Installing Catalyst

Note: check the BinaryBuilds page as well as this one.

As of June 2009, Catalyst 5.8, has just been released and based on the release schedule of Catalyst 5.7, it will get frequent bugfix and performance releases. The current version can be found by navigating to http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Runtime.

Following the instructions below will install the basic set of Catalyst modules, on top of which you can use CPAN to install the other modules you need for authentication, authorization, models and so on, typically by adding them as dependencies to your project's Makefile.PL and running:

make installdeps.

Installation from packages

Debian or Ubuntu

Some operating systems such as Debian or Ubuntu may already have precompiled Catalyst packages. See http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?searchon=names&keywords=catalyst or:

apt-cache search catalyst

To install on Ubuntu fire up System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager, search for "catalyst", then install:

• libcatalyst-perl - The Elegant MVC Web Application Framework

You may also want to install:

• libcatalyst-engine-apache-perl - Base class for Apache 1.x and 2.x Catalyst engines
• libcatalyst-model-cdbi-perl - CDBI Model Class for Catalyst
• libcatalyst-modules-extra-perl - Extra modules for Catalyst
• libcatalyst-modules-perl - Modules for Catalyst
• libcatalyst-plugin-formvalidator-perl - FormValidator for Catalyst
• libcatalyst-plugin-session-fastmmap-perl - FastMmap sessions for Catalyst
• libcatalyst-view-tt-perl - Template View Class for Catalyst
• libhtml-prototype-perl - Generate HTML and Javascript for the Prototype library

Fedora

Fedora has a number of Catalyst packages. For more details, see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Catalyst.

Windows

On Windows, you can find Catalyst packages in the http://ppm.tcool.org repository. If the 5.10 repository is not ready at the time you read this, use http://ppm.tcool.org/archives510/

Installation from CPAN

If precompiled packages aren't available, or if they are of an older version than the version of Catalyst you want to install, you can go the source installation route.

Before installation

Make sure your OS has a C compiler in the path (cc and gcc). On Debian/Ubuntu, run

apt-get install build-essential

Before installing Catalyst, make sure you have configured cpan (just run cpan). You may also want to update your cpan:

cpan
    install CPAN
    reload cpan

Installation

Just run cpan Catalyst::Devel and answer yes to all prompts (there will be a lot of them). To force an automatic "yes" to prompts, run

PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1 cpan Catalyst::Devel

On OS X

One of the dependencies on OS X is Mac::Carbon. That's pre-installed in the system provided perl, but will be pulled in by cpan if you use your own perl. Some of it's tests are broken on Leopard, so you may need to force install it before following the above directions.

Installation from source

If you want the latest bleeding edge version of Catalyst, you can check it out from SVN: http://dev.catalystframework.org/repos/Catalyst/Catalyst-Runtime/5.70/trunk/.

Alternative installation

For a quick but somewhat deprecated installation, download and execute mst's Shadowcat installer:

perl cat-install

This is a Perl script that interacts with CPAN to install Catalyst and its dependencies, with very little input from you. It requires perl 5.8.1+, a make utility and a compiler, a configured CPAN.pm and Module::Build installed.

Installation on Windows

Strawberry Perl is recommended over ActivePerl. Under Strawberry Perl 5.10.0.4, you can install Catalyst from CPAN (see above).

Installation on ActivePerl

If you're stuck with ActivePerl, and if you want to test the Catalyst installation (make test), install nmake 9 from VC-Express++. The older version of nmake (1.5) can't handle long command lines, and one particular test expands to a lot of .t files passed to nmake.

Then, install Catalyst::Runtime from the Command Prompt:

ppm install http://ppm.tcool.org/archives510/Catalyst-Runtime.ppd

Next, Install the following dependencies:

ppm install http://ppm.tcool.org/archives510/Catalyst-Plugin-ConfigLoader.ppd
ppm install http://ppm.tcool.org/archives510/Catalyst-Action-RenderView.ppd
ppm install http://ppm.tcool.org/archives510/Catalyst-Plugin-Static-Simple.ppd

Finally, install Catalyst::Devel:

ppm install http://ppm.tcool.org/archives510/Catalyst-Devel.ppd

If you encounter other dependencies, install them in a similar fashion from http://ppm.tcool.org/archives510/.

Installation on Solaris 10

Installing from CPAN on Solaris 10, with the OS Perl, works if you update CPAN first.

Installation without root

With an account that you are unable to get full access to you can use Local::Lib

Full instructions are on the Advent Calendar at http://www.catalystframework.org/calendar/2007/8.

Obsolete stuff

Note: Task::Catalyst is now obsolete.

Note: you may also notice an older package on the CPAN called Bundle::Catalyst .. this is for very old versions of Catalyst, and you do not want to install it.

Manual installation on Windows

The following are some relatively old installation instructions for Windows: http://catalyst.infogami.com/install/windows.

Upgrading Catalyst

To check your version of Catalyst:

perl -MCatalyst -e "print Catalyst->VERSION"

To see what the current version is, go to http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Runtime.

To upgrade:

cpan Catalyst::Devel
cpan Catalyst::Runtime

Troubleshooting

If you run into problems with installation, please verify that your environment is configured correctly. Strange things can happen if CPAN doesn't know where to find gcc, for example.

Help

The Catalyst mailing list or IRC channel (#catalyst on irc.perl.org) are resources to turn to if you are having difficulty getting everything installed.