Prepare your local environment for Tailer

Before installing the Tailer SDK package, you need to prepare your local environment.

Tailer SDK runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Tailer SDK requires Python. Supported versions are 3.8 or higher.

Before installing Tailer SDK, a number of tasks need to be performed depending if you're planning to use a Windows or macOS/Linux environment.

💻 Windows

Install Python

To install Python:

1. Access this page: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-382/

2. Select and download the installer for the release (3.8 or higher) that matches your operating system.

3. Launch the installer.

4. Select the Customize installation option, and make sure you check the Add Python to environment variables checkbox.

5. To check if Python installation was successful, open a terminal, and run the following command:

   python3 --version

The Python release number displays.

Create a working folder

To create a working folder for Tailer SDK:

1. Access the working folder of your choice:

   cd your_working_folder

2. Create a folder for Tailer SDK and access it:

   mkdir tailer
   cd tailer

Your Windows environment is now ready. You can proceed with the installation.

🍏 macOS/Linux

Set Bash as default shell

To change the default shell to Bash:

1. Run the following command:

   chsh -s /bin/bash

2. Close your terminal and reopen it.

3. Run the following command to make sure the default shell is now bash:

   env

If you get the following result, Bash has been installed successfully:

SHELL=/bin/bash

Create a working folder

We recommend that you create the Tailer SDK working folder in your home root directory.

To create and access the working folder, run the following commands:

mkdir ~/tailer
cd ~/tailer

Examples in this documentation will assume that you're working in the tailer folder created at this step.

Upgrade Python

While current versions of macOS and Linux include a version of Python 2, Tailer SDK only supports Python 3.8 or higher, so you need to upgrade to a newer version.

Install Homebrew

To install Python, you first need to install Homebrew, a package management system that simplifies software installation:

1. Run the following command:

   /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

2. Make sure the installation was successful by running the following command:

   brew doctor

Now that Homebrew is installed, you can upgrade to Python 3.

Upgrade to Python 3

To upgrade Python:

1. Check your current version of Python by running the following command:

   python --version

2. If your version is inferior to 3.8, install the latest version of Python 3 by running the following command:

   brew install python3

3. To confirm which version of Python 3 was installed, run the following command:

   python3 --version

Always use a Virtual Environment

Virtual environments let you have a stable, reproducible, and portable environment. You are in control of which packages versions are installed and when they are upgraded. You can have as many venvs as you want.

1. You can install venv to your host Python by running this command in your terminal:

   pip3 install virtualenv

2. To use venv in your project, in your terminal, create a new project folder, cd to the Tailer folder in your terminal, and run the following command:

   python3 -m venv tailerenv

3. Now that you have created the virtual environment, you will need to activate it before you can use it in your project. On a mac, to activate your virtual environment, run the code below:

   source /Users/username/tailerenv/bin/activate

Don't forget to change username by the name of your user. Keep this line on a notepad. You need it each time you open a new terminal to use the Tailer SDK set on the venv.

Your macOS/Linux environment is now ready. You can proceed with the installation.

• To confirm which version of Python 3 was installed, run the following command:

  python3 --version