Comprehensive Installation

The fastest way to install Scancode-Toolkit is by using pip. You can also install ScanCode-Toolkit by compiling it from source or by Downloading and Configuring the latest release from GitHub.

Note

After pip install, you can perform a scan using only:

scancode [OPTIONS] <OUTPUT FORMAT OPTION(s)> <SCAN INPUT>

This is unlike other install methods where path to scancode is provided by using path/to/scancode, or by using ./scancode inside the Scancode install directory.

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Before Installing

ScanCode requires either Python 3.6.x or Python 2.7.x and is tested on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Make sure Python 2.7 or Python 3.6 is installed first.

System Requirements

  • Hardware : ScanCode will run best with a modern X86 processor and at least 2GB of RAM and 250MB of disk.

  • Supported operating systems : ScanCode should run on these OSes:

    1. Linux: on most recent 64-bit Linux distributions (32-bit distros are only partially supported),

    2. Mac: on recent Mac OSX (10.6.8 and up),

    3. Windows: on Windows 7 and up (32- or 64-bit) using a 32-bit Python.

Prerequisites

ScanCode needs a Python 3.6 or a Python 2.7 interpreter.

Note

ScanCode currently doesn’t support Python 3.7.x, though support will be added soon.

  • On Linux: Use your package manager to install python2.7 or python3.6. If they are not available from your package manager, you must compile it from sources. For instance, visit https://github.com/dejacode/about-code-tool/wiki/BuildingPython27OnCentos6 for instructions to compile Python 2.7 from sources on Centos.

  • On Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04 and 16.04, you will need to install these packages first: python-dev bzip2 xz-utils zlib1g libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev

  • On Debian and Debian-based distros you will need to install these packages first: python-dev libbz2-1.0 xz-utils zlib1g libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev

  • On RPM-based distros, you will need to install these packages first: python-devel zlib bzip2-libs xz-libs libxml2-devel libxslt-devel

  • On Windows:

    Use the Python 2.7 32-bit (e.g. The Windows x86 MSI installer) for X86 regardless of whether you run Windows on 32-bit or 64-bit. DO NOT USE Python X86_64 installer even if you run 64 bit Windows. Download Python from this url: https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.13/python-2.7.13.msi

    Install Python on the c: drive and use all default installer options (scancode will try to find python just in c:python27python.exe). See the Windows installation section for more installation details.

Note

64-bit Python interpreters (x86) are currently not supported by Scancode for Python 2.7 in Windows. Use 32-bit Python isntead, even with 64-bit Windows.

Warning

Do not use Unicode, non-ASCII in your installation Path if you are using a Python 2.7 interpreter.

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Installation by pip

Scancode Toolkit can be easily installed using pip. The steps are:

  1. Create a Python 2.7 or Python 3.6 Virtual Environment:

    virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3.6 venv-scancode

  2. Activate the Virtual Environment you just created:

    source venv-scancode/bin/activate

  3. Run pip install scancode-toolkit to Install Scancode.

Note

If you use Python 2.7, scancode-toolkit Version 3.0.2 is installed by default. For Python 3 the latest version of Scancode Toolkit is installed by default.

Warning

Requesting a specific version through pip install for Python 3 will give Errors if the Version isn’t 3.1.x or later.

To uninstall, run pip uninstall scancode-toolkit.

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Download and Configure latest Release

Installation on Linux and Mac

Get the Scancode Toolkit tarball or zip archive of a specific Version by going to the GitHub Release Page

For example, Version 3.1.1 tarball or .zip archive can be obtained from Toolkit Release 3.1.1 under assets options. Download and extract the Archive from command line:

For .zip archive:

unzip scancode-toolkit-3.1.1.zip

For .tar.bz2 archive:

tar -xvf scancode-toolkit-3.1.1.tar.bz2

Or Right Click and select “Extract Here”.

Check whether the Prerequisites are installed. Open a terminal in the extracted directory and run:

./scancode --help

This will configure ScanCode and display the command line Help text.

Installation on Windows

  • Download the latest ScanCode release zip file from https://github.com/nexB/scancode-toolkit/releases/

  • In Windows Explorer (called File Explorer on Windows 10), select the downloaded ScanCode zip and right-click.

  • In the pop-up menu select ‘Extract All…’

  • In the pop-up window ‘Extract zip folders’ (‘Extract Compressed (Zipped) Folders’ on Windows 10) use the default options to extract.

  • Once the extraction is complete, a new Windows Explorer/File Explorer window will pop up.

  • In this Explorer window, select the new folder that was created and right-click.

Note

On Windows 10, double-click the new folder, select one of the files inside the folder (e.g., ‘setup.py’), and right-click.

  • In the pop-up menu select ‘Properties’.

  • In the pop-up window ‘Properties’, select the Location value. Copy this to the clipboard and close the ‘Properties’ window.

  • Press the start menu button (On Windows 10, click the search box or search icon in the taskbar.)

  • In the search box type:

    cmd

  • Select ‘cmd.exe’ listed in the search results. (On Windows 10, you may see ‘Command Prompt’ instead – select that.)

  • A new ‘cmd.exe’ window (‘Command Prompt’ on Windows 10) pops up.

  • In this window (aka a ‘command prompt’), type the following (i.e., ‘cd’ followed by a space):

    cd

  • Right-click in this window and select Paste. This will paste the path where you extracted ScanCode.

  • Press Enter.

  • This will change the current location of your command prompt to the root directory where ScanCode is installed.

  • Then type:

    scancode -h

  • Press enter. This will configure your ScanCode installation.

  • Several messages are displayed followed by the scancode command help.

  • The installation is complete.

Un-installation

  • Delete the directory in which you extracted ScanCode.

  • Delete any temporary files created in your system temp directory under a ScanCode directory.

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Build From Source

You can also download the Scancode Toolkit Source Code and build from it yourself. This is how you would want to do it if:

  • You are Adding new patches to Scancode and want to test it.

  • You want to test a specific Version/Checkpoint/Branch from the VCS

Download the ScanCode-Toolkit Source Code

If you don’t have the ScanCode Toolkit Source Code downloaded, get it from it’s official Repository (Downloaded as a .zip file) or run the following:

git clone https://github.com/nexB/scancode-toolkit.git
cd scancode-toolkit

Now, by default the files are checked out to the develop branch, but you can jump to any checkpoint using the following command:

git checkout master

Here, master branch has the latest release of Scancode-Toolkit. You can also check out to any of the following:

  • Branches (Locally created or already present)

  • Tags (essentially Version Numbers) [Example - v3.1.1, v3.1.0 etc]

  • Commits (use the shortened commit hash) [Example - 4502055, f276398 etc]

Configure the build

ScanCode use the Configure scripts to install a virtualenv, install required packaged dependencies as pip requirements and more configure tasks such that ScanCode can be installed in a self-contained way with no network connectivity required.

Open a terminal, clone the scancode-toolkit repository, cd to the clone directory and run:

./configure

On Windows open a command prompt, cd to the clone directory and run instead:

configure

Now you are ready to use the freshly configured scancode-toolkit.