To install and use Hydra you need to have installed the following dependencies: Nix PostgreSQL At the moment, Hydra runs only on 32 bit and 64 bit Linux (i686-linux and x86_64_linux).

Hydra can be installed by visiting the URL, http://hydra.nixos.org/view/hydra/unstable and use the one-click install available at one of the build pages. You could also install Hydra through the channel by performing the following commands: nix-channel --add http://hydra.nixos.org/jobset/hydra/trunk/channel/latest nix-channel --update nix-env -i hydra

Hydra stores its results in a database, which can be a PostgreSQL or SQLite database. The latter is easier to setup, but the former scales better. To setup a PostgreSQL database with hydra as database name and user name, issue the following commands: createdb hydra echo "CREATE USER hydra WITH PASSWORD '<your-password>' ;" | psql hydra cat $prefix/share/hydra/sql/hydra-postgresql.sql | psql hydra echo "GRANT ALL ON DATABASE hydra TO hydra;" | psql hydra Note that $prefix is the location of Hydra in the nix store. For SQLite, the following command is all it takes to create the database: cat $prefix/share/hydra/sql/hydra-sqlite.sql | sqlite3 /path/to/hydra.sqlite To add a user root with admin privileges, execute: echo "INSERT INTO Users(userName, emailAddress, password) VALUES ('root', 'some@email.adress.com', '$(echo -n foobar | sha1sum | cut -c1-40)');" | psql hydra echo "INSERT INTO UserRoles(userName, role) values('root', 'admin');" | psql hydra For SQLite the same commands can be used, with psql hydra replaced by sqlite3 /path/to/hydra.sqlite. Hydra uses an environment variable to know which database should be used, and a variable which point to a location that holds some state. To set these variables for a PostgreSQL database, add the following to the .profile of the user running the Hydra services. export HYDRA_DBI="dbi:Pg:dbname=hydra;host=localhost;" export HYDRA_DATA=/var/lib/hydra Make sure that the HYDRA_DATA directory exists and is writable for the user which will run the Hydra services. For a SQLite database, the HYDRA_DBI should be set to something like dbi:SQLite:/path/to/hydra.sqlite

To start the Hydra webserver, execute: hydra_server.pl When the server is started, you can browse to http://localhost:3000/ to start configuring your Hydra instance.