1Mono(mkbundle) Mono(mkbundle)
2
6 mkbundle, mkbundle2 - Creates a bundled executable.
7
9 mkbundle [options] assembly1 [assembly2 ...]
10
12 mkbundle generates an executable program that will contain static
13 copies of the assemblies listed on the command line. By default only
14 the assemblies specified in the command line will be included in the
15 bundle. To automatically include all of the dependencies referenced,
16 use the "--deps" command line option.
17 There are two modes of operation, one uses an existing Mono binary or a
19 server-hosted list of binaries and is enabled when you use either the
20 --cross, --sdk or the --runtime command line options.
21 An older mechanism creates a small C stub that links against the lib‐
23 mono library to produce a self-contained executable and requires a C
24 compiler. It is described in the "OLD EMBEDDING" section below.
25 For example, to create a bundle for hello world, use the following com‐
27 mand:
28 $ mkbundle -o hello --simple hello.exe
30 You can configure options to be passed to the Mono runtime directly
33 into your executable, for this, use the --options flag. For example,
34 the following disables inlining, by passing the "-O=-inline" command
35 line option to the embedded executable:
36 $ mkbundle -o hello --options -O=-inline --simple hello.exe
38 The simple version allows for cross-compiling, this requires a Mono
41 runtime to be installed in the ~/.mono/targets/TARGET/mono to be
42 available. You can use the "--local-targets" to list all available
43 targets, and the "--cross" argument to specify the target, like this:
44 $ mkbundle --local-targets
46 Available targets:
47 default - Current System Mono
48 4.4.0-macosx-x86
49 4.4.0-debian-8-arm64
50 $ mkbundle --cross 4.4.0-debian-8-powerpc hello.exe -o hello-debian
51 The above will bundle your native library into hello-debian for a
54 Debian 8 system running on a PowerPC machine.
55 We provide pre-packages binaries for Mono for various architectures,
57 which allow you to cross compile, use the --list-targets to get a list
58 of all targets supported, and use the --fetch-target flag to retrieve a
59 target that you do not have installed, like this:
60 $ mkbundle --list-targets
62 Cross-compilation targets available:
63 4.4.0-linux-libc2.13-amd64
64 4.4.0-linux-libc2.13-armel
65 4.4.0-linux-libc2.13-armhf
66 4.4.0-linux-libc2.13-i386
67 4.4.0-macos-10.7-amd64
68 4.4.0-macos-10.7-i386
69 4.4.2-linux-libc2.13-amd64
70 4.4.2-linux-libc2.13-armel
71 4.4.2-linux-libc2.13-armhf
72 4.4.2-linux-libc2.13-i386
73 4.4.2-macos-10.7-amd64
74 4.4.2-macos-10.7-i386
75 $ mkbundle --fetch-target 4.4.2-macos-10.7-i386
77 And then you can produce a binary that will run on 32-bit Mono on Mac‐
80 OS:
81 $ mkbundle --cross 4.4.2-macos-10.7-i386 hello.exe -o hello-macos
83 Downloaded targets are stored ~/.mono/targets directory.
86
88 --config FILE
89 Specifies that a DLLMAP Mono config file must be bundled as
90 well. In the simple and cross compiler modes, if no config
91 file is specified the one for the current target is picked
92 (either the system one in the case of the simple mode, or the
93 one that came from the cross compilation target for the cross
94 compiling mode).
95 --config-dir DIR
97 When passed, DIR will be set for the MONO_CFG_DIR environment
98 variable
99 --cross target
101 Use this to request mkbundle generate a cross-compiled binary.
102 It Creates a bundle for the specified target platform. The tar‐
103 get must be a directory in ~/.mono/targets/ that contains an SDK
104 installation as produced by the mono-package-runtime tool. You
105 can get a list of the precompiled versions of the runtime using
106 --list-targets and you can fetch a specific target using the
107 --fetch-target command line option.
108 This flag is mutually exclusive with --sdk which is used to
110 specify an absolute path to resolve the Mono runtime from and
111 the --runtime option which is used to manually construct the
112 cross-platform package.
113 --deps This option will bundle all of the referenced assemblies for the
115 assemblies listed on the command line option. This is useful to
116 distribute a self-contained image.
117 --env KEY=VALUE
119 Use this to hardcode an environment variable at runtime for KEY
120 to be mapped to VALUE. This is useful in scenarios where you
121 want to enable certain Mono runtime configuration options that
122 are controlled by environment variables.
123 --fetch-target target
125 Downloads a precompiled runtime for the specified target from
126 the Mono distribution site.
127 --i18n encoding
129 Specified which encoding tables to ship with the executable.
130 By default, Mono ships the supporting I18N.dll assembly and the
131 I18N.West.dll assembly. If your application will use the Sys‐
132 tem.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding with encodings other than the West
133 encodings, you should specify them here.
134 You can use the none parameter to request that no implicit
136 encodings should be bundled, including the supporting I18N.dll,
137 use this option if you have ran a linker on your own.
138 You can use the all flag to bundle all available encodings.
140 Or you can use a comma delimited list of the workds CJK, Mid‐
142 West, Other, Rare and West to specificy which encoding assem‐
143 blies to distribute.
144 -L path
146 Adds the `path' do the search list for assemblies. The rules
147 are the same as for the compiler -lib: or -L flags.
148 --library [LIB,]PATH
150 Embeds the dynamic library file pointed to by `PATH' and option‐
151 ally give it the name `LIB' into the bundled executable. This
152 is used to ship native library dependencies that are unpacked at
153 startup and loaded from the runtime. Multiple libraries should
154 be specified in dependency order, where later ones on the com‐
155 mand line depend on earlier ones.
156 --lists-targets
158 Lists all of the available local cross compilation targets
159 available as precompiled binaries on the Mono distribution
160 server.
161 --local-targets
163 Lists all of the available local cross compilation targets.
164 --cil-strip PATH
166 Provides a CIL stripper that mkbundle will use if able to. The
167 intended use is to help reduce file size on AOT.
168 --in-tree path/to/mono/source/root
170 Provides mkbundle with a mono source repository from which to
171 pull the necessary headers for compilation. This allows mkbun‐
172 dle to run out of the project's source tree, useful for working
173 with multiple runtimes and for testing without installing.
174 --managed-linker PATH
176 Provides mkbundle access to a managed linker to preprocess the
177 assemblies.
178 --machine-config FILE
180 Uses the given FILE as the machine.config file for the generated
181 application. The machine config contains an XML file that is
182 used by System.Configuration APIs to configure the .NET stack.
183 Typically this is $prefix/etc/mono/4.5/machine.config.
184 If you want to disable this automatic bundling, you can use the
186 --no-machine-config flag. In the simple and cross compiler
187 modes, if no machine.config file is specified the one for the
188 current target is picked (either the system one in the case of
189 the simple mode, or the one that came from the cross compilation
190 target for the cross compiling mode).
191 --no-config
193 In simple or cross compiling mode, this prevents mkbundle from
194 automatically bundling a config file.
195 --nodeps
197 This is the default: mkbundle will only include the assemblies
198 that were specified on the command line to reduce the size of
199 the resulting image created.
200 --no-machine-config
202 In simple or cross compiling mode, this prevents mkbundle from
203 automatically bundling a machine.config file.
204 -o filename
206 Places the output on `out'. If the flag -c is specified, this
207 is the C host program. If not, this contains the resulting exe‐
208 cutable.
209 --options OPTS
211 Since the resulting executable will be treated as a standalone
212 program, you can use this option to pass configuration options
213 to the Mono runtime and bake those into the resulting exe‐
214 cutable. These options are specified as OPTS.
215 You can use the above to configure options that you would typi‐
217 cally pass on the command line to Mono, before the main program
218 is executed.
219 Additionally, users of your binary can still configure their own
221 options by setting the MONO_ENV_OPTIONS environment variable.
222 --sdk SDK_PATH
224 Use this flag to specify a path from which mkbundle will resolve
225 the Mono SDK from. The SDK path should be the prefix path that
226 you used to configure a Mono installation. And would typically
227 contain files lik SDK_PATH/bin/mono , SDK_PATH/lib/mono/4.5 and
228 so on.
229 When this flag is specified, mkbundle will resolve the runtime,
231 the framework libraries, unmanaged resources and configuration
232 files from the files located in this directory.
233 This flag is mutually exlusive with --cross
235 --target-server SERVER
237 By default the mkbundle tool will download from a Mono server
238 the target runtimes, you can specify a different server to pro‐
239 vide cross-compiled runtimes.
240 --mono-api-struct-path FILE
242 FILE points to a file with the definition of the BundleMonoAPI
243 structure which contains the required pointers to various Mono
244 API functions used throughout the generated code. This mechanism
245 is meant to be used by third parties which embed the Mono run‐
246 time and dynamically load and initialize it as part of the
247 application startup, in which case the Mono APIs will not be
248 available for the shared library loader and the bundle will fail
249 to work (one example of such an embedding third party is Xam‐
250 arin.Android).
251 After providing the definition FILE, the embedder must call the
253 void initialize_mono_api (const BundleMonoAPI *info) function
254 found in the generated code before calling void mono_mkbun‐
255 dle_init (). The structure passed to initialize_mono_api doesn't
256 need to be dynamically allocated as its contents is copied to
257 the local structure in the generated code and no pointer to the
258 passed structure is retained or used after initialize_mono_api
259 returns.
260 The list of pointers is not documented here. Instead, please
262 look at the bundle-mono-api.inc file found in the mkbundle
263 source directory in your Mono source tree (mcs/tools/mkbundle)
264 or in the Mono's GitHub repository,
265 https://github.com/mono/mono/blob/master/mcs/tools/mkbundle/bun‐
266 dle-mono-api.inc
267 Please note that your structure must match the one expected by
269 your version of the Mono runtime.
270 The file must also define the mkbundle_log_error function with
272 the following signature:
273 static void mkbundle_log_error (const char *format, ...) {}
275 The function should implement logging API specific to the embed‐
277 der.
278
281 The old embedding system compiles a small C stub that embeds the C code
282 and compiles the resulting executable using the system compiler. This
283 requires both a working C compiler installation and only works to bun‐
284 dle binaries for the current host.
285 The feature is still available, but we recommend the simpler, faster
287 and more convenient new mode.
288 For example, to create a bundle for hello world, use the following com‐
290 mand:
291 $ mkbundle -o hello hello.exe
293 The above will pull hello.exe into a native program called "hello".
295 Notice that the produced image still contains the CIL image and no pre‐
296 compilation is done.
297 In addition, it is possible to control whether mkbundle should compile
299 the resulting executable or not with the -c option. This is useful if
300 you want to link additional libraries or control the generated output
301 in more detail. For example, this could be used to link some libraries
302 statically:
303 $ mkbundle -c -o host.c -oo bundles.o --deps hello.exe
305 $ cc host.c bundles.o /usr/lib/libmono.a -lc -lrt
307 You may also use mkbundle to generate a bundle you can use when embed‐
309 ding the Mono runtime in a native application. In that case, use both
310 the -c and --nomain options. The resulting host.c file will not have a
311 main() function. Call mono_mkbundle_init() before initializing the JIT
312 in your code so that the bundled assemblies are available to the embed‐
313 ded runtime.
314
316 These options can only be used instead of using the --cross, --runtime
317 or --simple options.
318 -c Produce the stub file, do not compile the resulting stub.
320 -oo filename
322 Specifies the name to be used for the helper object file that
323 contains the bundle.
324 --keeptemp
326 By default mkbundle will delete the temporary files that it uses
327 to produce the bundle. This option keeps the file around.
328 --nomain
330 With the -c option, generate the host stub without a main()
331 function.
332 --static
334 By default mkbundle dynamically links to mono and glib. This
335 option causes it to statically link instead.
336 -z Compresses the assemblies before embedding. This results in
338 smaller executable files, but increases startup time and
339 requires zlib to be installed on the target system.
340
343 These options support an mkbundle using AOT compilation with static
344 linking. A native compiler toolchain is required.
345 --aot-runtime PATH
347 Provide the path to the mono runtime to use for AOTing assem‐
348 blies.
349 --aot-dedup
351 (Experimental) Deduplicate AOT'ed methods based on a unique man‐
352 gling of method names.
353 --aot-mode MODE
355 MODE can be either "full" or "llvmonly" at this time. Cur‐
356 rently, mkbundle supports three AOT modes. The default mode
357 (this option unset) will AOT methods but will fall back on run‐
358 time codegen where it is much faster or offers a more full com‐
359 patibility profile. The "full" setting will generate the neces‐
360 sary stubs to not require runtime code generation. The "llv‐
361 monly" setting does the same, but forces all codegen to go
362 through the llvm backend.
363
366 If you are using the old embedding on Windows systems, it possible to
367 use a Unix-like toolchain like cygwin's and install gcc, gcc-mingw
368 packages or use Visual Studio 2015/2017 VC toolchain together with
369 Clang for Visual Studio as assembler. Clang can be installed as an
370 individual component, "Clang/C2", using Visual Studio installer.
371 Using Visual Studio toolchain, mkbundle will, by default, use latest
373 installed Visual Studio compiler and linker as well as Windows SDK. If
374 executed from one of the Visual Studio developer command prompts,
375 mkbundle will retrieve information directly from that build environ‐
376 ment.
377
379 AS Assembler command. The default is "as". For Visual Studio,
380 default is "clang.exe". If "clang.exe" for Visual Studio is not
381 installed, mkbundle will fall back using "as".
382 CC C compiler command. The default is "cc" for Linux, "gcc" for
384 cygwin and "cl.exe" for Visual Studio.
385 MONO_BUNDLED_OPTIONS
387 Options to be passed to the bundled Mono runtime, separated by
388 spaces. See the mono(1) manual page or run mono --help.
389
391 VisualStudioVersion
392 Visual Studio version used in mkbundle build. Default, latest
393 installed Visual Studio version. Values, "14.0" for Visual Stu‐
394 dio 2015 or "15.0" for Visual Studio 2017.
395 WindowsSdkVersion
397 Windows SDK version used in mkbundle build. Default/unknown,
398 latest installed Windows SDK. Values, "8.1", "10.0.10240.0",
399 "10.0.15063.0" etc.
400 VSCMD_ARG_TGT_ARCH
402 Output target architecture used in mkbundle build.
403 Default/unknown, use architecture of .NET runtime executing
404 mkbundle. Values, "x86" or "x64". NOTE, when running from a
405 Visual Studio command prompt, this variable should already be
406 set by the command prompt and match the rest of that build envi‐
407 ronment.
408 INCLUDE
410 Override all custom include paths passed to "cl.exe". Prede‐
411 fined by Visual Studio developer command prompt or auto detected
412 by mkbundle when undefined.
413 LIB Override all custom library paths passed to "link.exe". Prede‐
415 fined by Visual Studio developer command prompt or auto detected
416 by mkbundle when undefined.
417 MONOPREFIX
419 Use a custom Mono SDK install root matching the output target
420 architecture (x86/x64). Default, mkbundle will look for
421 installed Mono SDK’s matching targeted architecture.
422 MONOLIB
424 Use a different mono library name or an absolute path to the
425 mono library passed to linker. Default, mkbundle will use
426 default mono library name depending on mkbundle dynamic/static
427 use case. NOTE, supplied mono library needs to match mkbundle
428 dynamic/static use case and target architecture.
429 VCCRT Override C-runtime library linker settings. Default "MD",
431 mkbundle will use dynamic C-runtime linking on Windows compati‐
432 ble with Mono SDK distribution. If a custom built Mono runtime
433 using static C-Runtime linkage is used, setting this variable to
434 "MT" will link using static C-runtime libraries.
435 VCSUBSYSTEM
437 Override Windows subsystem. Default, "windows". If console sub‐
438 system is preferred, use "console". NOTE, if console output is
439 expected from output target process then set this variable to
440 "console".
441
443 This program will load referenced assemblies from the Mono assembly
444 cache.
445 Targets are loaded from ~/.mono/targets/TARGETNAME/mono
447
450 Visit http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-devel-list for
451 details.
452
454 Visit: http://www.mono-project.com for details
455
457 mcs(1),[22mmono(1),mono-config(5).
458 Mono(mkbundle)