Script to build tmux on OSX (tested on High Sierra) without package manager (no HomeBrew, MacPorts, ...)

build-tmux.sh

#!/bin/bash
#
# Compile tmux from sources on OSX 10.13.3 (High Sierra)
# 

# Latest tmux
TMUX_VER=2.6
# Pre-requisites
# Latest libevent
LIBEVENT_VER=2.1.8-stable
# OSX comes with Libre SSL but libevent won't compile with it
# (And the include files are not available anyway)
OPENSSL_VER=1_1_0g

# Install dir -- Should exist and you should have write privilege there
# (Or install with sudo, but I don't like using root privileges in scripts)
INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/tmux

if [ ! -d "${INSTALL_PREFIX}" -o ! -w "${INSTALL_PREFIX}" ]
then
  echo "$0: You need write access in ${INSTALL_PREFIX}!"
  exit 1
fi

# Abort on error
set -e

# Build dir
TMP_BUILD=$(mktemp -d -t tmux)
echo "$0: Building in ${TMP_BUILD}"

# Cleanup on exit
function cleanup {
  echo "$0: Something went wrong -- review build-*.log files in"
  echo "${TMP_BUILD}"
  exit 1
}
trap cleanup EXIT

echo "$0: Dowloading sources"
cd ${TMP_BUILD}
curl -OLs https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VER}/tmux-${TMUX_VER}.tar.gz
curl -OLs https://github.com/libevent/libevent/releases/download/release-${LIBEVENT_VER}/libevent-${LIBEVENT_VER}.tar.gz
curl -OLs https://github.com/openssl/openssl/archive/OpenSSL_${OPENSSL_VER}.tar.gz

echo "$0: Expanding archives"
tar xzf tmux-${TMUX_VER}.tar.gz
tar xzf libevent-${LIBEVENT_VER}.tar.gz
tar xzf OpenSSL_${OPENSSL_VER}.tar.gz

echo "$0: Building OpenSSL"
(
  cd ${TMP_BUILD}/openssl-OpenSSL_${OPENSSL_VER}
  ./config --prefix=${INSTALL_PREFIX}
  make
  make test
  # Only install libs & includes
  make install_dev
)  >build-openssl.log 2>&1

echo "$0: Building libevent"
(
  cd ${TMP_BUILD}/libevent-${LIBEVENT_VER}
  LDFLAGS="-L${INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I${INSTALL_PREFIX}/include" ./configure --prefix=${INSTALL_PREFIX}
  make
  # Only install libs & includes
  make install-libLTLIBRARIES install-data-am
) >build-libevent.log 2>&1

echo "$0: Building tmux"
(
  cd ${TMP_BUILD}/tmux-${TMUX_VER}
  LDFLAGS="-L${INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib" CPPFLAGS="-I${INSTALL_PREFIX}/include" LIBS="-lresolv" ./configure --prefix=${INSTALL_PREFIX}
  make
  make install
) >build-tmux.log 2>&1

trap - EXIT

echo "$0: cleanup temp files"
cd
rm -rf ${TMP_BUILD}

echo "$0: Build complete"
echo -e "\ttmux is in ${INSTALL_PREFIX}/bin"
echo -e "\tAdd it to your PATH or link it in a directory in your PATH..."