Some notes on how to build Bitcoin Core in Unix.
(For BSD specific instructions, see build-*bsd.md in this directory.)
cmake -B build
cmake --build build # use "-j N" for N parallel jobs
cmake --install build # optionalSee below for instructions on how to install the dependencies on popular Linux distributions, or the dependencies section for a complete overview.
C++ compilers are memory-hungry. It is recommended to have at least 1.5 GB of
memory available when compiling Bitcoin Core. On systems with less, gcc can be
tuned to conserve memory with additional CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS:
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="--param ggc-min-expand=1 --param ggc-min-heapsize=32768"
Alternatively, or in addition, debugging information can be skipped for compilation.
For the default build type RelWithDebInfo, the default compile flags are
-O2 -g, and can be changed with:
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELWITHDEBINFO="-O2 -g0"
Finally, clang (often less resource hungry) can be used instead of gcc, which is used by default:
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang
Build requirements:
sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake pkg-config python3
Now, you can either build from self-compiled depends or install the required dependencies:
sudo apt-get install libevent-dev libboost-dev
SQLite is required for the descriptor wallet:
sudo apt install libsqlite3-dev
Berkeley DB is only required for the legacy wallet. Ubuntu and Debian have their own libdb-dev and libdb++-dev packages,
but these will install Berkeley DB 5.3 or later. This will break binary wallet compatibility with the distributed
executables, which are based on BerkeleyDB 4.8. Otherwise, you can build Berkeley DB yourself.
To build Bitcoin Core without wallet, see Disable-wallet mode
ZMQ dependencies (provides ZMQ API):
sudo apt-get install libzmq3-dev
User-Space, Statically Defined Tracing (USDT) dependencies:
sudo apt install systemtap-sdt-dev
GUI dependencies:
Bitcoin Core includes a GUI built with the cross-platform Qt Framework. To compile the GUI, we need to install
the necessary parts of Qt, the libqrencode and pass -DBUILD_GUI=ON. Skip if you don't intend to use the GUI.
sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools
Additionally, to support Wayland protocol for modern desktop environments:
sudo apt install qtwayland5
The GUI will be able to encode addresses in QR codes unless this feature is explicitly disabled. To install libqrencode, run:
sudo apt-get install libqrencode-dev
Otherwise, if you don't need QR encoding support, use the -DWITH_QRENCODE=OFF option to disable this feature in order to compile the GUI.
Build requirements:
sudo dnf install gcc-c++ cmake make python3
Now, you can either build from self-compiled depends or install the required dependencies:
sudo dnf install libevent-devel boost-devel
SQLite is required for the descriptor wallet:
sudo dnf install sqlite-devel
Berkeley DB is only required for the legacy wallet. Fedora releases have only libdb-devel and libdb-cxx-devel packages, but these will install
Berkeley DB 5.3 or later. This will break binary wallet compatibility with the distributed executables, which
are based on Berkeley DB 4.8. Otherwise, you can build Berkeley DB yourself.
To build Bitcoin Core without wallet, see Disable-wallet mode
ZMQ dependencies (provides ZMQ API):
sudo dnf install zeromq-devel
User-Space, Statically Defined Tracing (USDT) dependencies:
sudo dnf install systemtap-sdt-devel
GUI dependencies:
Bitcoin Core includes a GUI built with the cross-platform Qt Framework. To compile the GUI, we need to install
the necessary parts of Qt, the libqrencode and pass -DBUILD_GUI=ON. Skip if you don't intend to use the GUI.
sudo dnf install qt5-qttools-devel qt5-qtbase-devel
Additionally, to support Wayland protocol for modern desktop environments:
sudo dnf install qt5-qtwayland
The GUI will be able to encode addresses in QR codes unless this feature is explicitly disabled. To install libqrencode, run:
sudo dnf install qrencode-devel
Otherwise, if you don't need QR encoding support, use the -DWITH_QRENCODE=OFF option to disable this feature in order to compile the GUI.
See dependencies.md for a complete overview, and depends on how to compile them yourself, if you wish to not use the packages of your Linux distribution.
The legacy wallet uses Berkeley DB. To ensure backwards compatibility it is recommended to use Berkeley DB 4.8. If you have to build it yourself, and don't want to use any other libraries built in depends, you can do:
make -C depends NO_BOOST=1 NO_LIBEVENT=1 NO_QT=1 NO_SQLITE=1 NO_ZMQ=1 NO_USDT=1
...
to: /path/to/bitcoin/depends/x86_64-pc-linux-gnuand configure using the following:
export BDB_PREFIX="/path/to/bitcoin/depends/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
cmake -B build -DBerkeleyDB_INCLUDE_DIR:PATH="${BDB_PREFIX}/include" -DWITH_BDB=ONNote: Make sure that BDB_PREFIX is an absolute path.
Note: You only need Berkeley DB if the legacy wallet is enabled (see Disable-wallet mode).
When the intention is to only run a P2P node, without a wallet, Bitcoin Core can be compiled in disable-wallet mode with:
cmake -B build -DENABLE_WALLET=OFF
In this case there is no dependency on SQLite or Berkeley DB.
Mining is also possible in disable-wallet mode using the getblocktemplate RPC call.
A list of additional configure flags can be displayed with:
cmake -B build -LH
This example lists the steps necessary to setup and build a command line only distribution of the latest changes on Arch Linux:
pacman --sync --needed cmake boost gcc git libevent make python sqlite
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git
cd bitcoin/
cmake -B build
cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build
./build/src/bitcoind
If you intend to work with legacy Berkeley DB wallets, see Berkeley DB section.