How to Create a Self-Extracting Installer in Bash

The basic idea of creating a self-extracting installer in Bash is really straightforward. We just need to append the binary package, e.g. an archive file in our installer script. Here's a simple example on how to do that.

1. Create an installer script

#!/bin/bash

echo "Running self-extracting installer"

ARCHIVE=`awk '/^__START_HERE__/ {print NR + 1; exit 0; }' $0`
echo $ARCHIVE
tail -n+$ARCHIVE $0 | tar xzv

exit 0

__START_HERE__

2. Append an archive file into an installer script

cat myproject.tar.gz >> installer

3. Give an executable permission

chmod +x installer

4. Execute the installer script

./installer