An **experimental** Go module for downloading or locating HashiCorp binaries, verifying signatures and checksums, and asserting version constraints.
This module is a successor to tfinstall, available in pre-1.0 versions of [terraform-exec](https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-exec). Current users of tfinstall are advised to move to hc-install before upgrading terraform-exec to v1.0.0.
## hc-install is not a package manager
This library is intended for use within Go programs or automated environments (such as CIs)
which have some business downloading or otherwise locating HashiCorp binaries.
The included command-line utility, `hc-install`, is a convenient way of using
the library in ad-hoc or CI shell scripting outside of Go.
`hc-install` does **not**:
- Determine suitable installation path based on target system. e.g. in `/usr/bin` or `/usr/local/bin` on Unix based system.
- Deal with execution of installed binaries (via service files or otherwise).
- Upgrade existing binaries on your system.
- Add nor link downloaded binaries to your `$PATH`.
## API
The `Installer` offers a few high-level methods:
-`Ensure(context.Context, []src.Source)` to find, install, or build a product version
-`Install(context.Context, []src.Installable)` to install a product version
### Sources
The `Installer` methods accept number of different `Source` types.
Each comes with different trade-offs described below.
- This is most convenient when you already have the product installed on your system
which you already manage.
- **Cons:**
- Only relies on a single version, expects _you_ to manage the installation
- _Not recommended_ for any environment where product installation is not controlled or managed by you (e.g. default GitHub Actions image managed by GitHub)
-`releases.{LatestVersion,ExactVersion}` - Downloads, verifies & installs any known product from `releases.hashicorp.com`
- **Pros:**
- Fast and reliable way of obtaining any pre-built version of any product
- **Cons:**
- Installation may consume some bandwith, disk space and a little time
- Potentially less stable builds (see `checkpoint` below)
-`checkpoint.{LatestVersion}` - Downloads, verifies & installs any known product available in HashiCorp Checkpoint
- **Pros:**
- Checkpoint typically contains only product versions considered stable
- **Cons:**
- Installation may consume some bandwith, disk space and a little time
- Currently doesn't allow installation of a old versions (see `releases` above)
-`build.{GitRevision}` - Clones raw source code and builds the product from it
- **Pros:**
- Useful for catching bugs and incompatibilities as early as possible (prior to product release).
- **Cons:**
- Building from scratch can consume significant amount of time & resources (CPU, memory, bandwith, disk space)
- There are no guarantees that build instructions will always be up-to-date
- There's increased likelihood of build containing bugs prior to release
- Any CI builds relying on this are likely to be fragile