# Installation instructions

## pip

**Note that using pip outside virtualenv is not recommended since it ignores
your systems package manager. If you aren't comfortable debugging package
installation issues, this is not the option for you.**

Create and activate a virtualenv:

```bash
virtualenv artifactsenv
cd artifactsenv
source ./bin/activate
```

Upgrade pip and install Forensics Artifacts dependencies:

```bash
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install artifacts
```

To deactivate the virtualenv run:

```bash
deactivate
```

## Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

To install Forensics Artifacts from the [GIFT Personal Package Archive (PPA)](https://launchpad.net/~gift):

```bash
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gift/stable
```

Update and install Forensics Artifacts:

```bash
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3-artifacts
```

## Windows

The [l2tbinaries](https://github.com/log2timeline/l2tbinaries) contains the
necessary packages for running Forensics Artifacts. l2tbinaries provides the following
branches:

* main; branch intended for the "packaged release" of Forensics Artifacts and dependencies;
* staging; branch intended for testing pre-releases of Forensics Artifacts;
* dev; branch intended for the "development release" of Forensics Artifacts;
* testing; branch intended for testing newly created packages.

The l2tdevtools project provides [an update script](https://github.com/log2timeline/l2tdevtools/wiki/Update-script)
to ease the process of keeping the dependencies up to date.

The script requires [pywin32](https://github.com/mhammond/pywin32/releases).

To install the release versions of the dependencies run:

```
set PYTHONPATH=.

C:\Python38\python.exe tools\update.py --preset artifacts
```