brew

Install epics-base with Homebrew, apt

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System. Version 7.0.10 via Homebrew; verified 2026-07-01.

Install command Security notes

install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install epics-base

local Homebrew formula metadata

Linux

Debian aptverified · 92%

sudo apt install epics-base

Debian stable package indexes · epics-base · source: deb.debian.org

overview

Package summary

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Project links

Commands and aliases

EpicsHostArch.pl
caRepeater
caget
cainfo
camonitor
caput
casw
pvcall
pvget
pvinfo
pvlist
pvmonitor
pvput
softioc
softiocpva

history

Project history and usage

EPICS Base is the C/C++ core of the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System toolkit. EPICS provides software components and command-line tools for building distributed control systems used by particle accelerators, telescopes, large experiments, and industrial installations.

Project history

EPICS grew out of accelerator control-system work at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. Official historical material describes GTACS, the Ground Test Accelerator Control System, as the immediate predecessor and explains that the EPICS name was adopted as the LANL and ANL collaboration generalized the software for multi-lab use.

The EPICS repository documentation says current and past EPICS Base versions are maintained in the same GitHub repository, with EPICS 7 development on the 7.0 branch and older branches for 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, and 3.16. The project continues to release EPICS Base as the central core of the toolkit.

Adoption history

The official EPICS site describes a collaboration spanning many projects across disciplines, sizes, and continents. Historical EPICS material records the early LANL-ANL collaboration, 1992 participation by LBL, SSCL, and CEBAF, and later commercial licensing of EPICS Release 3.8.

Package adoption follows EPICS Base's role as a foundational scientific-control dependency: the supplied source metadata lists Homebrew, Debian, and Ubuntu package names, while the official repository documents the portable branch and release structure needed by downstream users.

How it is used

EPICS Base users build the toolkit, create or run IOCs, and use Channel Access and PV Access tools to read, write, monitor, and serve process variables. The repository README shows a quick `make` build and a `softIoc` example, while the documentation indexes installation, IOC creation, database concepts, Channel Access commands, and system administration topics.

Why package nerds care

For package maintainers, EPICS Base is significant because it is a long-lived scientific infrastructure package with many executables, C/C++ libraries, Perl tooling, architecture-specific install paths, and downstream modules. Its branch history, tagged releases, and broad operating-system support make it a classic example of packaging research-facility infrastructure rather than a single small CLI.

Timeline

1988: LANL hosted the Accelerator Automation Application Toolkit Workshop that shaped GTACS.
1989: LANL and ANL teams met around the Advanced Photon Source control-system effort.
1991: EPICS was presented at ICALEPCS and became identified with the accelerator-control standard model.
1992: LBL, SSCL, and CEBAF joined the EPICS collaboration.
2004: EPICS was released under the EPICS Open License according to official training material.
2026: EPICS Base 7.0.10 was announced on the official EPICS site.

Related projects

EPICS Base is related to EPICS 7 modules, Channel Access, PV Access, IOC applications, softIOC, areaDetector, StreamDevice, and the wider EPICS collaboration software ecosystem.

Sources

security posture

No protected-tool coverage found yet

No matching local secret-handling manifest was found for epics-base. Nucleus package metadata is still published here so future coverage has a stable package URL.

Install behavior

No Homebrew post-install hook is recorded in formula metadata.
Homebrew bottle metadata is available for 6 platform targets.
Installs with 2 runtime dependencies.
Build metadata lists 1 build dependencies.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure
`EpicsHostArch.pl`	cli	global executable
`caRepeater`	cli	global executable
`caget`	cli	global executable
`cainfo`	cli	global executable
`camonitor`	cli	global executable
`caput`	cli	global executable
`casw`	cli	global executable
`pvcall`	cli	global executable
`pvget`	cli	global executable
`pvinfo`	cli	global executable
`pvlist`	cli	global executable
`pvmonitor`	cli	global executable
`pvput`	cli	global executable
`softioc`	cli	global executable
`softiocpva`	cli	global executable

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-07-09

manager version7.0.10

manager updated2026-07-01

local dataok

upstreamnot checked

latest detectednot detected

https://github.com/epics-base/epics-base

infoNo cached GitHub release or tag data was available.https://github.com/epics-base/epics-basenone confidence

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:epics-base
Version	7.0.10
Package manager	Homebrew
Package manager page	https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/epics-base
Homepage	https://epics-controls.org/
Repository	https://github.com/epics-base/epics-base
Upstream docs	https://docs.epics-controls.org/en/latest
License	EPICS
Source archive	https://github.com/epics-base/epics-base.git
Last updated	2026-07-01T09:38:18Z
Pulse	updated
Dependencies	perl, readline
Build dependencies	pkgconf
Bottle	available (on arm64_linux, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_tahoe, sonoma, x86_64_linux)
Homebrew post-install	not defined
Service	none declared
Caveats	To use EPICS in the shell you have to put this here into shell configuration: export EPICS_BASE=$HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/epics-base/libexec export EPICS_HOST_ARCH=$($HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/epics-base/bin/EpicsHostArch.pl)

registry facts

Source database details

Source Database	Homebrew formula API
Tap	homebrew/core
Full Name	epics-base
Version Scheme	0
Revision	0
Bottle Stable Root URL	https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core
Deprecated	no
Disabled	no
Keg Only	no
URL Keys	stable

source database matches

Other package-manager records

Matches are pulled from external package-manager indexes and kept separate from local Automic Vault package links.

Debian apt95%

epics-base 7.0.8.1+dfsg1-7+deb13u1

EPICS tools