This page provides important information for users of the Ice binary distributions on Linux platforms. You can obtain these distributions at the ZeroC web site.

On this page:

Overview of the Ice Binary Distributions for Linux

DEB Packages

ZeroC provides the following DEB packages for Debian and Ubuntu:

RPM Packages

ZeroC provides the following RPMs for Amazon Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server:

ZeroC also supplies RPMs for the following third-party packages:

Bi-Arch Support on RHEL 7

On RHEL 7, all of the Ice packages listed above are provided for the x86_64 architecture, along with a limited subset of packages for the i686 architecture. The subset includes C++ run-time and development libraries, along with 32-bit versions of the IceBox server and IceStorm service. The 32-bit IceBox package installs the executables as icebox32 (for the IceBox services built with the C++98 mapping) and icebox32++11 (for IceBox services built with the C++11 mapping).

For development purposes, you will still need to install the 64-bit development kit packages: the 32-bit development kit packages complement these 64-bit packages.

Installing the Linux Distributions

This section describes how to install Ice binary packages for all of the supported Linux platforms.

Installing Ice on Debian

Follow the instructions below to install Ice 3.7 on Debian using the packages from ZeroC repositories.

1. Install ZeroC's key to avoid warnings with unsigned packages:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv B6391CB2CFBA643D

2. Add the Ice repository to your system (-s is optional and enables the source repo):

sudo apt-add-repository -s "deb http://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/debian9 stable main"

sudo apt-add-repository -s "deb http://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/debian10 stable main"

sudo apt-add-repository -s "deb http://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/debian11 stable main"

sudo apt-add-repository -s "deb http://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/debian12 stable main"

3. Update the package list and install:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install zeroc-ice-all-runtime zeroc-ice-all-dev

Refer to the package summary if you would like to install fewer packages.

4. Install the source package (optional):

apt-get source zeroc-ice

sudo apt-get install zeroc-ice-all-runtime zeroc-ice-all-dev

Installing Ice on Ubuntu

Follow the instructions below to install Ice 3.7 on Ubuntu. ZeroC provide Ice 3.7 packages for Ubuntu Xenial (16.04), Ubuntu Bionic (18.04), Ubuntu Focal (20.04), and Ubuntu Jammy (22.04).

1. Install ZeroC's key to avoid warnings with unsigned packages:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv B6391CB2CFBA643D

2. Add the Ice repository to your system (-s is optional and enables the source repo):

sudo apt-add-repository -s "deb http://zeroc.com/download/Ice/3.7/ubuntu`lsb_release -rs` stable main"

3. Update the package list and install:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install zeroc-ice-all-runtime zeroc-ice-all-dev

Refer to the package summary if you would like to install fewer packages.

4. Install the source package (optional):

apt-get source zeroc-ice

sudo apt-get install zeroc-ice-all-runtime zeroc-ice-all-dev

Installing Ice on Amazon Linux

Follow the instructions below to install Ice on Amazon Linux 2 (amzn2):

1. Add the Ice repositories to your Amazon Linux system: 

sudo yum install https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/amzn2/ice-repo-3.7.amzn2.noarch.rpm

2. Install Ice:

sudo yum install ice-all-runtime ice-all-devel

Refer to the package summary if you would like to install fewer packages.

The EC2 documentation provides more information about installing packages on Amazon Linux.

Installing Ice on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 or 9

Follow the instructions below to install Ice on RHEL 8 or 9:

1. Add the Ice repositories to your system: 

sudo dnf install https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/el8/ice-repo-3.7.el8.noarch.rpm

sudo dnf install https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/el9/ice-repo-3.7.el9.noarch.rpm

2. Install Ice:

 sudo dnf install ice-all-runtime ice-all-devel

Refer to the package summary if you would like to install fewer packages.

Installing Ice on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Follow the instructions below to install Ice on RHEL 7:

1. Add the Ice repositories to your system: 

sudo yum install https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/el7/ice-repo-3.7.el7.noarch.rpm

2. Install Ice:

 sudo yum install ice-all-runtime ice-all-devel

Refer to the package summary if you would like to install fewer packages.

Installing Ice on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12

Follow the instructions below to install Ice on SLES 12:

1. Add the Ice repositories to your system and import the public key: 

wget https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/sles12/zeroc-ice3.7.repo
sudo zypper addrepo zeroc-ice3.7.repo
sudo sudo rpm --import https://zeroc.com/download/GPG-KEY-zeroc-release-B6391CB2CFBA643D

2. Install Ice:

sudo zypper install ice-all-runtime ice-all-devel

Refer to the package summary if you would like to install fewer packages.

Setting Up your Linux Environment to Use Ice

After installing Ice, read the relevant language-specific sections below to learn how to configure your environment and start programming with Ice.

C++

When compiling and linking Ice for C++ programs, you must pass the -pthread option. A typical compile command would look like this:

c++ -c -std=c++11 -DICE_CPP11_MAPPING -pthread myprogram.cpp

c++ -c -pthread myprogram.cpp

C++11 and C++98 in the tabs above correspond to the Ice C++ mapping you're using.

When linking a program you must link with at least the Ice library. A typical link command would look like this:

c++ -std=c++11 -o myprogram myprogram.o -pthread -lIce++11

c++ -o myprogram myprogram.o -pthread -lIce

Additional libraries are necessary if you are using an Ice service such as IceGrid or Glacier2.

PHP

The Ice extension for PHP is loaded automatically when the interpreter loads the contents of the file /etc/php.d/ice.ini (on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Amazon Linux) or /etc/php5/conf.d/ice.ini (on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Ubuntu). This file contains the line shown below:

extension=ice.so

You can modify this file to include additional configuration directives.

At run time, the PHP interpreter requires the Ice shared libraries.

You can verify that the Ice extension is installed properly by examining the output of the php -m command, or by calling the phpinfo() function from a script.

Your application will also need to include at least some of the Ice for PHP run-time source files (installed in /usr/share/php on RHEL, Amazon Linux, and Ubuntu, and in /usr/share/php5 on SLES). This installation directory is included in PHP's default include path, which you can verify by executing the following command:

php -i | grep include_path

If the installation directory is listed, no further action is necessary to make the run-time source files available to your application. Otherwise, you can modify the include_path setting in php.ini to add the installation directory:

include_path = /usr/share/php:...

Another option is to modify the include path from within your script prior to including any Ice run-time file:

ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path') . PATH_SEPARATOR . '/usr/share/php');
require 'Ice.php'; // Load the core Ice run time definitions.

setenforce 0

Using the Sample Programs on Linux

Sample programs for all programming languages are available in a separate ice-demos GitHub repository. Simply clone this repository:

git clone -b 3.7 https://github.com/zeroc-ice/ice-demos.git
cd ice-demos

Starting IceGrid GUI on Linux

You can launch IceGrid GUI with the icegridgui command. IceGrid GUI is a Java-based application.

Startup Scripts for IceGrid and Glacier2 Services

All distributions include the following service configuration files:

• /etc/icegridregistry.conf
• /etc/icegridnode.conf
• /etc/glacier2router.conf

Distributions which use sysvinit or upstart contain the following sample scripts:

• /etc/init.d/icegridregistry 
• /etc/init.d/icegridnode 
• /etc/init.d/glacier2router 

Distributions which use systemd contain the following services:

• icegridregistry.service
• icegridnode.service
• glacier2router.service

The installation also creates a user account and group for running these services (account ice and group ice), and data directories for icegridregistry and icegridnode (/var/lib/ice/icegrid/registry and /var/lib/ice/icegrid/node1).

By default, all these services are off at all runlevels. You need to manually switch on one or more runlevels, as shown below:

#
# On systems using svsvinit, configure the icegridregistry to start at the
# default run levels:
#
sudo chkconfig icegridregistry on
 
#
# On systems using systemd, start icegridregistry with the multi-user target
#
sudo systemctl enable icegridregistry.service

Before doing so, please review the script itself and its associated configuration file.