ginst

ginst (short for generic installer) a tool used to install programs according to self written configurations.

The tool takes a .json file and tries to execute the commands given.

Note: It's currently only tested on Linux.

Requirements

• rust (cargo)
• git

Installation (as of now)

git clone https://github.com/Sebbito/FTI.git
cd ginst/
cargo build -r
sudo cp ./target/debug/ginst ~/.local/bin/

Info: This assumes that ~/.local/bin/ is in your PATH.

Usage

ginst --file path/to/programs.json

...it really can't do more than that as of now.

Configuring

Right now the only way to configure the tool is through the programs.json file (which has to be in the working dir). There you can specify a program with installations per distribution and dependencies.

See the example.json on how ginst expects the .json to look like.

The .json file has the following structure:

{
    "programs": [
        ...
    ]
}

Where each program has a structure of:

{
    "name": "<name>",
    "installation": {
        "<dist-name1>,<dist-name2>": [
            "<bash-command1>",
            "<bash-command2>"
        ]
    },
    "configuration": {
        "<dist-name1>,<dist-name2>": [
            "<bash-command1>",
            "<bash-command2>"
        ]
    },
    "dependencies": {
        "programs": [
            ...
        ]
    }
}

Some things that are worth noting:

• The dependencies attribute is also just a list of programs, meaning you can add as many dependencies and nest this as deep as you want to.
• Also there is the option to specify multiple distributions in one line separated by commas !without spaces! for which the installation instructions apply. You can also use a '*' instead of a regular distribution name to execute the steps for all distros. The distribution will be read out of /etc/os-release so make sure you name it like you see it in there or like the list further down.
• You can specify multiple commands for installing or configuring.

Troubleshooting

Q: The programm doesn't start with the error:

Could not parse json file. Maybe you forgot a comma somewhere?

A: Well the answer is right there. The json could not be parsed. Make sure that you follow the outlined structure and have no syntax error.

os-release names

Make sure you use one of these in your .json:

• Fedora Linux
• Ubuntu
• Debian GNU/Linux
• openSUSE Tumbleweed
• etc.