How to compile SQLite (System.Data.SQLite) on Linux / Mono using XBuild.

Background:

(If you want to read it)

Ok. So I do a lot of development with .Net for computer forensics and I have come to really dislike Windows as a development platform (it could be the worst OS of all time). I have become extremely comfortable and prefer a well personalized VIM setup for doing my development. I guess I’m currently left with that I’m a “Command Line Pwns” kinda guy. I forced myself to learn it, and now… well I think it pays dividends.

As a result I consistently try to work less and less in Windows and more and more in Linux but one of the biggest stumbling blocks for me is that our application is .Net and we haven’t spent much time (only me) compiling and running in Linux. I have gotten it to work a few different times, but for some reason or another I would walk away from making it work. SQLite has been one of the biggest pain in the rumps ever. Every new version (because I start this process over and redownload the latest) requires me to compile this thing, or try to work it into the solution, and its always, always been a serious pain. The code works great, zero documentation. (Thanks). I finally found out how to compile and get running the latest SQLite .NET (it has changed recently) and it drove me to create this blog to get it out there, so somebody else could not waste 2 or 3 days trying to do it. Nowhere on their site today has the information to build and deploy a Mono / Linux setup, except a slightly cryptic response in a trouble ticket. (How nice). Also I digged around through some of the text files and eventually found out why things weren’t working.

Effectively now you’ll see that they’re pushing to not have a consolidated dll that has the native C++ sqlite code attached to it. As of Sept 26, 2013, if you go to the main System.Data.SQLite website http://system.data.sqlite.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/downloads.wiki you will see the explanation of how to setup your solution / output for this to work. This deals with x86 and x64 deployed solutions. There is this website that some build instructions on it http://system.data.sqlite.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/build.wiki . Nearly none of this website makes much sense to me because it wasn’t written with Mono or Linux in mind. Terrific. Note all of the MSBuild comments. There is no real indications about anything else going on with all the projects in the source (there is alot).

How System.Data.SQLite (SQLite) is Setup

Ok so this is what you need to know regarding a Windows and Linux System.Data.SQLite deployment.

Windows:

You need System.Data.SQLite.dll and you need two directories x86 and x64. These have SQLite.Interop.dll which is pre-compiled for the two platforms. This provided to you on the website, and I won’t go any further than that.

Linux:

You will end up with ONLY System.Data.SQLite.dll and the native sqlite3 binary. (You can get sqlite3 however you please, but it will eventually end up in your output directory for your product).

What and How to Build:

Ok, so immediately do not attempt to build ANY of the projects in the downloaded source. There is only ONE project you need to worry about. In the folder System.Data.SQLite you will find the various versions of System.Data.SQLite.20XX.csproj I can’t comment about them, but i used 2010 in this case. This is the ONLY project you need to get to work. (This is the managed only dll).

You will not be building any other project. (I guess the Linq can be built, but I don’t use it. I tried just now and hit some compiling errors trying to find System.Data.Entity, entity framework, why its not in the gac i have no idea, don’t care).

It is important not to waste your time building anything else, because it WON”T BUILD. They’re using Visual Studio with C++ projects and all sorts of other junk. Don’t even try bringing the solution into monodevelop. You’ll want to shoot yourself twice. (Once for using monodevelop and 2nd because the solution is so totally messed up up when its imported).

Don’t just try and run xbuild on the project because you need to have some added parameters that change whats put into this dll. You’ll need the following args:

/p:UserInteropDll=false

/p:UseSqliteStandard=true

The first means to not use the SQLite.Interop.dll and the 2nd makes it want to use sqlite3 (inside your executables directory). So this is a basic xbuild statement:

xbuild /p:Configuration=Release /p:UseInteropDll=false /p:UseSqliteStandard=true /home/user/sqlite_src/System.Data.SQLite/System.Data.SQLite.2010.csproj

 

Deployment

Now that you have your binaries you just need to drop them in the directory of your application and that’s it. For deploying beyond your own system you’ll need to account for all these things, (moving sqlite3 over, using xbuild on the System.Data.SQLite source, then moving the results over). This could easily be built into a solution I think, but that’s not what this little tutorial is about, since I needed to do it by hand.

Hopefully this helps at least ONE of you out there because it took me way too long to get this to compile because they’ve made the solution overly complex (in my opinion) and mono is an after thought (as is everything else .NET it would appear).

Introduction

Real short and sweat. If you’re a developer or sys admin, we all know how often error codes or keywords are searched in a search engine to get no BS answers. Its a great system I know. However, what is the breakdown? When your error message or keywords just aren’t out there.

Then we gotta go back to figuring out the issues ourselves. Sigh… I know it sucks, but sometimes we gotta pioneer (at least because we can’t find the answers). So that’s what this blog is all about. Just another place where somebody can dump what we’ve found out how to do. Yes, I’m finally starting this because I found out how to do something that I know just isn’t out there (explicitly). As I come across worthy things to write up about either Digital Forensics or Software development in general I’ll be throwing them out here. Annnnnnnd away we go.