Installation

System Requirements and Dependencies

Jess is a Java Application and should work on systems offering a Java virtual machine, e.g., Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X or GNU/Linux. We have tested Jess on Ubuntu and recommend Version 18.x.x LTS. If you plan to work with large code bases such as the Linux Kernel, you should have at least 30GB of free disk space to store the database and 8GB of RAM to experience acceptable performance. In addition, the following software should be installed:

  • A Java Virtual Machine 1.8 or higher Jess is written in Java 8 and does not build with Java 6 or 7. It has been tested with OpenJDK-8 and 11 but should also work fine with Oracle’s JVM.
  • Python 3. Jess implements a client/server architecture where client scripts are written in Python 3. Please note that these scripts are not compatible with Python2.
  • Python3-setuptools and python3-dev. Client scripts are installed using setuptools. Moreover, some of the python libraries client tools depend on are written in C and require header files from python3-dev to be present.
  • Graphviz-dev. Plotting tools require Graphviz and its development files to be installed.
  • Gradle 2.x (< 5.0.0) Jess uses the gradle build tool, and some features specific to Gradle 2.0 and above.
  • Git 2.14.6 (or higher) Jess is hosted on Github, to contribute (and for an easy installation) you need Git. Furthermore, the automated migration process relies on functionality added with Version 2.14.6 of Git.

If you are on a Linux-based system, try the following to download the necessary dependencies:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install build-essential openjdk-8-jdk gradle python3 python3-setuptools python3-dev graphviz graphviz-dev git

The following sections offer a step-by-step guide to the installation of Jess, including all of its dependencies.

Building Jess

Please make sure Gradle 2.x is installed. Then clone the repository and invoke the build script as follows. The build script will automatically download and install dependencies.

git clone https://github.com/LPhD/Jess.git
cd Jess
./build.sh

Testing the server

In the jess root directory, invoke the script

./jess-server.sh

to start the server. Suspend the server with ctrl + c.

Testing client scripts

Client scripts are installed into the user script directory, which is typically ~/.local/bin. To use these scripts from every location, please make sure this directory is in your path, e.g., by adding the line

export PATH="$PATH:~/.local/bin"

to your ~/.bashrc, and restarting the shell. During this process, the server should not be running. You can execute the script

jess-import

without parameters to verify that scripts are installed correctly.