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How to Deploy & Use facebook/infer

Infer Deployment and Usage Guide

A comprehensive guide for installing, configuring, and deploying Facebook's Infer static analyzer for Java, C, C++, and Objective-C.

1. Prerequisites

System Requirements

  • Operating System: Linux (64-bit), macOS (10.14+), or Windows (via WSL2)
  • Memory: Minimum 4GB RAM (8GB+ recommended for large codebases)
  • Disk Space: 2GB+ free space for installation and analysis artifacts

Required Dependencies

Core Build Tools (for source installation):

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install -y \
  autoconf automake libtool cmake pkg-config \
  libsqlite3-dev python3 python3-distutils \
  openjdk-11-jdk clang libmpfr-dev libgmp-dev

# macOS (with Homebrew)
brew install autoconf automake libtool cmake pkg-config \
  sqlite python openjdk@11 mpfr gmp

OCaml Toolchain (required for building from source):

  • OCaml 4.14.0 or later
  • opam 2.1.0 or later
  • Python 3.6+ (for build scripts)

Language-Specific Requirements:

  • Java Analysis: JDK 8 or 11 (JDK 11 recommended)
  • C/C++/Objective-C: Clang/LLVM 11+ or GCC 9+
  • Android: Android SDK and NDK (for Android projects)

2. Installation

Option A: Pre-built Binaries (Recommended)

Download the latest release for your platform:

# Linux
VERSION=1.1.0
curl -sSL "https://github.com/facebook/infer/releases/download/v${VERSION}/infer-linux64-v${VERSION}.tar.xz" \
  | tar -C /opt -xJ
ln -s "/opt/infer-linux64-v${VERSION}/bin/infer" /usr/local/bin/infer

# macOS
brew install infer

Verify installation:

infer --version

Option B: Build from Source

  1. Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/facebook/infer.git
cd infer
git checkout v1.1.0  # Check out specific version tag
  1. Initialize opam (if not already done):
opam init --disable-sandboxing --bare
opam switch create 4.14.0+flambda
eval $(opam env)
  1. Install OCaml dependencies:
opam install -y . --deps-only
  1. Build Infer:
./build-infer.sh
  1. Install to system:
sudo make install
# Or install to custom location:
# make install PREFIX=$HOME/.local

3. Configuration

Environment Variables

Add to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.):

# Infer installation path (if not installed system-wide)
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

# Java configuration (required for Java analysis)
export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 11)  # macOS
# export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64  # Linux

# Optional: Increase memory for large codebases
export INFER_ARGS="--jobs 4"

Project Configuration

Create infer.conf in your project root for persistent options:

--jobs 4
--report-console-limit 100
--no-filtering
--annotation-reachability

4. Build & Run

Basic Usage

Analyze a Java project (Maven):

cd my-java-project
infer run -- mvn clean compile

Analyze a Java project (Gradle):

infer run -- ./gradlew build

Analyze C/C++ project:

infer run -- make clean
infer run -- make

Analyze Objective-C (iOS):

infer run -- xcodebuild -target MyApp -configuration Debug -sdk iphonesimulator

Advanced Analysis Modes

Incremental analysis (capture once, analyze multiple times):

# Capture phase
infer capture -- make

# Analysis phase
infer analyze

# Generate report
infer report

Differential analysis (compare two revisions):

infer run --reactive -- make

Output formats:

infer run -- make  # Default: generates infer-out/ directory
infer run -o reports -- make  # Custom output directory
infer report --from-json-report infer-out/report.json --html  # Generate HTML report

Integration with Build Systems

Buck:

infer capture --buck-targets //src:main
infer analyze

CMake:

cd build
infer capture -- cmake ..
infer capture -- make
infer analyze

5. Deployment

Docker Deployment

Use the official Docker image for CI/CD pipelines:

FROM infer/infer:1.1.0

WORKDIR /app
COPY . .

RUN infer run -- make

Run locally:

docker run -v $(pwd):/app -w /app infer/infer:1.1.0 infer run -- make

CI/CD Integration

GitHub Actions:

name: Infer Analysis
on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  infer:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      
      - name: Setup Infer
        run: |
          curl -sSL "https://github.com/facebook/infer/releases/download/v1.1.0/infer-linux64-v1.1.0.tar.xz" | tar -xJ
          sudo mv infer-linux64-v1.1.0 /opt/infer
          echo "/opt/infer/bin" >> $GITHUB_PATH
      
      - name: Run Infer
        run: infer run -- make
      
      - name: Upload Report
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: infer-report
          path: infer-out/

GitLab CI:

infer:
  image: infer/infer:1.1.0
  script:
    - infer run -- make
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - infer-out/
    expire_in: 1 week

Pre-commit Hook

.pre-commit-config.yaml:

repos:
  - repo: local
    hooks:
      - id: infer
        name: Infer Static Analysis
        entry: infer run --
        language: system
        pass_filenames: false
        always_run: true

6. Troubleshooting

Build Issues

Error: opam: command not found

# Install opam
sh <(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ocaml/opam/master/shell/install.sh)

Error: No available switch

opam switch create 4.14.0
eval $(opam env)

Error: sqlite3.h: No such file

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install libsqlite3-dev

# macOS
brew install sqlite

Runtime Issues

Out of memory during analysis:

# Reduce parallelism
infer run --jobs 2 -- make

# Or increase JVM heap for Java analysis
export JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx4g"

Java version mismatch:

# Verify Java version
java -version

# Set correct JAVA_HOME
export JAVA_HOME=$(readlink -f /usr/bin/java | sed "s:/bin/java::")

Missing clang for C/C++ analysis:

# Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install clang

# macOS
xcode-select --install

Analysis Issues

Empty report generated:

  • Ensure build completes successfully before analysis
  • Check that source files are actually compiled (Infer only analyzes compiled code)
  • Verify file extensions are recognized (.c, .cpp, .java, .m, .mm)

False positives: Add to .inferconfig in project root:

{
  "suppress-errors": [
    "NULL_DEREFERENCE",
    "RESOURCE_LEAK"
  ]
}

Getting Help

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