MusicBrainz Server/Setup

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Products > Server > Server development > Server setup

Introduction

In order to set up a running MusicBrainz server on your machine you will need the following:

  • A linux box, preferably Ubuntu, that is a PIII-700 or better, with 256MB RAM and 2Gb of free disk space.
  • A knowledge of Apache, Perl, mod_perl, PostgreSQL and a number of perl modules.
  • Subversion knowledge which will enable you to check out the source code.
  • A knowledge of how to compile and install packages from source on a Linux box.
  • A knowledge of how to patch existing packages is helpful, although we can help you out if you have questions about that.

Some additional notes to keep in mind:

  • You do not actually need to know SQL/Perl to setup the server, but if you plan on adding features to MusicBrainz it will help to have experience in those areas.
  • The server has never been ported to Windows, and we suspect that it would be a fair amount of work to make that happen.

An alternative option to the above is to install a virtual MusicBrainz server that comes fully configured with a Linux environment and the latest release of the mb_server source code.

If you are considering helping out with server development, thank you! Otherwise, happy hacking!

Installation instructions

  1. If you are a MusicBrainz developer working on the next server release use /trunk/INSTALL.
  2. For everyone else use the latest stable release, /branches/RELEASE_20090524-BRANCH/INSTALL.
  3. If you just want a running database (no website frontend) see the database setup guide instead.
  4. Additionally, if you want to setup your own search server instead of having to query search.musicbrainz.org, there is a README for that.

The requirements may look daunting, but please don't let this discourage you; the INSTALL/README files are thorough and contain a lot of information, and we are willing to provide assistance. If you have questions about installing, join us in the #musicbrainz IRC channel or post a question on the developers mailing list and we will attempt to help you out.

We recommend that you dive in and give it a try - who knows how far you'll get and what you might learn along the way!