bash script for installing tmux without root access

tmux_local_install.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Script for installing tmux on systems where you don't have root access.
# tmux will be installed in $HOME/local/bin.
# It's assumed that wget and a C/C++ compiler are installed.

# exit on error
set -e

TMUX_VERSION=1.8

# create our directories
mkdir -p $HOME/local $HOME/tmux_tmp
cd $HOME/tmux_tmp

# download source files for tmux, libevent, and ncurses
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz http://sourceforge.net/projects/tmux/files/tmux/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz/download
wget https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz

# extract files, configure, and compile

############
# libevent #
############
tar xvzf libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-2.0.19-stable
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local --disable-shared
make
make install
cd ..

############
# ncurses  #
############
tar xvzf ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
cd ncurses-5.9
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make
make install
cd ..

############
# tmux     #
############
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}
./configure CFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/lib -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/include"
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/local/include -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/lib" make
cp tmux $HOME/local/bin
cd ..

# cleanup
rm -rf $HOME/tmux_tmp

echo "$HOME/local/bin/tmux is now available. You can optionally add $HOME/local/bin to your PATH."

Oh - thank you, thank you, thank you. They only had screen at work. Now I can use tmux and be happy :)

Thank you! This worked perfectly for me.

Thanks so much, installed perfectly right out of the box. I hate having to figure out what libraries I need and where to get them for local installs, this saved me probably hours of pain (or from just continuing to use screen on machines I don't have root access for)...

I modified it to link statically and the resultant binary worked on a different system with different libc: https://gist.github.com/haridsv/5040047

Thanks!

Forked this and made it more customizable, updated versions of installed components and provided auto-install command.

Check it out at https://gist.github.com/shime/5706655.

Thank you for this script. Clearly and really helped.

Worked on BLUEHOST.com just FYI

Oh man, thanks for this. So much time savings.

Thanks :)

Thank you so much! I got an ssh account to a cluster from my university, but it doesn't have Tmux installed. Now with your script, my life is much easier!

You are a king among men. ;) Kudos to you-

Many, many, many thanks for this.

Brilliant! thank you

so brilliant!　

Fantastic, thanks!

awesome thanks!

Thanks! Cannot stand screen. Now to waste some hours trying to understand why what I tried failed...

Thanks!

At the risk of repeated others, thanks so much for this! I've used it as a base to install Vim and tig as well. For the life of me couldn't figure out how to do it before now!

thanks

This is awesome, thanks so much! We only have screen at work so getting tmux was a must.

I met a problem when exec
wget https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz

--2014-10-23 11:08:44-- https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
Resolving github.com... 192.30.252.128
Connecting to github.com|192.30.252.128|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://cloud.github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz [following]
--2014-10-23 11:08:46-- https://cloud.github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
Resolving cloud.github.com... 54.230.125.200, 205.251.212.199, 54.230.126.47, ...
Connecting to cloud.github.com|54.230.125.200|:443... connected.
OpenSSL: error:14077410:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:sslv3 alert handshake failure
Unable to establish SSL connection.

my os is centos6.5 64bit

I had the same problem. I manually downloaded libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz and then everything worked fine.

Thanks.

Got the following error:
tmux: error while loading shared libraries: libevent-2.0.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Had to:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/my/home/local/lib/:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}

@jiacai2050 change the
wget
to:
curl -L -O

with curl -L -O I'm getting error SSL routines: SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:sslv3 alert handshake failure
with curl -O I can download something but is not a tar ball

👍

Very useful shell script, thank you!

Excellent, thank you!

Works great!

Shouldn't it be -L$HOME/local/lib/ncurses instead of -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses ?

This worked perfectly on Inmotion.com shared server.

thanks

thanks, worked on redhat 4.4 fine

Other alternative could be to fetch the static binary with static-get, no compiler required =)

sh <(wget -qO- s.minos.io/s) -x tmux-2.0

To list all available versions:

sh <(wget -qO- s.minos.io/s) -s -v tmux

https://github.com/minos-org/minos-static

Other alternative could be to fetch the static binary with static-get, no compiler required =)

sh <(wget -qO- s.minos.io/s) -x tmux-2.0

To list all available versions:

sh <(wget -qO- http://s.minos.io/s) -s -v tmux

https://github.com/minos-org/minos-static

Other alternative could be to fetch the static binary with static-get, no compiler required =)

sh <(wget -qO- http://s.minos.io/s) -x tmux-2.0

To list all available versions:

sh <(wget -qO- http://s.minos.io/s) -s -v tmux

https://github.com/minos-org/minos-static

Other alternative could be to fetch the static binary with static-get, no compiler required =)

sh <(wget -qO- http://s.minos.io/s) -x tmux-2.0

To list all available versions:

sh <(wget -qO- http://s.minos.io/s) -v -s tmux

https://github.com/minos-org/minos-static

The WGET SSL error is due to an old version of wget not supporting SNI, just replace the line that download libevent source by this one :

curl https://cloud.github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz > libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz

mathieupoussin thx u fix ssl error i got 👍

This is great!

Awesome script!

I forked it to use automatically the latest version of tmux (currently version 2.1) from the github repo: https://github.com/jealie/install_tmux

This version relies on git to fetch the source, which also solves the SSL error some people had.

Amazing script!

Nice!

Thanks, great work!

I'm getting 404 errors when trying to wget the tmux tarball. Does this need to be updated? SourceForge doesn't seem to have tmux version 2.2.

For version 2.2:

1. Change TMUX_VERSION=2.2
2. Change URL to https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/2.2/tmux-2.2.tar.gz

nice! Thanks. Also for version 2.2!

I just tried this script with version 2.2 on a fresh linux install (apricityos) and got this error:

In file included from ../ncurses/curses.priv.h:283:0,
                 from ../ncurses/lib_gen.c:19:
_11601.c:835:15: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘int’
../include/curses.h:1594:56: note: in definition of macro ‘mouse_trafo’
 #define mouse_trafo(y,x,to_screen) wmouse_trafo(stdscr,y,x,to_screen)
                                                        ^
Makefile:785: recipe for target '../objects/lib_gen.o' failed
make[1]: *** [../objects/lib_gen.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/xapple/tmux_tmp/ncurses-5.9/ncurses'
Makefile:109: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

I managed to compile tmux version 2.2 finally (on ubuntu 14.04). But when I copy the executable binary to another computer I get the following:

xapple@uni_cluster test $ ./tmux -V
./tmux: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.14' not found (required by ./tmux)
./tmux: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./tmux)
./tmux: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.17' not found (required by ./tmux)

Is there any way to change the compilation to include these libraries ?

If anyone comes looking for it, this is the script that was able to install the latest version of tmux:

#!/bin/bash
# Exit on error #
set -e

# Clean up #
rm -rf ~/programs/libevent
rm -rf ~/programs/ncurses
rm -rf ~/programs/tmux

# Variable version #
TMUX_VERSION=2.2

# Create our directories #
mkdir -p ~/test
mkdir -p ~/programs/libevent
mkdir -p ~/programs/ncurses
mkdir -p ~/programs/tmux

############
# libevent #
############
cd ~/test
wget https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
tar xvzf libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-*/
./configure --prefix=$HOME/programs/libevent --disable-shared
make
make install

############
# ncurses  #
############
cd ~/test
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
tar xvzf ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
cd ncurses-5.9
./configure --prefix=$HOME/programs/ncurses LDFLAGS="-static"
make
make install

############
# tmux     #
############
cd ~/test
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}

# open configure and find the line that says:
# PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config --static"
# And comment it out:
# #PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config --static"

# Build #
./configure --prefix=$HOME/programs/tmux --enable-static CFLAGS="-I$HOME/programs/libevent/include -I$HOME/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/programs/libevent/lib -L$HOME/programs/libevent/include -L$HOME/programs/ncurses/lib -L$HOME/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" PKG_CONFIG=/bin/false
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/programs/libevent/include -I$HOME/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/programs/libevent/lib -L$HOME/programs/libevent/include -L$HOME/programs/ncurses/lib -L$HOME/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" make

# Move #
cp tmux ~/bin/tmux

With the latest script in the comment, I had the following compiler error. Any ideas?

cc -DPACKAGE_NAME="tmux" -DPACKAGE_TARNAME="tmux" -DPACKAGE_VERSION="2.2" -DPACKAGE_STRING="tmux\ 2.2" -DPACKAGE_BUGREPORT="" -DPACKAGE_URL="" -DPACKAGE="tmux" -DVERSION="2.2" -DSTDC_HEADERS=1 -DHAVE_SYS_TYPES_H=1 -DHAVE_SYS_STAT_H=1 -DHAVE_STDLIB_H=1 -DHAVE_STRING_H=1 -DHAVE_MEMORY_H=1 -DHAVE_STRINGS_H=1 -DHAVE_INTTYPES_H=1 -DHAVE_STDINT_H=1 -DHAVE_UNISTD_H=1 -DHAVE_DIRENT_H=1 -DHAVE_FCNTL_H=1 -DHAVE_INTTYPES_H=1 -DHAVE_PATHS_H=1 -DHAVE_PTY_H=1 -DHAVE_STDINT_H=1 -DHAVE_SYS_DIR_H=1 -DHAVE_DIRFD=1 -DHAVE_FLOCK=1 -DHAVE_SYSCONF=1 -DHAVE_CFMAKERAW=1 -DHAVE_B64_NTOP=1 -DHAVE_FORKPTY=1 -DHAVE_DAEMON=1 -DHAVE_SETENV=1 -DHAVE_ASPRINTF=1 -DHAVE_STRCASESTR=1 -DHAVE_STRSEP=1 -DHAVE_CFMAKERAW=1 -DHAVE_OPENAT=1 -DHAVE_DECL_OPTARG=1 -DHAVE_DECL_OPTIND=1 -DHAVE_DECL_OPTRESET=0 -DHAVE_BSD_TYPES=1 -DHAVE___PROGNAME=1 -DHAVE_PROC_PID=1 -I. -I/usr/include/ncursesw -DTMUX_CONF=""/etc/tmux.conf"" -iquote. -I/home/phd/e1696798/programs/libevent/include -I/home/phd/e1696798/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses -D_GNU_SOURCE -std=gnu99 -O2 -MT tty-term.o -MD -MP -MF $depbase.Tpo -c -o tty-term.o tty-term.c &&
mv -f $depbase.Tpo $depbase.Po
tty-term.c: In function ‘tty_term_find’:
tty-term.c:410:37: error: ‘OK’ undeclared (first use in this function)
if (setupterm(name, fd, &error) != OK) {
^
tty-term.c:410:37: note: each undeclared identifier is reported only once for each function it appears in
make: *** [tty-term.o] Error 1

Thank you very much! Really clean script with everything in one place!
You are the real MVP!

Thank you! This worked great for me!!

Thank you!

xapple's script miss some include directory, script below works OK for me:

# Exit on error #
set -e

# Clean up #
rm -rf ~/tools/programs/libevent
rm -rf ~/tools/programs/ncurses
rm -rf ~/tools/programs/tmux

# Variable version #
TMUX_VERSION=2.2

# Create our directories #
mkdir -p ~/tools/test
mkdir -p ~/tools/programs/libevent
mkdir -p ~/tools/programs/ncurses
mkdir -p ~/tools/programs/tmux

############
# libevent #
############
cd ~/tools/test
wget https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
tar xvzf libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-*/
./configure --prefix=$HOME/tools/programs/libevent --disable-shared
make
make install

############
# ncurses  #
############
cd ~/tools/test
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
tar xvzf ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
cd ncurses-5.9
./configure --prefix=$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses LDFLAGS="-static"
make
make install

############
# tmux     #
############
cd ~/tools/test
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}

# open configure and find the line that says:
# PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config --static"
# And comment it out:
# #PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config --static"

# Build #
./configure --prefix=$HOME/tools/programs/tmux --enable-static CFLAGS="-I$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/include -I$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses -I$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/lib -L$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/include -L$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/lib -L$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" PKG_CONFIG=/bin/false
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/include -I$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/lib -L$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/include -L$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/lib -L$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" make

# Move #
cp tmux ~/bin/tmux```

Thanks for your share!!! but the source files for tmux could be changed. I take a long time to find the solution:

https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/2.1/tmux-2.1.tar.gz  

use above addr instead.

good luck!

great script, thanks!
I forked it to add some flexibility and options and correct the urls :)

Great script, thanks!

Really thanks! I needed to adjust the wgets for the new version but it is working now

Updated to latest version (2.3) and using github instead of sourceforge - https://gist.github.com/crobicha/f99b5f626c47473a184003ae1fc597d4

I would create a pull-request but it seems like that's only a git concept, not in gist?

I met the following problem when make ncurses

In file included from ../ncurses/curses.priv.h:283:0,
                 from ../ncurses/lib_gen.c:19:
_1517.c:835:15: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘int’
../include/curses.h:1594:56: note: in definition of macro ‘mouse_trafo’
 #define mouse_trafo(y,x,to_screen) wmouse_trafo(stdscr,y,x,to_screen)
                                                        ^
make[1]: *** [../objects/lib_gen.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/hpc/pr74ze/ru37wof2/tmux_tmp/ncurses-5.9/ncurses'
make: *** [all] Error 2

awesome~

Just removed the last three backquote from the above script and finally works fine without thinking.

# Exit on error #
set -e

# Clean up #
rm -rf ~/tools/programs/libevent
rm -rf ~/tools/programs/ncurses
rm -rf ~/tools/programs/tmux

# Variable version #
TMUX_VERSION=2.2

# Create our directories #
mkdir -p ~/tools/test
mkdir -p ~/tools/programs/libevent
mkdir -p ~/tools/programs/ncurses
mkdir -p ~/tools/programs/tmux

############
# libevent #
############
cd ~/tools/test
wget https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
tar xvzf libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-*/
./configure --prefix=$HOME/tools/programs/libevent --disable-shared
make
make install

############
# ncurses  #
############
cd ~/tools/test
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
tar xvzf ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
cd ncurses-5.9
./configure --prefix=$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses LDFLAGS="-static"
make
make install

############
# tmux     #
############
cd ~/tools/test
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}

# open configure and find the line that says:
# PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config --static"
# And comment it out:
# #PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config --static"

# Build #
./configure --prefix=$HOME/tools/programs/tmux --enable-static CFLAGS="-I$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/include -I$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses -I$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/lib -L$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/include -L$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/lib -L$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" PKG_CONFIG=/bin/false
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/include -I$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/lib -L$HOME/tools/programs/libevent/include -L$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/lib -L$HOME/tools/programs/ncurses/include/ncurses" make

# Move #
cp tmux ~/bin/tmux

Thanks a lot for your codes! I would like to ask why sometimes there is 'prefix' when configure tmux and sometimes not? If not, where do we indicate tmux should be installed? And why there are two LDFLAGS (almost the same) when configuring tmux? @dexhunter @thinki @xapple @ryin @crobicha

Thank you for your script, it helps me a lot. However, it must be better to update download link of latest sources of tmux, ncurses and libevent.

I replace them in "# download source files for tmux, libevent, and ncurses" section by the following:

wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz wget https://github.com/libevent/libevent/releases/download/release-2.1.8-stable/libevent-2.1.8-stable.tar.gz wget http://invisible-island.net/datafiles/release/ncurses.tar.gz

and tmux version should be changed firstly:
TMUX_VERSION=2.5

Edited the script to have right folder path, based on @ZhouYL0213 comment,

#!/bin/bash

# Script for installing tmux on systems where you don't have root access.
# tmux will be installed in $HOME/local/bin.
# It's assumed that wget and a C/C++ compiler are installed.

# exit on error
set -e

TMUX_VERSION=2.5

# create our directories
mkdir -p $HOME/local $HOME/tmux_tmp
cd $HOME/tmux_tmp

# download source files for tmux, libevent, and ncurses
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz 
wget https://github.com/libevent/libevent/releases/download/release-2.1.8-stable/libevent-2.1.8-stable.tar.gz 
wget http://invisible-island.net/datafiles/release/ncurses.tar.gz

# extract files, configure, and compile

############
# libevent #
############
tar xvzf libevent-2.1.8-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-2.1.8-stable
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local --disable-shared
make
make install
cd ..

############
# ncurses  #
############
tar xvzf ncurses.tar.gz
cd ncurses-5.9
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make
make install
cd ..

############
# tmux     #
############
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}
./configure CFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/lib -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/include"
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/local/include -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/lib" make
cp tmux $HOME/local/bin
cd ..

# cleanup
rm -rf $HOME/tmux_tmp

echo "$HOME/local/bin/tmux is now available. You can optionally add $HOME/local/bin to your PATH."

@smilesun run
export CPPFLAGS="-P"
before the script as per https://stackoverflow.com/a/37475223/130152

I have trouble with configuring tmux: libevent is not found. Executing the above scripts gives:

...
checking for LIBEVENT... no
checking for library containing event_init... no
checking event.h usability... yes
checking event.h presence... no
configure: WARNING: event.h: accepted by the compiler, rejected by the preprocessor!
configure: WARNING: event.h: proceeding with the compiler's result
checking for event.h... yes
configure: error: "libevent not found"

edit: the LDFLAGS was missing $HOME/local/lib64 for libevent. adding -L$HOME/local/lib64 to LDFLAGS in the tmux ./configure and make calls fixed this.

I use script of @yogeshpv, and it works now.
Thanks all of you.

@smilesun
Compile error is caused by GCC Version equaling 5.X which is too higher.
https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/19749

Modify ncurses source code as below:

--- a/meta/recipes-core/ncurses/ncurses.inc
+++ b/meta/recipes-core/ncurses/ncurses.inc
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ ENABLE_WIDEC ?= "true"
 # _GNU_SOURCE is required for widec stuff and is detected automatically
 # for target objects.  But it must be set manually for native and sdk
 # builds.
-BUILD_CPPFLAGS += "-D_GNU_SOURCE"
+BUILD_CPPFLAGS += "-D_GNU_SOURCE -P"

 # natives don't generally look in base_libdir
 base_libdir_class-native = "${libdir}"

Thanks a lot mate. You are a life saver.

Hey there, I tried to run this but https://sourceforge.net/projects/tmux/files/tmux/tmux-1.8/tmux-1.8.tar.gz/download is 404'ing for me :(
And then when I search for tmux on SourceForge, the project doesn't exist: https://sourceforge.net/directory/os:linux/?q=tmux
Any ideas?
EDIT: Solution is in @ZhouYL0213 's comment

Just updated the links and it is working perfectly. Thanks a lot for saving a lot of my time!

I used the solution in @yogeshpv 's comment. It worked with only one modification: cd to new version of ncurses (as of right now it is ncurses-6.1). Thanks!

Thank you so much!

#!/bin/bash

# Script for installing tmux on systems where you don't have root access.
# tmux will be installed in $HOME/local/bin.
# It's assumed that wget and a C/C++ compiler are installed.

# exit on error
set -e

TMUX_VERSION=2.5

# create our directories
mkdir -p $HOME/local $HOME/tmux_tmp
cd $HOME/tmux_tmp

# download source files for tmux, libevent, and ncurses
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz 
wget https://github.com/libevent/libevent/releases/download/release-2.1.8-stable/libevent-2.1.8-stable.tar.gz 
wget http://invisible-island.net/datafiles/release/ncurses.tar.gz

# extract files, configure, and compile

############
# libevent #
############
tar xvzf libevent-2.1.8-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-2.1.8-stable
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local --disable-shared
make
make install
cd ..

############
# ncurses  #
############
tar xvzf ncurses.tar.gz
cd ncurses-6.1
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make
make install
cd ..

############
# tmux     #
############
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}
./configure CFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/lib -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/include"
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/local/include -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/lib" make
cp tmux $HOME/local/bin
cd ..

# cleanup
rm -rf $HOME/tmux_tmp

echo "$HOME/local/bin/tmux is now available. You can optionally add $HOME/local/bin to your PATH."

thanks @yogeshpv and @hmm34 's comments.

The links to libevent and ncurses redirect and wget tries to save them with a different filename.

Have fixed them (i.e. hardcoded) to the correct filenames. Also, bumped tmux version from 2.5 to 2.7.

#!/bin/bash

# Script for installing tmux on systems where you don't have root access.
# tmux will be installed in $HOME/local/bin.
# It's assumed that wget and a C/C++ compiler are installed.

# exit on error
set -e

TMUX_VERSION=2.7

# create our directories
mkdir -p $HOME/local $HOME/tmux_tmp
cd $HOME/tmux_tmp

# download source files for tmux, libevent, and ncurses
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz 
wget -O libevent-2.1.8-stable.tar.gz https://github.com/libevent/libevent/releases/download/release-2.1.8-stable/libevent-2.1.8-stable.tar.gz 
wget -O ncurses.tar.gz http://invisible-island.net/datafiles/release/ncurses.tar.gz

# extract files, configure, and compile

############
# libevent #
############
tar xvzf libevent-2.1.8-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-2.1.8-stable
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local --disable-shared
make
make install
cd ..

############
# ncurses  #
############
tar xvzf ncurses.tar.gz
cd ncurses-6.1
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make
make install
cd ..

############
# tmux     #
############
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}
./configure CFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/lib -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/include"
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/local/include -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/lib" make
cp tmux $HOME/local/bin
cd ..

# cleanup
rm -rf $HOME/tmux_tmp

echo "$HOME/local/bin/tmux is now available. You can optionally add $HOME/local/bin to your PATH."

Thanks @musically-ut . Your fixes worked for me.

@musically-ut, I see that you put some include dir for LDFLAGS. AFAIK, the LDFLAGS are for library files, not header files. Is there anything that I am missing here? Or because Tmux is different in that it requires us to do so? It seems I can not find some official guide.

@musically-ut script works. Thanks a lot!

To use the latest tmux release v2.8, the following works for me (notice you need to do autogen.sh before using ./configure, and use make -j can speed up the build process):

#!/bin/bash

# Script for installing tmux on systems where you don't have root access.
# tmux will be installed in $HOME/local/bin.
# It's assumed that wget and a C/C++ compiler are installed.

# exit on error
set -e

TMUX_VERSION=2.8

# create our directories
mkdir -p $HOME/local $HOME/tmux_tmp
cd $HOME/tmux_tmp

# download source files for tmux, libevent, and ncurses
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/archive/${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz 
wget https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz

# extract files, configure, and compile

############
# libevent #
############
tar xvzf libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-2.0.19-stable
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local --disable-shared
make -j
make install
cd ..

############
# ncurses  #
############
tar xvzf ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
cd ncurses-5.9
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make -j
make install
cd ..

############
# tmux     #
############
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}
./autogen.sh
./configure CFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/lib -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/include"
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/local/include -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/lib" make
cp tmux $HOME/local/bin
cd ..

# cleanup
rm -rf $HOME/tmux_tmp

echo "$HOME/local/bin/tmux is now available. You can optionally add $HOME/local/bin to your PATH."

Everything is right But when I runtmux
it says -bash: tmux: command not found
what can I do ?

@StevenShi-23 script is breaking in
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/local/include -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/lib" make

with
make: *** No rule to make target 'compat/forkpty-linux.c', needed by 'compat/forkpty-linux.o'. Stop.

I am using CentOS 6.10. Any ideas?

To use the latest tmux release v2.8, the following works for me (notice you need to do autogen.sh before using ./configure, and use make -j can speed up the build process):

#!/bin/bash

# Script for installing tmux on systems where you don't have root access.
# tmux will be installed in $HOME/local/bin.
# It's assumed that wget and a C/C++ compiler are installed.

# exit on error
set -e

TMUX_VERSION=2.8

# create our directories
mkdir -p $HOME/local $HOME/tmux_tmp
cd $HOME/tmux_tmp

# download source files for tmux, libevent, and ncurses
wget -O tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz https://github.com/tmux/tmux/archive/${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz 
wget https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-5.9.tar.gz

# extract files, configure, and compile

############
# libevent #
############
tar xvzf libevent-2.0.19-stable.tar.gz
cd libevent-2.0.19-stable
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local --disable-shared
make -j
make install
cd ..

############
# ncurses  #
############
tar xvzf ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
cd ncurses-5.9
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make -j
make install
cd ..

############
# tmux     #
############
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}
./autogen.sh
./configure CFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/lib -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/include"
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/local/include -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/lib" make
cp tmux $HOME/local/bin
cd ..

# cleanup
rm -rf $HOME/tmux_tmp

echo "$HOME/local/bin/tmux is now available. You can optionally add $HOME/local/bin to your PATH."

Thanks for the help. This worked for me on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.9 (Santiago).

My ~/.bashrc also contains export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/local/bin" to make tmux accessible everywhere.

Just updated links of latest tmux and it worked perfectly. Thanks!

Thank you @mnsmar

The above from @StevenShi-23 and @amlestin (including the part about adding to $PATH) worked for me on Centos 7.6. Thanks!

I updated for 2.9a.

# Script for installing tmux on systems where you don't have root access.
# tmux will be installed in $HOME/local/bin.
# It's assumed that wget and a C/C++ compiler are installed.

# exit on error
set -e

TMUX_VERSION=2.9a
LIBEVENT_VERSION=2.1.8-stable
NCURSES_VERSION=6.1


# create our directories
mkdir -p $HOME/local $HOME/tmux_tmp
cd $HOME/tmux_tmp

# download all the files
wget https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/${TMUX_VERSION}/tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
wget https://github.com/libevent/libevent/releases/download/release-${LIBEVENT_VERSION}/libevent-${LIBEVENT_VERSION}.tar.gz
wget https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses/ncurses-${NCURSES_VERSION}.tar.gz

############
# libevent #
############
tar xvzf libevent-${LIBEVENT_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd libevent-${LIBEVENT_VERSION}
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local --disable-shared
make
make install
cd ..

############
# ncurses  #
############
tar xvzf ncurses-${NCURSES_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd ncurses-${NCURSES_VERSION}
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make 
make install
cd ..

############
# tmux     #
############
tar xvzf tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}.tar.gz
cd tmux-${TMUX_VERSION}
./configure CFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-L$HOME/local/lib -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/include"
CPPFLAGS="-I$HOME/local/include -I$HOME/local/include/ncurses" LDFLAGS="-static -L$HOME/local/include -L$HOME/local/include/ncurses -L$HOME/local/lib" make
cp tmux $HOME/local/bin
cd ..

cd $HOME

# cleanup
rm -rf $HOME/tmux_tmp

echo "$HOME/local/bin/tmux is now available. You can optionally add $HOME/local/bin to your PATH."

# for the in order to add to the .bashrc (for /sh/bash) comment-in below line
# echo 'export PATH="$HOME/local/bin:$PATH"' >> $HOME/.bashrc

Curious, why not use make install after compiling Tmux rather than cp tmux $HOME/local/bin?

Not a big difference, but you are missing the man page:

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/flakrat/sources/tmux-2.9a'
 /usr/bin/mkdir -p '/home/flakrat/local/bin'
  /usr/bin/install -c tmux '/home/flakrat/local/bin'
make  install-exec-hook
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/flakrat/sources/tmux-2.9a'
if test xmdoc = xmdoc; then \
	sed -e "s|@SYSCONFDIR@|/etc|g" ./tmux.1 \
		>./tmux.1.mdoc; \
else \
	sed -e "s|@SYSCONFDIR@|/etc|g" ./tmux.1| \
		gawk -f ./mdoc2man.awk >./tmux.1.man; \
fi
/usr/bin/mkdir -p /home/flakrat/local/share/man/man1
/usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ./tmux.1.mdoc \
	/home/flakrat/local/share/man/man1/tmux.1

Note: The latest version of tmux (3.0a) is distributed as an Appimage. So you can simply download the Appimage and either:

1. Put the Appimage somewhere on your path (and thus call tmux.Appimage directly) or
2. Extract out the Appimage. This may be necessary depending on whether your machine can directly run Appimages.

Thank you so much!

For anyone looking to do this for Windows. Installing Tmux in Git Bash for instance without admin privileges.

You can grab the file from https://packages.msys2.org/package/tmux?repo=msys&variant=x86_64 and it contains tmux.exe along with appendices.

https://github.com/msys2/MSYS2-packages/blob/master/tmux/PKGBUILD is how they build it.