CouchDB is a document-oriented database with an API interface. It is good for databases that don't need a strict schema. Because it is currently under development, it must be installed from source. This also means the ride can be a little bumpy.

These instructions pertain to the 0.8.1-incubating version of CouchDB.

While erlang can be built as a 64-bit application, it does not seem to work with openssl under this configuration. They work around is to build everything as 32-bit even though the Accelerators are 64-bit systems.

Install openssl in /opt/local/32 or some other location if you already have the 64-bit library installed for things like nginx.

cd /tmp
curl -O http://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-0.9.8e.tar.gz
tar xzf openssl-0.9.8e.tar.gz
cd openssl-0.9.8e
./Configure --prefix=/opt/local/32 386 shared solaris-x86-gcc
gmake
gmake test
sudo gmake install

Erlang is a programming language for concurrent and distributed sytems. CouchDB is written in erlang. The –with-ssl flag should point to the directory where you installed the 32-bit openssl.

cd /tmp
curl -O http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_R12B-2.tar.gz
tar xzf otp_src_R12B-2.tar.gz
cd otp_src_R12B-2
./configure --prefix=/opt/local --with-ssl=/opt/local/32
gmake
sudo gmake install

Once erlang is installed, check whether it and its cryptography library are functioning correctly.

$ erl
Erlang (BEAM) emulator version 5.6.2 [source] [async-threads:0] [hipe] [kernel-poll:false]

Eshell V5.6.2  (abort with ^G)
1> crypto:start().
ok
2> q().
ok

ICU is an internationalization library.

cd /tmp
curl -O http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4c/4.0/icu4c-4_0_d02-src.tgz
tar xzf icu4c-4_0_d02-src.tgz
cd icu/source
chmod +x runConfigureICU configure install-sh
./runConfigureICU SolarisX86 --prefix=/opt/local
./configure --prefix=/opt/local
gmake
sudo gmake install

SpiderMonkey is the Javascript engine from Firefox.

Download the source code:

cd /tmp
curl -O http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/js/js-1.7.0.tar.gz
tar xzf js-1.7.0.tar.gz
cd js/src

There is no makefile specific to the OpenSolaris architecture. Make one by creating a symlink to the default SunOS one.

cd config
ln -s SunOS5.5.mk SunOS5.11_i86pc.mk

By default, the makefile will use the Sun build tools. We want to use the GNU tools instead. Open SunOS5.5.mk and change the lines

ifndef NS_USE_NATIVE
CC = gcc
CCC = g++
CFLAGS += -Wall -Wno-format
else
CC = cc
CCC = CC
endif

to instead read

#ifndef NS_USE_NATIVE
CC = gcc
CCC = g++
CFLAGS += -Wall -Wno-format
#else
#CC = cc
#CCC = CC
#endif

Build and install SpiderMonkey:

cd ..
rm lock_SunOS.s
gmake -f Makefile.ref
sudo JS_DIST=/opt/local/spidermonkey gmake -f Makefile.ref export

To install CouchDB, download the stable version or checkout latest source code and configure it using the dependencies installed above.

cd /tmp
curl -O http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.apache.org/incubator/couchdb/0.8.1-incubating/apache-couchdb-0.8.1-incubating.tar.gz
tar xzf apache-couchdb-0.8.1-incubating.tar.gz
cd apache-couchdb-0.8.1-incubating
./configure --prefix=/opt/local --with-js-include=/opt/local/spidermonkey/include --with-js-lib=/opt/local/spidermonkey/lib --with-erlang=/opt/local/lib/erlang/usr/include
gmake
sudo gmake install

cd /tmp
svn co http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/couchdb/trunk couchdb
cd couchdb
bash bootstrap
./configure --prefix=/opt/local --with-js-include=/opt/local/spidermonkey/include --with-js-lib=/opt/local/spidermonkey/lib --with-erlang=/opt/local/lib/erlang/usr/include
gmake
sudo gmake install

The user who runs the CouchDB server needs to have write access to a few key directories: /opt/local/var/lib/couchdb and /opt/local/var/run/couchdb. You can either create a new user or run CouchDB as the nobody user.

Secondly, the user running CouchDB must have the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH set to /opt/local/lib:/opt/local/spidermonkey/lib, or to whichever directories you installed ICU and SpiderMonkey, respectively. This is easily done using SMF, as shown in the example manifest.

To ensure that CouchDB is listening on localhost only, in /opt/local/etc/couchdb/couch.ini make sure you are binding to localhost:

BindAddress=127.0.0.1

Assuming you are running CouchDB as the user couchdb, you can test the server by issuing the command

echo LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/local/lib:/opt/local/spidermonkey/lib couchdb | sudo -u couchdb bash

Once CouchDB has started, test that it is working:

curl http://localhost:5984
{"couchdb":"Welcome","version":"0.8.1-incubating"}

If you see

couch 0.7.3a662495 (LogLevel=info)
Apache CouchDB is starting.

{"init terminating in do_boot",{error,{open_error,-10}}}
init terminating in do_boot ()

or

Apache CouchDB 0.8.1-incubating (LogLevel=info)
Apache CouchDB is starting.

{"init terminating in do_boot","ld.so.1: beam: fatal: libjs.so: open failed: No such file or directory"}

when CouchDB is starting, it is because the LD_LIBRARY_PATH is not set as above.

The output

{"init terminating in
do_boot",{undef,[{crypto,start,[]},{erl_eval,do_apply,5},{init,start_it,1},{init,start_em,1}]}}

means that there is a problem with the OpenSSL library.

The CouchDB programs, couchdb and couchjs are actually shell scripts. In versions of CouchDB prior to 0.8.1 (that is, 0.7.3 and 0.8.0), you need to make a few small modifications to make them work without issue on OpenSolaris.

These scripts will be in /opt/local/bin. In both couchdb and couchjs, replace the first line #!/bin/sh -e with #!/bin/bash. In couchdb, change all instances of awk to nawk