Zenoss on Mac

[edit Jan 10,2009] If you want Zenoss on Mac, try the native installer Zenoss. The following post details a process that builds from source and mostly worked.

I’ve been on an intermittent quest for the past few weeks to build Zenoss 2.1 on my Mac PowerBook G4. Happily, that quest has a successful ending, and I’m willing to share a short recipe for installing Zenoss on a Mac PowerBook using OS X, though I expect these instructions apply to Intel based Mac users too.

Update 01/10/2008: These instructions apply OS X 10.4 Tiger and Zenoss 2.1.2.

Before I continue, I’ll answer the question, “Why do you want to build Zenoss on your PowerBook, Mike?” Well, mostly because I don’t have an Intel Mac, and I need a mobile machine that I can run Zenoss on for demos, evaluations, and just for fun. My mobile machine happens to be a PowerBook. I’m sure this information transcends architectures, which makes it worth sharing.

These steps should get you started:

1. Install MacPorts.
2. Install Xcode from the OS X install DVD or from Apple so you get a build environment.
3. Install Python2.4 and SWIG using MacPorts:
   sudo /opt/local/bin/port python24
sudo /opt/local/bin/port swig
4. Create your Zenoss user via the System Preferences
5. Set up the Zenoss users path.
• Edit /Users/zenoss/.bash_login and add:

  export ZENHOME=/usr/local/zenoss
  export PYTHONPATH=$ZENHOME/lib/python
  export PATH=$ZENHOME/bin:usr/local/mysql/bin:/opt/local/bin:$PATH

6. Continue with the Zenoss build instructions, which can be found in the INSTALL.TXT file of the Zenoss source.

Happy monitoring.

Tagged as: mac, zenoss