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Building NSClient++

NSClient++ is fairly simple to build and setup. It requires python and cmake for the build process as well as a number of external libraries. This document is split between "Linux" and "Windows" since there is a substantial difference in how to build them. For people wanting a Apple osx version it can be built similarly to the Linux machines on that platform as well.

Linux

As dependencies vary between different Linux distributions the packages will be different. The best way to find and up-to-date list of dependencies is to review the various Dockerfiles found under the build/docker folder.

Some general requirements are:

  • cmake
  • python
  • openssl
  • libboost

Some modules will require additional dependencies such as NSCA require libcrypto, WEBServer require json-spirit. etc...

Getting the code from github

Next up we download the source code from github and it is important we specify --recursive here as git wont clone the submodule otherwise:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/mickem/nscp.git

Building NSClient++

Create a folder in which we will build the code (you can use the same on as the source but it is not recommended):

mkdir build
cd build

Run cmake to create the build files:

cmake ../nscp

Build the actual code:

make

Run the built-in test to make sure everything is working:

make test

Windows

Dependencies is a bit of a bother to manage on Windows since there is no general package mechanism for libraries. To help with the there is a script called fetch-deps.py which will help download and build all dependencies required.

Tools

All tools have to be installed manually by hand (fetchdeps only manages libraries):

  • CMake 2.6
  • Python 2.7 (Make sure the right python platform is in your path)
  • pip (Python package manager)
  • Visual Studio 2012 or later
  • For 2017 make sure you install "Windows Universal CRT SDK" and "Windows 8.1 SDK"
  • WiX 3.9 (or later)
  • Perl 5.12 (required by openssl)
  • A git client (if you want to fetch the git sources)

Validate all tools are in your path:

cmake --version
python -V
pip -V
perl -v
cl /?

Get the source code using git:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/mickem/nscp.git

Create a build folder:

mkdir build
cd build

Build all dependencies and required libraries (pick the right platform Win32 or x64):

nscp\build\python\fetchdeps.py --target --dyn --source --msver 


For instance:

python c:\source\nscp\build\python\fetchdeps.py --target x64 --dyn --source c:\source\nscp --msver 2017



Validate that we have all dependencies:

cmake -D TARGET=dist -D SOURCE=nscp -P nscp\check_deps.cmake


Build NSClient++ (If you don't know you your visual studio version name you can run cmake --help to list all available profiles):

cd dist cmake -G "VISUAL STUDIO GNERATOR STRING" ../nscp msbuild /p:Configuration=RelWithDebInfo NSCP.sln


## Docker

We provide a number of Dockerfiles which will build packages for various distributions.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/mickem/nscp.git

docker build -f build/docker/ --tag builder . docker run --rm -it --volume /packages:/tmp builder ```

The resulting packages will be found under /tmp given the above example.