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macOS Build Instructions and Notes

The commands in this guide should be executed in a Terminal application. The built-in one is located in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app.

Preparation

Install Homebrew, and install dependencies:

brew install berkeley-db boost cmake libevent librsvg miniupnpc ninja openssl protobuf python qrencode qt5 zeromq help2man

You can do without the miniupnpc, zeromq, and help2man packages, then you just need to respectively pass -DENABLE_UPNP=OFF, -DBUILD_BITCOIN_ZMQ=OFF, or -DENABLE_MAN=OFF on the cmake command line.

You can do without the librsvg, qrencode and qt5 packages, if you don't intend to build the GUI.

You can do without the berkeley-db package, if you don't intend to build the wallet.

See dependencies.md for a complete overview.

If you intend to build the GUI, you also need to install Xcode from the App Store (it's a dependency for qt5). Install the macOS command line tools:

xcode-select --install

When the popup appears, click Install.

If you want to run ZMQ tests with the test framework, you need the zmq python module:

pip3 install pyzmq

Build Bitcoin Cash Node

Before you start building, please make sure that your compiler supports C++17.

Clone the Bitcoin Cash Node source code and cd into bitcoin-cash-node

git clone https://gitlab.com/bitcoin-cash-node/bitcoin-cash-node.git
cd bitcoin-cash-node

Create a build directory to build out-of-tree.

mkdir build
cd build

Configure and build the headless Bitcoin Cash Node binaries, as well as the GUI.

You can disable the GUI build by passing -DBUILD_BITCOIN_QT=OFF to cmake.

cmake -GNinja ..
ninja

Finally it is recommended to build and run the unit tests:

ninja check

You can create a .dmg that contains the .app bundle (optional):

ninja osx-dmg

After building the Bitcoin Cash Node binaries are available at ./src/bitcoind. You can install to the system with

sudo ninja install

Disable-wallet mode

When the intention is to run only a P2P node without a wallet, Bitcoin Cash Node may be compiled in disable-wallet mode with:

cmake -GNinja .. -DBUILD_BITCOIN_WALLET=OFF -DBUILD_BITCOIN_QT=OFF
ninja
ninja check

Mining is also possible in disable-wallet mode using the getblocktemplate RPC call.

Running

Before running, it's recommended that you create an RPC configuration file:

echo -e "rpcuser=bitcoinrpc\nrpcpassword=$(xxd -l 16 -p /dev/urandom)" > "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf"
chmod 600 "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf"

The first time you run bitcoind or the GUI, it will start downloading the blockchain. This process could take many hours, or even days on slower than average systems.

You can monitor the download process by looking at the debug.log file:

tail -f $HOME/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/debug.log

Other commands

bitcoind -daemon # Starts the bitcoin daemon.
bitcoin-cli --help # Outputs a list of command-line options.
bitcoin-cli help # Outputs a list of RPC commands when the daemon is running.

Notes

  • Building with downloaded Qt binaries is not officially supported. See the notes in #7714