Getting Canner

Canner comes bundled as part of the netCannery application. If you are interested in trying out Canner and are running Mac OS X Leopard, netCannery provides an easy to use and install option. If you are interested in running Canner standalone or in making your own changes to Canner, you will need to checkout and install a copy.

Canner is maintained using the Mercurial source control management system. It is similar to Subversion or CVS but provides an easier way for different organizations to make local modifications and still merge changes from the project.

Requirements

• Python 2.5
• Perl
• C compiler (Xcode or other GCC)

Installing

The main engine in Canner is written in Python and the project is packaged and installed as a Python egg. It can be installed as a normal Python package or using a virtual environment (recommended).

Traditional Installation

1. Install Mercurial.

   Installable packages are available from the Mercurial website.

2. Clone Canner from the Mercurial repository:

   $ hg clone http://canner.bangj.com/hg/canner
   

3. Run the setup script:

   $ cd canner
   $ python setup.py install
   

Virtual Environment Installation

Canner can also be installed as a self-contained virtual Python environment courtesy of virtualenv. The virtual environment allows you to install and run Canner without modifying your standard Python installation.

To install Canner using a virtual environment,

1. Download the canner-boot.py script.

2. Run the script and specify a directory for the virtual environment:

   $ python canner-boot.py mycannerenv
   

Before developing in the virtual environment, it must be activated:

$ source mycannerenv/bin/activate

Activating the environment sets your shell to use the virtualenv instead of your system’s Python. If you open up a new shell, you will need to run activate in it before you can work on Canner in it.

If you simply want to run Canner out of your virtual environment, use the supplied canner-wrapper script. It will set up the environment and then call the real canner script:

$ mycannerenv/bin/canner-wrapper -v -u fred device.example.com