1. Pre-requisite: Install a JRE

SSSOM-CLI, like the entire SSSOM-Java project, is written in Java and therefore requires a Java Runtime Environment (JRE, sometimes also called a Java virtual machine – improperly as the actual virtual machine is in fact only a part of the runtime environment) to run.

SSSOM-Java needs a JRE for Java version 11 at a minimum, and should work with any more recent version (it has explicitly been tested against Java 17 and Java 21).

On most GNU/Linux distributions, a JRE should likely be available in the distribution’s package repository. For example, on Debian (and presumably all Debian-based distributions), a JRE 21 can be installed with

# apt-get install openjdk-21-jre

On MacOS, if you are using the HomeBrew package manager a Java Development Kit (JDK, which automatically includes a JRE) is available with

$ brew install openjdk@21

or, if you are using MacPorts, with

$ sudo port install opendjdk21

For any system that is supported by Java at all, it is also possible to “manually” install a JRE after downloading it from several possible sources, including Oracle, Azul, Adoptium…

Regardless of how the JRE has been obtained and installed, at the end you must be able to call java from the command line:

$ java --version
openjdk 21.0.8 2025-07-15
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 21.0.8+9-Debian-1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 21.0.8+9-Debian-1, mixed mode, sharing)

2. Downloading and testing SSSOM-CLI

Download the sssom-cli file from the page of the latest release.

On Unix-like systems such as GNU/Linux and MacOS, the file can be made executable and then invoked directly:

$ chmod 755 sssom-cli
$ ./sssom-cli --version
sssom-cli (SSSOM-Java 1.8.2)
Copyright © 2023,2024,2025 Damien Goutte-Gattat

This program is released under the GNU General Public License.
See the COPYING file or <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

On other systems (e.g. Windows), the program can be invoked by calling java -jar sssom-cli followed by the arguments to the program:

> java -jar sssom-cli --version
sssom-cli (SSSOM-Java 1.8.2)
Copyright © 2023,2024,2025 Damien Goutte-Gattat

This program is released under the GNU General Public License.
See the COPYING file or <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

3. Permanent installation

On Unix-like systems, once the sssom-cli program has been tested to work as shown above, it may then be copied (or moved) into any directory that is listed in the system’s (or user’s) PATH.

For example, on most systems it can be moved to /usr/local/bin, from where it will then be available to any user on the system.