starch(1)

STandalone application ARCHiver

Section 1 coop-computing-tools bookworm source

Description

starch

NAME

starch - STandalone application ARCHiver

SYNOPSIS

starch [options] <sfx_path>

DESCRIPTION

Starch is a script that creates standalone application archives in the form of self-extracting executables (SFX). Users may specify the command, executables, libraries, data, and environment scripts associated with the application by specifying the appropriate command line options or by using a configuration file. starch is particularly useful for distributed computing, in that it makes an executable portable across different operating system variants.

OPTIONS

To create a SFX, simply specify the name of the SFX to create along with the <command> to execute and any other dependencies such as <executables>, <libraries>, <data>, or <environment> scripts.

If a <command> is specified, but no <executable> is passed, then the first token in the <command> will be used as the executable.

By default, starch will use ldd to detect any necessary libraries from the specified set of <executables> and include them in the SFX.

-A

Do not automatically detect library dependencies.

-C <cfg>

Use configuration file.

-c <cmd>

Specify command to execute.

-d <npath:opath>

Add data (new path:old path).

-e <env>

Add environment script.

-l <lib>

Add library.

-x <exe>

Add executable.

	-h		Show help message and exit.
	-v		Display verbose messages (default: False).

Once a SFX is generated, you can use it as a normal executable.

CONFIGURATION FILE

The command line options may be stored in a configuration file and passed to starch using the starch -C option. The format of the configuration file is as follows:

[starch]

executables = echo date hostname
libraries = libz.so
data = hosts.txt:/etc/hosts localtime:/etc/localtime images:/usr/share/pixmaps
command = echo $(hostname) $(date $@)

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

The following environment variables will affect the execution of the SFX generated by starch:

SFX_DIR

Determines the target directory where the SFX will be extracted. By default this is /tmp/$hostname.$user.$basename.dir.

SFX_EXTRACT_ONLY

Only extract the SFX. By default it is extracted and executed.

SFX_EXTRACT_FORCE

Extract the SFX even if the SFX_DIR exists. This is disabled by default to as an optimization to avoid unnecessarily extracting.

SFX_KEEP

Keep extracted files. By default the files will be removed after execution.

SFX_UNIQUE

Use mktempd to generate a unique SFX_DIR target directory. This will prevent SFX_KEEP from working properly since the names will change in between invocations.

EXIT STATUS

On success, returns zero. On failure, returns non-zero.

EXAMPLES

Package the date program:

$ starch -c date -x date date.sfx

Package the date program using a configuration file:

$ cat data.cfg
[starch]
executables = date
command = date
$ starch -C date.cfg date.sfx

Run standalone date program with parameters:

$ ./date.sfx +%s

Only extract the archive:

$ env SFX_EXTRACT_ONLY=1 ./date.sfx

Run and keep extracted directory:

$ env SFX_KEEP=1 ./date.sfx

Run with unique directory:

$ env SFX_UNIQUE=1 ./date.sfx

Advanced example involving a complex shell command:

$ starch -v -x tar -x rm -c ’tar_test() { for f in $@; do if ! tar xvf $f; then exit 1; fi; done; rm $@’; }; tar_test’ extract_and_remove.sfx
$ ./extract_and_remove.sfx *.tar.gz

	•		Cooperative Computing Tools Documentation
	•		Makeflow User Manual
	•		makeflow(1) makeflow_monitor(1) makeflow_analyze(1) makeflow_viz(1) makeflow_graph_log(1) starch(1) makeflow_ec2_setup(1) makeflow_ec2_cleanup(1) makeflow_ec2_estimate(1)