InstallingOnRhel5

Installing on RHEL5 x86_64

1. Install prerequisites. You may or may not need EPEL/RPMFORGE

yum install ncurses-devel openssl-devel icu libicu-devel js js-devel

2. Install erlang

wget http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_R12B-2.tar.gz
tar xzvf otp_src_R12B-2.tar.gz
cd otp_src_R12B-2
./configure && make && sudo make install
cd ..

Note: on CentOS 5 you may need to make the following change as taken from http://www.nabble.com/Problem-compiling-under-CentOS-5-td18889604.html

After running ./configure edit lib/ssl/c_src/i686-pc-linux-gnu/Makefile

@@ -133,7 +133,7 @@ 
-SSL_LINK_LIB += /usr/lib/libkrb5.a /usr/lib/libkrb5support.a /usr/lib/libk5crypto.a /usr/lib/libresolv.a /usr/lib/libcom_err.a
+SSL_LINK_LIB += /usr/lib/libkrb5.a /usr/lib/libkrb5support.a /usr/lib/libk5crypto.a /usr/lib/libresolv.a /usr/lib/libcom_err.a /usr/lib/libkeyutils.so /usr/lib/libselinux.a /usr/lib/libsepol.a

3. Install couchdb

svn checkout http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/couchdb/trunk couchdb
cd couchdb
./bootstrap
./configure && make && make install

4. Edit config file to suit

vi /usr/local/etc/couchdb/couch.ini

5. Create users, chown directories

adduser -r -d /usr/local/var/lib/couchdb couchdb
chown -R couchdb /usr/local/var/lib/couchdb
chown -R couchdb /usr/local/var/log/couchdb

6. Launch! In console:

sudo -u couchdb couchdb

or as daemon:

sudo /usr/local/etc/rc.d/couchdb start