Re: [Bacula-devel] Compiler for Windows on a VM image?

[Josh F. <jf...@pv...>]

On 10/14/2015 7:55 PM, Davin Church wrote:
> Greetings, list!
>
> I've been using Bacula 3.0.3a for some years now on my home 
> Windows-only network, but I would like to upgrade to a more recent 
> version of the community version.  I understand that more-recent 
> pre-compiled Windows binaries (except for the FD) are no longer 
> available for the community product, and Bacula Enterprise is too 
> expensive for my needs.  I do know that Bacula Systems also offers a 
> Windows binary build for the FD, but I need to be able to run the SD & 
> Dir on Windows as well.
>
> Therefore, I think I am relegated to compiling my own binaries from 
> the source.  However, I don't have the time (or probably the 
> knowledge/skill either) to create a full build environment from 
> scratch here on my system.  But since I can run virtual machines here, 
> I was wondering if anyone has managed to produce a standalone VM 
> system that is configured to compile Windows binaries from the 
> community source? If I could just load up a working VM system image 
> (even a non-Windows one) and supply it the current source code, I 
> think that would be enough to allow me to compile the system that I 
> need myself.
>
> Does anyone know of such a standalone VM that is available for folks 
> like me to use?  Or does anyone have any better ideas for me to try?  
> I tried searching the list archives, but I could only narrow it down 
> to 21K+ messages for manual review, so I hope you'll forgive me if 
> this has been asked and answered before.

You can cross-compile Windows binaries from Linux. Centos 7 has RPMs for 
mingw32 and mingw64 and most likely all of the needed third-party libraries.

Compilation is not the issue, but rather that Bacula stopped developing 
for Windows SD and Dir quite some time ago. It is likely that a great 
deal of work would be needed.

Why not just run Linux in a Hyper-V VM and run SD and Dir on that?