# Cargo B(inary)Install

Binstall provides a low-complexity mechanism for installing Rust binaries as an alternative to building from source (via `cargo install`) or manually downloading packages.
This is intended to work with existing CI artifacts and infrastructure, and with minimal overhead for package maintainers.

Binstall works by fetching the crate information from `crates.io` and searching the linked `repository` for matching releases and artifacts, falling back to the [quickinstall](https://github.com/alsuren/cargo-quickinstall) third-party artifact host, to alternate targets as supported, and finally to `cargo install` as a last resort.

[![CI build](https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/actions)
[![GitHub tag](https://img.shields.io/github/tag/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall.svg)](https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall)
[![Crates.io](https://img.shields.io/crates/v/cargo-binstall.svg)](https://crates.io/crates/cargo-binstall)

_You may want to [see this page as it was when the latest version was published](https://crates.io/crates/cargo-binstall)._

## Usage

```console
$ cargo binstall radio-sx128x@0.14.1-alpha.5
 INFO resolve: Resolving package: 'radio-sx128x@=0.14.1-alpha.5'
 WARN The package radio-sx128x v0.14.1-alpha.5 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) has been downloaded from github.com
 INFO This will install the following binaries:
 INFO   - sx128x-util (sx128x-util-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu -> /home/.cargo/bin/sx128x-util)
Do you wish to continue? yes/[no]
? yes
 INFO Installing binaries...
 INFO Done in 2.838798298s
```

Binstall aims to be a drop-in replacement for `cargo install` in many cases, and supports similar options.

For unattended use (e.g. in CI), use the `--no-confirm` flag.
For additional options please see `cargo binstall --help`.

## Installation

### If you already have it

To upgrade cargo-binstall, use `cargo binstall cargo-binstall`!

### Quickly

Here are one-liners for downloading and installing a pre-compiled `cargo-binstall` binary.

#### Linux and macOS

```
curl -L --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/main/install-from-binstall-release.sh | bash
```

or if you have [homebrew](https://brew.sh/) installed:

```
brew install cargo-binstall
```

#### Windows

```
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope Process; iex (iwr "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/main/install-from-binstall-release.ps1").Content
```

### Manually

Download the relevant package for your system below, unpack it, and move the `cargo-binstall` executable into `$HOME/.cargo/bin`:

| OS      | Arch    | URL                                                          |
| ------- | ------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Linux   | x86\_64 | https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tgz |
| Linux   | armv7   | https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf.tgz |
| Linux   | arm64   | https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-aarch64-unknown-linux-musl.tgz |
| Mac     | Intel   | https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-x86_64-apple-darwin.zip |
| Mac     | Apple Silicon | https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-aarch64-apple-darwin.zip |
| Mac     | Universal<br>(both archs) | https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-universal-apple-darwin.zip |
| Windows | Intel/AMD | https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip |
| Windows | ARM 64 | https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/releases/latest/download/cargo-binstall-aarch64-pc-windows-msvc.zip |

### From source

With a recent [Rust](https://rustup.rs) installed:

```
cargo install cargo-binstall
```

### In GitHub Actions

We provide a first-party, minimal action that installs the latest version of Binstall:

```yml
  - uses: cargo-bins/cargo-binstall@main
```

For more features, we recommend the excellent [taiki-e/install-action](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/install-development-tools), which has dedicated support for selected tools and uses Binstall for everything else.

## Companion tools

These are useful *third-party* tools which work well with Binstall.

### [`cargo-update`](https://github.com/nabijaczleweli/cargo-update)

While you can upgrade crates explicitly by running `cargo binstall` again, `cargo-update` takes care of updating all tools as needed.
It automatically uses Binstall to install the updates if it is present.

### [`cargo-run-bin`](https://github.com/dustinblackman/cargo-run-bin)

Binstall and `cargo install` both install tools globally by default, which is fine for system-wide tools.
When installing tooling for a project, however, you may prefer to both scope the tools to that project and control their versions in code.
That's where `cargo-run-bin` comes in, with a dedicated section in your Cargo.toml and a short cargo subcommand.
When Binstall is available, it installs from binary whenever possible... and you can even manage Binstall itself with `cargo-run-bin`!

## Unsupported crates

Binstall is generally smart enough to auto-detect artifacts in most situations.
However, if a package fails to install, you can manually specify the `pkg-url`, `bin-dir`, and `pkg-fmt` as needed at the command line, with values as documented in [SUPPORT.md](./SUPPORT.md).

```console
$ cargo-binstall \
  --pkg-url="{ repo }/releases/download/{ version }/{ name }-{ version }-{ target }.{ archive-format }" \
  --pkg-fmt="txz" \
  crate_name
```

Maintainers wanting to make their users' life easier can add [explicit Binstall metadata](./SUPPORT.md) to `Cargo.toml` to locate the appropriate binary package for a given version and target.

## Signatures

We have initial, limited [support](./SIGNING.md) for maintainers to specify a signing public key and where to find package signatures.
With this enabled, Binstall will download and verify signatures for that package.

You can use `--only-signed` to refuse to install packages if they're not signed.

If you like to live dangerously (please don't use this outside testing), you can use `--skip-signatures` to disable checking or even downloading signatures at all.

## FAQ

### Why use this?
Because `wget`-ing releases is frustrating, `cargo install` takes a not inconsequential portion of forever on constrained devices, and often putting together actual _packages_ is overkill.

### Why use the cargo manifest?
Crates already have these, and they already contain a significant portion of the required information.
Also, there's this great and woefully underused (IMO) `[package.metadata]` field.

### Is this secure?
Yes and also no?

We have [initial support](./SIGNING.md) for verifying signatures, but not a lot of the ecosystem produces signatures at the moment.
See [#1](https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/issues/1) to discuss more on this.

We always pull the metadata from crates.io over HTTPS, and verify the checksum of the crate tar.
We also enforce using HTTPS with TLS >= 1.2 for the actual download of the package files.

Compared to something like a `curl ... | sh` script, we're not running arbitrary code, but of course the crate you're downloading a package for might itself be malicious!

### What do the error codes mean?
You can find a full description of errors including exit codes here: <https://docs.rs/binstalk/latest/binstalk/errors/enum.BinstallError.html>

### Are debug symbols available?
Yes!
Extra pre-built packages with a `.full` suffix are available and contain split debuginfo, documentation files, and extra binaries like the `detect-wasi` utility.

---

If you have ideas/contributions or anything is not working the way you expect (in which case, please include an output with `--log-level debug`) and feel free to open an issue or PR.
