
INSTALLATION
============

netaddr is available in various packaged and non-packaged forms :-

- source code repository access
- source release packages (tarball and zip formats)
- Python eggs
- Windows install packages

Linux distribution specific :-

- Ubuntu and Debian (.deb packages)
- Fedora yum (.rpm packages)

Please see these Linux projects for availability and installation details.


Locating the software
---------------------

netaddr is available directly from the public subversion source code 
repository.

Details on how to check out the source code can be found here :-

	http://code.google.com/p/netaddr/source/checkout

Official milestone releases can be found here :-

	http://pypi.python.org/pypi/netaddr


Source Release Packages
-----------------------

Download the latest release tarball/zip file and extract it to a temporary
location or check out the source from the code hosting site into a local
working copy directory.

You now have several choices :-

- Automated Install

	Run the setup file in the root directory like this :-

		python setup.py install

	This automatically places the required files in the lib/site-packages
	directory of the Python version you used to run the setup script.

- Manual Install

	Manually copy the netaddr folder and its contents to the lib/site-packages
	directory of your Python interpreter.

- Soft Linking

	Add the path of the netaddr folder below the directory where you 
	extracted or checked out the source files to your PYTHONPATH environment
	variable. Alternatively, create a netaddr.pth file in your 
	lib/site-packages directory containing the path to the netaddr folder 
	where the source files are located.


Python Eggs
-----------

This requires that you install setuptools which is beyond the scope of 
this document. See the following URL for details :-

	http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools

Download and install the latest easy_install script and run the following
command :-

	easy_install netaddr

This will go to the Python Package Index and automatically find the 
appropriate version of netaddr for your Python setup.


Windows Install Packages
------------------------

On Windows, it is usually more convenient to use the binary install packages. 
Please note that you may want to download a source zip file as well if you
want local access to the API documentation and unit tests as these are not
distributed along with the code in the Windows install packages.

Security Tip
------------

Please Note - while efforts are made to ensure that the Windows executables 
produced are virus free, they cannot be guaranteed to always be 100% free of 
possible nasties. Use them solely at your own risk!

If you are either a) paranoid or b) properly and correctly security conscious
either run your own virus checking software against the setup executable
before installing it or just download the .zip file and install netaddr using
Python's setup.py script to fully mitigate any potential problems.

And finally ...

Always be sure you verify your downloads against the checksums on the code 
hosting site's download page!
