Building BOINC Clients on Macintosh OSX

Written by Charlie Fenton
Last updated 7/22/05

This document has instructions for building BOINC for Macintosh OSX, plus information for building science projects to run under BOINC Macintosh OSX.

Building BOINC Manager with embedded Core Client plus libraries libboinc.a and libboinc_graphics_api.a

NOTE: Substitute the appropriate path for [wxpath] and [boincpath] throughout this document.  Typically, [boincpath] will end in "/boinc" or /boinc_public", and [wxpath] will end in "/wxMac-2.6.1".

These directions are for building under OS X version 10.4.x (Tiger) using XCode Developer Tools version 2.0, or OS X version 10.3.9 (Panther) using XCode 1.5.  

If you are building under OS 10.4, you must first install XCode's optional Cross-Development SDK for system 10.3.9 from the XCode Tools CD.  This guarantees that all builds are backward compatible to OS 10.3.9.  This is not necessary for building under OS 10.3.

If you are building with XCode 2.0 under OS 10.4, the default compiler is GCC 4.0.  Software compiled with GCC 4.0 cannot run on systems earlier than OS 10.3.9.  To ensure compatibility back to OS 10.3.0, all BOINC software must be compiled using GCC version 3.3.  

The BOINC XCode project is already set up to use GCC 3.3.  For builds from the command-line under OS 10.4, you must set the environment variables CC and CXX.  For the bash shell:

export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-3.3;export CXX=/usr/bin/g++-3.3

To make sure that other XCode projects (such as client science applications) use GCC 3.0, do the following:

In the XCode project, select your target under the Groups & Files column.  Press command-I to open the info window for the target, and select the "Rules" tab.  Press the "+" at the bottom of the window twice to create two new rules.  Set one rule for C sources to use GCC 3.3, set the other rule for C++ sources to use GCC 3.3.  Close the window.  Repeat this for each target in the project.

If you are building under OS 10.3.9, the default compiler is GCC 3.3, so these steps are not necessary (but they won't do any harm).

If you are building a science project to run under BOINC Macintosh OSX, be sure to read the last section of this document, titled "Building the BOINC SETI client application."

One-Time Setup for BOINC Manager and embedded Core Client

This section describes building the wxWidgets library for the Macintosh, wxMac-2.6.1.  This library is needed only by the BOINC Manager.  If you are not building the BOINC Manager, you can skip ahead to step (5) below.

XCode 1.5 installs autoconf version 2.57 and automake 1.63.  XCode 2.0 installs autoconf 2.59 and automake 1.63.  To determine the version number, type "autoconf --version" or "automake --version" .  Building wxMac-2.6.1 requires autoconf 2.59 and automake 1.93 or later.  Building the BOINC SETI application also requires these.

Upgrades for autoconf and automake are available from www.gnu.org.  XCode installed these utilities in the /usr/bin/ directory, but the upgrades by default will install in /usr/local/bin/.  If you install there, you must also set your PATH environment variable to include that location before proceeding with any of the steps below; type the following at the start of your terminal session:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

(1) First download wxMac-2.6.1 from www.wxwidgets.org and build it:
You will need to set the environment variables CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS as described below.  These commands are for the bash shell; use the equivalent commands if you are running a different UNIX shell.  Some of these environment variables allow the application to be built using the OS 10.3.9 compatibility SDK.

First set the CPPFlags environment variable. If you are building under OS 10.4:

export CPPFLAGS="-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk -DMAC_OS_X_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED=1030";export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-3.3;export CXX=/usr/bin/g++-3.3

If you are building under OS 10.3:

export CPPFLAGS="-DMAC_OS_X_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED=1030"

Then continue building wxMac-2.6.1:

cd [wxpath]

mkdir osx-build

cd osx-build

../configure --disable-shared --with-opengl --disable-webkit

If you are building under OS 10.4, set the LDFlags environment variable after the configure but before the make:
export LDFLAGS="-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk -Wl,-syslibroot,/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk"

make

(2) Open a new terminal window to reset your session environment variables and set the working directory:

cd [boincpath] 

(3) Create a  symbolic link [boincpath]/wx_lib pointing to 
[wxpath]/osx-build/lib/

For example, if the boinc, wxMac-2.6.1 directory is at [wxpath] then the command would be:
ln -s [wxpath]/osx-build/lib wx_lib

(4) Create a  symbolic link  [boincpath]/wxinclude pointing to 
[wxpath]/include

If the boinc, wxMac-2.6.1 directory is at [wxpath]:
ln -s [wxpath]/include wxinclude

(5) Create a  symbolic link  [boincpath]/jpeglib pointing to 
your jpeg-6b directory (or whatever directory contains the jpeglib source files). 

If the jpeg-6b directory is at [jpegpath]:
ln -s [jpegpath] jpeglib

Building the BOINC Manager with embedded Core Client, plus 
BOINC libraries, screensaver and helper applications

(1) Double-click on [boincpath]/mac_build/boinc.pbproj to launch the XCode development IDE with the BOINC project.

(2) Select the appropriate cross-development sdk as follows:
 - select the boinc project icon at the top of the Groups & Files column
 - press command-i to open the Project "boinc" info window.
 - In the "General" tab, set the popup menu "Cross-Develop Using Target SDK."   For OS 10.4, select "MacOSX10.3.9.sdk"; for OS 10.3 select "current Mac OS".

(3) In the Active Target popup, select mgr_boinc or Build_All.  Build_All also builds the three libraries libboinc_api.a, libboinc_graphics_api.a and libboinc.a, which are used to build science applications such as SETI@home.  These libraries are not needed by the BOINC Manager or Core Client.  In addition, Build_All builds the screensaver BOINCSaver.saver and the installer helper application Postinstall.app.

If you wish to build only the libraries, then just build the 3 targets libboinc, gfxlibboinc and api_libboinc.

(4) In the Active Build Style popup, choose Development (for debugging) or Deployment (for release builds.)

(5) If you have switched Build Style, be sure to do a "Clean All Targets" from the Build menu; otherwise object files from the old build style will not be rebuilt in the new build style.

(6) If you are building the screensaver, be sure to unstuff the file: 
[boincpath]/clientgui/mac/BOINCSaver.nib.sit

(7) Select Build from the Build menu.  I suggest you also open the Detailed Build Results window from the Build menu.  Wait a long  time while it compiles.

(8) In addition to the BOINC Manager BOINC.app and Core Client boinc, the mgr_boinc target will also build the SystemMenu.bundle framework and a small helper utility SetVersion.  

(9) SetVersion is run automatically as part of the build process to update the following Mac version information files using the contents of version.h:
  InfoPlist.strings, 
  Info.plist (under the resources group)
  SystemMenu-Info.plist
  ScreenSaver-Info.plist
  Installer-Info.plist

(10) The boinc-client, SystemMenu.bundle and InfoPlist.strings will all be embedded automatically inside the BOINC.app application bundle as part of the build process.

(11) If you wish to run the Core Client under the debugger, you will need to set up the command-line arguments.  In the Groups & Files column of the XCode project window, select "BOINC_Client" under Executables.  Then click on the round blue "info" button at the top of the project window to open the info window.  In the info window's Arguments tab, add the following line to the Argument list:

-dir /Library/Application\ Support/BOINC\ Data/

Normally, stdio and stderr output will be sent to XCode's console.  If you want stdio and stderr to be redirected to files as BOINC normally does, add a second line to the Argument list:

-redirectio

These arguments will be used only when running the BOINC Core Client from XCode using XCode's Run or Debug commands.

Building the installer

After creating the deployment build of all targets using Build_All, use the Finder to do the following:
(1) In a convenient place on disk, create a directory "Installer_Resources".  Copy the following items into this directory:
	[boincpath]/mac_installer/License.rtf
	[boincpath]/mac_installer/ReadMe.rtf
	[boincpath]/mac_installer/postinstall
	[boincpath]/mac_installer/postupgrade
	[boincpath]/mac_build/build/Postinstall.app

NOTE: the file extensions (such as .app and .saver) may be hidden by the Finder.  You can check an item's extension by selecting it in the Finder and using Get Info function from the Finder's File menu.

(2) Create another directory "Pkg_Root", and inside that create two more directories "Applications" and"Library".  Create:
 - a "Screen Savers" directory inside your new Library directory,
 - an "Application Support" directory inside your new Library directory,
 - a "BOINC Data" directory inside your new Application Support directory,
 - a "locale" directory inside your new BOINC Data directory  
Correct spelling of these names is critical.

(3) Copy [boincpath]/mac_build/build/BOINCManager.app into your 
"Pkg_Root/Applications" directory.

(4) Copy [boincpath]/mac_build/build/BOINCSaver.saver into your 
"Pkg_Root/Library/Screen Savers" directory.  

(5) Copy the contents of boincpath]/locale/client/ into your 
"Pkg_Root/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/locale" directory.  (You may optionally exclude the CVS subdirectories to save space.)

You will now have the following directory structure:
	Pkg_Root
	        Applications
	                BOINCManager.app
	        Library
	                Application Support
                                    BOINC Data
                                            locale
                                                    de
                                                    en_US
                                                    it
                                                    etc.....
	                Screen Savers
	                        BOINCSaver.saver

(6) From the Finder, open [boincpath]/mac_installer/BOINC.pmproj (if running OS 10.3, use BOINC.pmsp).  it will open in the PackageMaker application.  In the Files tab, set the path to your Pkg_Root directory.  in the Resources tab, set the path to your Installer_Resources directory.   Update the  version number in multiple places in the Description and Version tabs.

(7) Select "Create Package" from PackageMaker's File menu.  You can give any name you wish to the installer package when you create it, but do not change the package name after it is created.

(8) Quit PackageMaker.

Package BOINC installer for distribution

(1) Create a directory and name it appropriately, e.g. "boinc_4.37_macOSX".  Copy the installer package and the ReadMe file into the directory.

(2)After selecting the directory you just created and populated, select Create archive from the Finder's File menu.  This will zip the file.  (Note: if you want to stuff the file instead of zipping it, be sure to uncheck "stuff originals instead of aliases" in DropStuff's preferences.)

(3) Rename the zip file as appropriate to show the version number; for example, boinc_4.37_macOSX.zip 

BOINC SETI client application

ONE_TIME SETUP for BOINC SETI client application

Please see the discussion about versions  of autconf and automake in the section "ONE_TIME SETUP for BOINC Manager and embedded Core Client" above.  If you install upgrades for these in /usr/local/bin/, type the following at the start of your terminal session:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

(1) Open a new terminal window to reset your session environment variables and set the working directory:

cd [setipath] 

(2) You will need to set some environment variables as described below.  These commands are for the bash shell; use the equivalent commands if you are running a different UNIX shell.  

export PROJECTDIR=[setipath]

export BOINCDIR=[boincpath]

If your autoconf and automake are in /usr/local/bin/:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

(2) Run Configure to create the correct config.h file:

./_autosetup

./configure --disable-server --with-apple-opengl-framework --disable-dynamic-graphics

(3) Copy the correct libjpeg.a into [path]/seti_boinc/jpeglib/

(4) Create a  symbolic link [setipath]/boinc pointing to the boinc directory

cd [setipath] 
ln -s [boincpath] ./boinc

Building the BOINC SETI client application

The XCODE project for building the BOINC SETI@home client application is 
[setipath]/mac_build/seti_boinc.xcode.

There is an optional api setMacIcon() in the libboinc_api.a library.  This allows science applications to display an application icon in the Dock) and in the Finder.   (The icon does not appear in the Dock until the application displays graphics.)  To implement this, do the following:

(1)Use "/Developer/Applications/utilities/Icon Composer.app" to create a xxx.icns file.  (Use any name you wish instead of xxx.)

(2) Convert the xxx.icns file to an app_icon.h file as follows: in Terminal, run: 
MakeAppIcon_h <source_file> <dest_file> 
(The MakeAppIcon_h command-line utility is built by the Mac boinc XCode project iin the "boinc/mac_build/build/" directory.)  Add the app_icon.h file to your science application's project.

(3) In the science application's main(), add 
#include "app_icon.h" 
and call:
  setMacIcon(argv[0], MacAppIconData, sizeof(MacAppIconData));

(4) The science application must link with Carbon.framework to use setMacIcon().