Skip to content

Installation instructions for Unix

Jump to bottom
Hisham Muhammad edited this page Aug 9, 2023 · 26 revisions

First of all, get the latest ".tar.gz" package here.

The LuaRocks build system for Unix is based on a simple "configure" script and a Makefile. The "configure" script offers some flags that are useful for different models of use of LuaRocks. Run ./configure --help for details.

Quick start

1.Ubuntu/Debian user

To get a default installation of Lua and LuaRocks under /usr/local:

  • First, ensure that you have development tools installed on your system, otherwise run the command below to install them.
 -$ sudo apt install build-essential libreadline-dev unzip
  • Then to build and install Lua, run the following commands to download the package tar ball, extract, build and install it.
-$ curl -R -O http://www.lua.org/ftp/lua-5.3.5.tar.gz
-$ tar -zxf lua-5.3.5.tar.gz
-$ cd lua-5.3.5
-$ make linux test
-$ sudo make install

now Lua is installed.

  • Download and unpack latest ".tar.gz" file.
  • Run ./configure --with-lua-include=/usr/local/include. (This will attempt to detect your installation of Lua. If you get any error messages, see the section "Customizing your settings", below.)
  • Run make.
  • As superuser, run make install.

For more information and installation options, read on!

2. Yum-based distributions

 -$ sudo yum install libtermcap-devel ncurses-devel libevent-devel readline-devel

To get a default installation of Lua and LuaRocks under /usr/local:

  • Install Lua, using the appropriate methods for your system: for compiling Lua modules written in C you'll need the Lua library and headers (often available as a Lua "development" package in most distributions).
  • Download and unpack latest ".tar.gz" file.
  • Run ./configure --with-lua-include=/usr/local/include. (This will attempt to detect your installation of Lua. If you get any error messages, see the section "Customizing your settings", below.)
  • Run make.
  • As superuser, run make install.

For more information and installation options, read on!

The default settings

The default settings are suitable for installing LuaRocks globally in your system while allowing both system-wide and per-user sets of rocks. User accounts will be able to install their own rocks in their $HOME directory, and the superuser can install rocks that will be available for everyone.

By default LuaRocks will install itself in /usr/local, like Lua, and will use /usr/local/etc/luarocks/config.lua as a default path for the configuration file. The default system-wide rocks trees is configured as /usr/local/lib/luarocks, and per-user rocks install at $HOME/.luarocks/rocks/. Command-line scripts provided by rocks will be installed in /usr/local/lib/luarocks/bin/ or $HOME/.luarocks/bin/, respectively. The user may then add these directories to their $PATH variable.

Customizing your settings

All paths described above can be overridden with flags in the configure script, or entries in the configuration file. These are the supported flags, as presented by the --help option:

Installation directories:
  --prefix=PREFIX              Directory where LuaRocks should be installed
                               [/usr/local]

By default, `make install' will install all the files in `/usr/local',
`/usr/local/lib' etc.  You can specify an installation prefix other than
`/usr/local/' using `--prefix', for instance `--prefix=$HOME'.

For better control, use the options below.

Fine tuning of the installation directories:
  --sysconfdir=SYSCONFDIR      Directory for single-machine config [PREFIX/etc]

Where to install files provided by rocks:
  --rocks-tree=DIR             Root of the local tree of installed rocks.
                               To make files installed in this location
                               accessible to Lua and your $PATH, see
                               "luarocks path --help" after installation.
                               Avoid using paths controlled by your
                               system's package manager, such as /usr.
                               - Default is [PREFIX]

Where is your Lua interpreter:
  --lua-version=VERSION        Use specific Lua version: 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, or 5.4
                               - Default is auto-detected.
  --with-lua-bin=LUA_BINDIR    Location of your Lua binar(y/ies).
                               - Default is the directory of the
                               auto-detected Lua interpreter,
                               (or DIR/bin if --with-lua is used)
  --with-lua=LUA_DIR           Use Lua from given directory. [LUA_BINDIR/..]
  --with-lua-include=DIR       Lua's includes dir. [LUA_DIR/include]
  --with-lua-lib=DIR           Lua's libraries dir. [LUA_DIR/lib]
  --with-lua-interpreter=NAME  Lua interpreter name.
                               - Default is to auto-detected

For specialized uses of LuaRocks:
  --force-config               Force using a single config location.
                               Do not honor the $LUAROCKS_CONFIG_5_x
                               or $LUAROCKS_CONFIG environment
                               variable or the user's local config.
                               Useful to avoid conflicts when LuaRocks
                               is embedded within an application.
  --disable-incdir-check       If you do not wish to use "luarocks build",
                               (e.g. when only deploying binary packages)
                               you do not need lua.h installed. This flag
                               skips the check for lua.h in "configure".

After installation, a default config file called config.lua will be installed at the directory defined by --sysconfdir. For further configuration of LuaRocks paths, see the Config file format.

Next steps

Once LuaRocks is installed, learn more about Using LuaRocks.

Clone this wiki locally