality of git, but unless you create a new clone for each release, you may be unable to revert to an earlier version. Why? The install/update script creates a new copy of the MagLev data repository including persistent kernel code. The scripts make one level of backup, but we are not providing migration scripts.

RVM is useful if you want to compare behavior of various Ruby implementations or versions of MagLev. Install using:

rvm install maglev

See the rvm home page for details of using RVM.

RVM will automatically start a MagLev server when you rvm use maglev. That server is left running if you rvm use any_other_Ruby.

To stop your MagLev server:

rvm use maglev
maglev stop

Note: maglev stop will only stop the version of MagLev currently in use. If you’re using more than one, you’ll have to maglev stop each of them – e.g.

rvm use maglev-1.0.0
maglev stop
rvm use maglev-head
maglev stop

ProTip: To kill all the MagLev servers rather than shut them down gracefully, run ps -ef | grep /sys/stoned and kill the stoned processes that show up. It takes a short time before they shut down, as they do a bit of cleanup first.

Note: When running rake from MagLev, you cannot perform tasks which affect MagLev itself, like rake maglev:stop. You have to use the bin/maglev shell script instead.

ruby-build is a plugin for rbenv that compiles and installs different Ruby implementations on Unix-like systems. rbenv lets you switch among different implementations of Ruby easily.

You can install MagLev with rbenv:

rbenv install maglev-1.0.0

or you can use ruby-build to install MagLev standalone:

ruby-build maglev-1.0.0 ~/local/maglev

Note: Change ~/local/maglev to wherever you want MagLev installed.

ruby-build basically runs install.sh with some friendly output.

You will have to start and stop the MagLev server using

maglev start
maglev stop

The ProTip above for RVM still applies.

1. Download and unzip MagLev-installer.zip

2. Run

   ./installMaglev.sh [VERSION]

   Where VERSION is the specific MagLev revsion you wish to install, e.g. 1.0.0

   installMaglev.sh runs one-time machine checks and configuration that ensure your hardware will run MagLev. These mostly relate to shared memory settings. It’s safe to run multiple times and it won’t overwrite things it’s already done.

The installer is somewhat verbose. That’s so you can more easily debug installation problems.

Note: Reverting to an older version is as simple as stopping MagLev, changing $MAGLEV_HOME to point to the prior version, and restarting.