nc-setup

nc-setup is a tool that will install all the main software needed for the JavaScript, Data Engineering and Java programmes.

What nc-setup does...

• Installs the main pieces of software needed for the (unix-based) Northcoders courses
• Gives an informative report about installation successes and failures
• Organises and formats the output of each installation step to aid debugging
• Can be executed multiple times to retry and confirm installations

Table of Contents

• What is nc-setup?
  • How It Works
  • Understanding the Output
    • Installation Output
    • Installation Summary
    • Errors
• Usage
  • NPM/NPX
• What is Installed?
  • JavaScript
  • Data Engineering
  • Java
• Troubleshooting
• Contributing
  • Testing

What is nc-setup?

Prior to joining a bootcamp students will be asked to set up their development environment om their machines. To do this we ask them to use the nc-setup npm package.

How It Works

At a high level, nc-setup will install the required software for our courses. It will also add certain pieces of configuration to the appropriate shell configuration file (.bashrc/.zshrc).

The script accepts one argument - the course to run the setup for. It can accept:

• js (JavaScript) or sd (Software Development - being deprecated)
• de (Data Engineering)
• jv (Java)

The first thing the nc-setup script does is figure out what operating system the student is running. It will then run the appropriate setup for the course and operating system. For example if a student runs npx nc-setup sd on an Ubuntu OS then it will run the Linux Software Development with JavaScript setup script.

Understanding the Output

Installation Output

The installation process for each course is divided up into separate steps. For example the setup for JavaScript students running nc-setup on Linux the steps are as follows:

1. Apt package updates
2. Installing Git
3. Installing PostgreSQL
4. Setting up PostgreSQL

The output of each of these steps will have it's own heading like this:

##### LINUX PACKAGE UPDATE #####

output from running the package update command...

Installation Summary

Underneath the output for final installation step you will see a summary that will confirm the success or failure of each step. It will look something like this:

Linux Package Updates ... success
Git ... success
Postgres ... success
Configure Postgres ... success

Errors

Unfortunately errors will sometimes still occur. You may see failure messages in the final summary like this:

If so you can find more information by scrolling up the terminal output and looking under the relevant heading.

Usage

We direct students to execute the nc-setup package with npx. To do so we ask them to first install nvm and a recent version of node, this will give them access to the npx command. Once they've done that they can execute the installation script and it should take care of the rest. Students are directed to ask for help in their precourse channels if there are errors that occur while running the script.

NPM/NPX

The recommend usage is to execute the nc-setup package with npx. To do this students will first need to install a recent version of node. It is recommended to use Node Version Manager (nvm) to install the most recent version of node.

The following command will install nvm and then use it to install node:

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.1/install.sh | bash && source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh && nvm install node && nvm use node

Linux users may first need to install curl, if they already have curl then this step is not necessary

curl can be installed with the following command:

sudo apt-get install curl

Once they have node installed they will have access to the npx command and can run the appropriate installation script as appropriate:

JavaScript students: npx nc-setup js

Data Engineering students: npx nc-setup de

Java students: npx nc-setup jv

What is Installed?

The setup depends on the course and the OS.

JavaScript

Linux (includes WSL)

• Updates Linux Packages
• Installs Git
• Installs Postgres
• Creates Postgres User and DB

MacOS

• Installs Brew
• Installs Postgres
• Installs Zsh (if they don't have it already)
• Installs OhMyZsh

Data Engineering

Linux (includes WSL)

• Checks if they have Conda installed (and exits early with an error message if they do)
• Updates Linux Packages
• Updates Bash
• Installs Git
• Installs Postgres
• Configures PostgreSQL
• Installs pyenv - this step will also write Pyenv config to .bashrc file!
• Installs Python prerequisites
• Uses pyenv to install Python
• Installs AWS CLI (and the unzip command if needed)
• Installs Terraform
• Installs Make
• Installs JQ

MacOS

• Checks if they have Conda installed (and exits early with an error message if they do)
• Installs Brew
• Updates Mac Packages
• Installs Zsh
• Installs OhMyZsh - this step will also write brew config and nvm config to the .zshrc file!
• Installs pyenv - this step will also write pyenv config to the .zshrc file!
• Uses pyenv to install Python
• Installs PostgreSQL - This also adds psql to the PATH by adding a line to the .zshrc file.
• Install AWS CLI
• Installs Terraform
• Installs latest version of Bash
• Installs JQ
• runs zsh to start a new shell

Java

Linux (includes WSL)

• Updates Linux Packages
• Installs Git
• Installs Postgres
• Configures Postgres
• Installs JDK
• Installs Intellij
• Installs Android Studio
• Installs pgAdmin
• Installs Docker

MacOS

• Installs Brew
• Installs Postgres
• Installs pgAdmin
• Installs Zsh
• Installs JDK
• Installs Android Studio
• Installs pgAdmin
• Installs Docker
• Installs OhMyZsh - this step will also write brew config and nvm config to .zshrc file!
• runs zsh to start a new shell

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting guidance is separated by course and can be found here.

Contributing

Contributing guidelines can be found here