Dependencies

component / version	minimum (not recommended but may work)	recommended	most recent of what we have ever tested
gcc (Linux)	8.4.0	9.4.0	12.3.0
llvm/clang (Linux)	UNKNOWN	7.0.1	8.0.0
MSVC (Windows)	2017 (15.9.30)	2022 (17.11.5)	2022 (17.12.3)
XCode (macOS)	12.3	14.3	15.2
CMake	3.26.3	3.26.3	3.31.6

Cloning

Be sure to clone the repository properly, with --recursive flag, or you'll get angry:
git clone --recursive https://github.com/letheanVPN/blockchain.git

Building

The project uses a Makefile that provides a simple and powerful interface for building. It automatically handles dependency installation with Conan and compilation with CMake.

You need CMake and Make installed on your system, other than that you don't need to worry about Python, Conan, Boost, OpenSSL, or any other dependencies.

The final packages are created as they are due to a historical distribution method used in china: USB Stick, CD, DVD, etc.

We use CPack, so our pakages are self-contained, have searchable HTML documentation, and are ready to be installed on any system.

To skip the packing step, use make build as defined in the section below for Advanced Build Customization

Simple Workflow Builds (Recommended)

For most use cases, these two commands are all you need. They handle the entire build process from start to finish.

• Build for Mainnet:

  make mainnet
  

• Build for Testnet:

  make testnet
  

Creating Release Packages

To create distributable packages (e.g., .zip, .msi, .pkg, .deb), run the release target. This will build the project, build the documentation, and then package everything.

make release TESTNET=1

The final packages will be located in the build/packages/ directory

Advanced Build Customization (Makefile Variables)

For advanced use cases, you can override variables in the Makefile to customize the build process.

• Build a testnet version:

  make build TESTNET=1
  

• Build a statically-linked version:

  make build STATIC=1
  

• Build a Debug build with 8 compile threads:

  make build BUILD_TYPE=Debug CPU_CORES=8
  

• Use custom CMakePresets:

  make build PRESET_CONFIGURE=my-config-preset PRESET_BUILD=my-build-preset
  

Variable	Description	Default Value
BUILD_TYPE	Sets the build configuration (e.g., Release, Debug).	Release
TESTNET	Set to 1 to build for the test network.	0
STATIC	Set to 1 to link libraries statically.	0
CPU_CORES	Number of CPU cores to use for parallel compilation.	Auto-detected
BUILD_VERSION	The version string to embed in the binaries.	6.0.1
BUILD_FOLDER	The output directory for the build.	build/release
PRESET_CONFIGURE	The CMake preset to use for the configure step.	conan-release
PRESET_BUILD	The CMake preset to use for the build step.	conan-release
CONAN_CACHE	The path for the local Conan cache, where the dependencies are stored.	./build/sdk
CONAN_EXECUTABLE	The path to the usable Conan executable.	./build/bin/conan
CONAN_URL	The URL for the Conan remote repository.	artifacts.host.uk.com
CONAN_USER	The username for the Conan remote.	public
CONAN_PASSWORD	The password for the Conan remote.

Cleaning the Build Directory

ALWAYS USE make clean to clean the build directory, manually deleting the build/release, build/SOME_FOLDER will cause you issues.

Our make clean triggers a cmake script that completely resets the build directory & dynamically added CMakePresets to its cached warm-up state,
the selective clean script can be edited here: cmake/CleanBuild.cmake or directly run from the repo root cmake -P cmake/CleanBuild.cmake

You can NUKE the build directory with make clean-build which is rm -rf build.

If you do manually delete build folders and get CMake errors (if you have compiled anything previously, you will), the ConanPresets.json file has entries in the include property, delete them all and try again.

This happens because CMakePresets.json includes ConanPresets.json, that has the list of toolchains to use that gets populated during the CMake config step, when you manually delete a folder, the toolchain is now a broken path, and CMake throws a fatal error.