BIRD error: The client requires GNU readline library

Visits: 2103

Today I have a problem when installing BIRD on (fresh) FreeBSD 11 amd64. The problem was caused by readline library that doesn’t installed and bird requires GNU readline library.
BIRD is a routing software that support many routing protocols such as STATIC, RIP, BGP, OSPF, BFD, and BABEL. I have been use this software since 2014 and it’s very stable. Please visit http://bird.network.cz for more!
Here is the error message when I run configure:

configure: error: The client requires GNU readline library 2.1 or newer. Either install the library or use –disable-client to compile without the client.

And how to fix it?

Don’t worry, we just need to install readline library and we use pkg (FreeBSD), here is it:

# pkg install -y hs-readline gauche-readline

And after that, try to configure and compile BIRD:

# cd bird-1.6.3
#./configure
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating obj/Makefile
config.status: creating obj/Rules
config.status: creating obj/sysdep/autoconf.h
config.status: executing merge commands
Merging system-dependent modules (sysdep/unix sysdep/bsd lib)

BIRD was configured with the following options:
Source directory: .
Object directory: obj
Iproute2 directory:
System configuration: ./sysdep/cf/bsd.h
Debugging: no
POSIX threads: yes
Routing protocols: bfd bgp ospf pipe rip static
Client: yes

And yes, the problem has been fixed. For an additional information, please see below for readline library introduction.

The GNU Readline library provides a set of functions for use by applications that allow users to edit command lines as they are typed in. Both Emacs and vi editing modes are available. The Readline library includes additional functions to maintain a list of previously-entered command lines, to recall and perhaps reedit those lines, and perform csh-like history expansion on previous commands. [source: cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html]

The Readline library is free software, distributed under the terms of
the [GNU] General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation, version 3 of the License. For more information, see the
file COPYING.

Hope this helpful.