Homebrew

Prerequisites

If no Xcode is installed (and no GUI is available), we may have to install the Xcode command line utitilies manually:

xcode-select --install

Installation

Homebrew likes to install to /usr/local, but one can specify any other directory:

curl -OL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh

Adjust the install file:

HOMEBREW_PREFIX = '/opt/homebrew'
[...]
abort <<-EOABORT unless `groups`.split.include? "staff"

Execute the install script:

$ ruby ./install
==> This script will install:
/opt/homebrew/bin/brew
/opt/homebrew/Library/...
/opt/homebrew/share/doc/homebrew
/opt/homebrew/share/man/man1/brew.1
/opt/homebrew/share/zsh/site-functions/_brew
/opt/homebrew/etc/bash_completion.d/brew

Press RETURN to continue or any other key to abort
==> /usr/bin/sudo /bin/mkdir /Library/Caches/Homebrew
Password:
==> /usr/bin/sudo /bin/chmod g+rwx /Library/Caches/Homebrew
==> /usr/bin/sudo /usr/sbin/chown sue /Library/Caches/Homebrew
==> /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/chgrp admin /Library/Caches/Homebrew
==> Downloading and installing Homebrew...
remote: Counting objects: 461, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (419/419), done.
remote: Total 461 (delta 28), reused 292 (delta 17), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (461/461), 761.55 KiB | 573.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (28/28), done.
From https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
 * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
HEAD is now at 36b2af2 superenv: fix formula prefix path to consider revisions
==> Tapping homebrew/core
Cloning into '/opt/homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core'...
remote: Counting objects: 3660, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3545/3545), done.
remote: Total 3660 (delta 17), reused 446 (delta 3), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (3660/3660), 2.75 MiB | 1.62 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (17/17), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
Tapped 3535 formulae (3,686 files, 8.6M)
Warning: /opt/homebrew/bin is not in your PATH.
==> Installation successful!
==> Next steps
Run `brew help` to get started

Optionally lock down the installation directory:

sudo chown -R homebrew:homebrew /opt/homebrew/                        # Create a user first!

Adjust your PATH variable accordingly:

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/homebrew/bin

sudo

We may need special sudo rules for our homebrew user:

%staff  ALL=(homebrew:homebrew) NOPASSWD: /opt/homebrew/bin/brew
homebrew ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:SETENV: /usr/sbin/installer

• This will allow all members of the staff group to execute brew as the user homebrew w/o providing a password.
• The user homebrew may call the installer w/o providing a password, since we didn't set one. Also, the homebrew user will be allowed to preserve the environment. The latter may be required for some bundles (e.g. VirtualBox).

ACL

Also, some brew bundles may want to create symlinks in /usr/bin/local and will fail when the homebrew user is not allowed to do so. Let's use ACLs to allow that:

sudo chmod +a "homebrew allow read,execute,add_file,delete_child" /usr/local/bin

Now we should have something like this:

$ ls -lde /usr/local/bin
drwxr-xr-x+ 30 root  wheel  1020 May 15 12:41 /usr/local/bin
0: user:homebrew allow list,add_file,search,delete_child

Usage

List available packages:

$ brew search | wc -l
3535

Update brew itself and all formulae:

$ sudo -H -u homebrew brew update
Updated Homebrew from 3dc4841 to cfef282.
Updated 2 taps (caskroom/cask, homebrew/versions).

Upgrade all packages:

sudo -H -u homebrew brew upgrade --cleanup

If the sudo calling is too cumbersome, try an alias:

$ alias brew="sudo -H -u homebrew /opt/homebrew/bin/brew"
$ set -x
$ brew update
+ sudo -H -u homebrew /opt/homebrew/bin/brew update
Already up-to-date.

Brew Bundle

1. brew tap adds more GitHub repos to the list of available formulae.
2. Homebrew Cask can be used to install (native) Mac applications.

Let's combine them:

brew tap Homebrew/bundle

Now "brew bundle should work. We can use a Brewfile to list all the applications to install:

$ cat .Brewfile.local
cask_args appdir: '/Applications/BrewBundle'
# cask 'adium'
# cask 'audacity'
# cask 'burn'
# cask 'citrix-receiver'
# cask 'handbrake'
cask 'firefox'
# cask 'flux'
# cask 'google-chrome'
# cask 'libreoffice'
# cask 'microsoft-lync'
# cask 'osxfuse'
# cask 'picasa'
# cask 'skype'
# cask 'sshfs'
# cask 'steam'
# cask 'sqlitebrowser'
# cask 'soundflower'
# cask 'teamviewer'
cask 'thunderbird'
# cask 'tunnelblick'
cask 'virtualbox'
# cask 'vlc'

$ sudo mkdir -m 0755 -p /Applications/BrewBundle /opt/homebrew-cask
$ sudo chown homebrew:homebrew /Applications/BrewBundle /opt/homebrew-cask

Try to use the 'Brewfile now:

$ brew bundle --file=$HOME/.Brewfile.local
Succeeded in installing firefox
Succeeded in installing thunderbird
Succeeded in installing virtualbox
Success: 3 Fail: 0

We need to use Homebrew Cask to list the installed packages:

$ brew cask list
firefox      thunderbird  virtualbox

Upgrade

Upgrade all casks, as this isn't possible yet:

brew cask list | xargs brew cask install --force

This doesn't work of course when Homebrew is installed as a different user. As xargs(1) doesn't recognize aliases, we may have to use a wrapper script after all:

$ cat /usr/local/bin/brew.sh
#!/bin/sh
sudo -H -u homebrew /usr/local/bin/brew $@

$ (brew.sh cask list | xargs brew.sh cask install --force) 2>&1 | tee ~/.log/brew-cask-upgrade.log

Bugs

Before reporting bugs, one could try to reset the Homebrew installation:

brew doctor

Annoying bugs, that were closed w/o a fix:

• #14129: Apps installed through Cask cannot be added to Dock in El Capitan
• #9586: Could "brew cask cleanup" remove older versions?
• #51538: brew cask upgrade / install fails with quarantine error

Uninstall

Uninstall Homebrew:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall
ruby ./uninstall

Links

• homebrew-versions: Alternate versions of Casks