How to compile Bitcoin Core with wallet, from source, on Linux Debian

how-to-compile-bitcoin-core-from-source-for-linux-debian.md

How to compile Bitcoin Core from source on Linux Debian and run the unit and functional tests

Last updated: 16 March 2019

This is a simplified compilation of the various docs in https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/master/doc. Don't hesitate to read them for more information.

All steps are to be run from your terminal emulator, i.e. the command line.

1. Ensure the dependencies are installed:

   • sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool autotools-dev automake pkg-config bsdmainutils python3 libssl-dev libevent-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-chrono-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-thread-dev libminiupnpc-dev libzmq3-dev libqt5gui5 libqt5core5a libqt5dbus5 qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler git ccache

2. Download the Bitcoin source files by git cloning the repository:

   • git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git

3. Install Berkeley DB (BDB) v4.8, a backward-compatible version needed for the wallet, using the script in /contrib:

   • Enter your local copy of the bitcoin repository: cd bitcoin
   • Now that you are in the root of the bitcoin repository, run ./contrib/install_db4.sh `pwd`
   • Take note of the instructions displayed in the terminal at the end of the BDB installation process:

      db4 build complete.

      When compiling bitcoind, run `./configure` in the following way:

      export BDB_PREFIX='<PATH-TO>/db4'

      ./configure BDB_LIBS="-L${BDB_PREFIX}/lib -ldb_cxx-4.8" BDB_CFLAGS="-I${BDB_PREFIX}/include" ...

4. [Recommended] Compile from a tagged release branch instead of master, unless you really want to test the bleeding edge:

   • git tag -n | sort -V to see tags and descriptions ordered by most recent last
   • git checkout <TAG> to use a tagged release, for example: git checkout v0.18.0rc2

5. Compile Bitcoin from source, optionally with lcov and gprof enabled:

   • ./autogen.sh
   • Use the output from the BDB build above for the exact export command (i.e., replace <PATH-TO> in the following command with the actual path from your system): export BDB_PREFIX='<PATH-TO>/db4'
   • ./configure BDB_LIBS="-L${BDB_PREFIX}/lib -ldb_cxx-4.8" BDB_CFLAGS="-I${BDB_PREFIX}/include" --enable-lcov --enable-gprof
   • make, or if you have multiple threads on your machine, you can tell make to utilize all of them and reduce compile time significantly with: make -j"$(($(nproc)+1))"

6. Run unit tests:

   • Unit tests only: make check
   • Unit tests with coverage report (if lcov was enabled): make cov

7. Run functional tests:

   • test/functional/test_runner.py or test/functional/test_runner.py --extended

replace <PATH-TO> in the following command with the actual path from your system)