Development setup

For the duration of the entire lab sessions of this course you are going to use a number of tools, for the most part related to development in the C and Rust programming languages. As the first task for this lab session you are hence going to install the relevant toolchains and a comfortable (for you) development environment.

Operating system requirements: we are going to assume that your work machine runs Linux as operating system (OS). If that is not the case, you should fix this before proceeding. Any Linux-based distribution would do, but in the following we are going to rely on package names from Debian and Debian-based distributions (e.g., Ubuntu); you should translate them to your distro if need be.

Work environment

You have various options in terms of which "machine" to work on:

1. work on your real (hardware) machine: laptop or desktop computer;
2. work in a Docker container;
3. work in a virtual machine.

Option 1: Work on your machine

We recommend this option as it is the most flexible, but it requires more manual setup on your side—setup which we are not going to detail here as it heavily depends on your OS choice.

We only list below the tools (and corresponding Debian package names) that you should install on your machine to be able to complete the exercises of this course.

Option 2: Work in a Docker container

If you would like to work in a Docker container, we provide a Dockerfile that you can use to create locally a Docker image that contains all the tools used for lab sessions. Download the Dockerfile locally and build a matching image like this:

$ docker build -t net7212 - < Dockerfile

(It will take a few minutes to complete, depending mostly on download and I/O speeds.)

Then, create a shell script named run.sh to easily create and run a fresh container on that image every time you need it. It can be something like the following:

#!/bin/bash
host_labdir="${HOME}/net7212-lab"
cont_labdir="/home/net7212/lab"
docker run -ti \
       --net host \
       -e DISPLAY="unix${DISPLAY}" \
       -v /dev/shm:/dev/shm \
       -v /etc/hosts:/etc/hosts \
       -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro \
       -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
       -v /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket:/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket \
       -v $HOME/.Xauthority:/home/net7212/.Xauthority \
       -v "${host_labdir}:${cont_labdir}" \
       --rm \
       --name net7212 \
       net7212

note that host_labdir should point to a directory on your real machine, that will be mounted within the container so that you can share files between the two worlds. All your lab session material will need to be in this directory if you want to access it from within the container.

You can then enter and use a fresh container every time you need it like this:

./run.sh 
net7212@machine:~$ rustc --version
rustc 1.72.0 (5680fa18f 2023-08-23)

and that if you create a file in your home directory under ~/net7212-lab you can also access it from within the container, e.g.:

# outside the container
$ echo "// hello.c" > ~/net7212-lab/hello.c
./run.sh
net7212@machine:~$ cat ~/lab/hello.c
// hello.c
net7212@machine:~$ 

Option 3: Work in a virtual machine

If you prefer to fully control your work environment (like with option (1)), but not impact your day-to-day work machine, you have the option to install a virtual machine and configure it manually. Just install in there the same tools that you would have installed, following the instructions below, on your real machine. We are not going to detail this step further, as it heavily depends on your choice of virtualization technology.

C development toolchain

If you have chosen to work on your (virtual) machine, you should install the following tools:

If you have chosen the Docker option, they are all already installed in the container.

Exercise 0.a: Install all the above dependencies in the work environment of your choice.
When ready, make sure you can compile and run the following Hello World program with both gcc and clang:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
	printf("Hello, World!\n");
	return 0;
} // end of hello.c

like this:

$ gcc -Wall hello.c 
$ ./a.out 
Hello, World!

$ clang -Wall hello.c 
$ ./a.out 
Hello, World!

Now make sure that all of the following commands execute properly without failing on your setup (the exact output might very depending on version, configuration, etc.; that's OK):

$ bats -v
Bats 1.8.2

$ clang-tidy --version
Debian LLVM version 14.0.6
  Optimized build.
  Default target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
  Host CPU: skylake

$ gdb --version
GNU gdb (Debian 12.1-4) 12.1
Copyright (C) 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

$ ltrace --version
ltrace version 0.7.3.
Copyright (C) 1997-2009 Juan Cespedes <cespedes@debian.org>.
This is free software; see the GNU General Public Licence
version 2 or later for copying conditions.  There is NO warranty.

$ make --version
GNU Make 4.3
Built for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Copyright (C) 1988-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

$ strace --version
strace -- version 5.10
Copyright (c) 1991-2020 The strace developers <https://strace.io>.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Optional features enabled: stack-trace=libunwind stack-demangle m32-mpers mx32-mpers

$ valgrind --version
valgrind-3.19.0

Rust development toolchain

If you have chosen to work on your (virtual) machine, you should install the following tools:

If you have chosen the Docker option, they are all already installed in the container.

Exercise 0.b: Install all the above dependencies in the work environment of your choice.
Once installed, verify that you can successfully run the following basic tools of the Rust toolchain, like this (your output might very, depending on the installed versions):

$ rustup --version
rustup 1.26.0 (5af9b9484 2023-04-05)
info: This is the version for the rustup toolchain manager, not the rustc compiler.
info: The currently active `rustc` version is `rustc 1.72.0 (5680fa18f 2023-08-23)`

$ cargo --version
cargo 1.72.0 (103a7ff2e 2023-08-15)

$ rustc --version
rustc 1.72.0 (5680fa18f 2023-08-23)

Editor / IDE

You are also going to need a development editor or an IDE (Integrated Development Environment). As developers tend to be opinionated about this stuff we are not going to force you to use any specific one: pick your own!

We recommend either a flexible editor with IDE-like features (e.g., Emacs or Vim with LSP support for Rust) or a full-featured IDE like Visual Studio Code or NetBeans (do make sure it has support for Rust, though, as that will be needed later in the semester).

Exercise 0.c: Install the editor or IDE you want in the work environment of your choice.
When done, open the hello.c file you used previously and make sure you can comfortably edit/compile/run it, ideally from within the editor/IDE itself.

Done?
Good! You are now all set with the developer setup!
Let's now move to the other matters of the day.