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Ubuntu & Debian build guide

Updated for Ubuntu 19.04 and Debian Buster (10). If you run an older version, please see section below, about obtaining the required version of cmake.

Preparation

Minimal build requirements

    sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake git libboost-chrono-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-thread-dev libevent-dev libminiupnpc-dev libnatpmp-dev libssl-dev libzmq3-dev help2man ninja-build python3

You can do without the libminiupnpc-dev, libnatpmp-dev, libzmq3-dev, and help2man packages, then you just need to respectively pass -DENABLE_UPNP=OFF, -DENABLE_NATPMP=OFF, -DBUILD_BITCOIN_ZMQ=OFF, or -DENABLE_MAN=OFF on the cmake command line.

BerkeleyDB 5.3 or later is required for the wallet. This can be installed with:

    sudo apt-get install libdb-dev libdb++-dev

If you want to build the GUI client bitcoin-qt Qt 5 is necessary. To build with Qt 5 you need the following packages installed:

    sudo apt-get install libqrencode-dev qttools5-dev

You can do without the libqrencode package, just pass -DENABLE_QRCODE=OFF on the cmake command line.

Building

Once you have installed the required dependencies (see sections above), you can build Bitcoin Cash Node as such:

First fetch the code (if you haven't done so already).

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

Change to the BCN directory, make build dir, and change to that directory

cd bitcoin-cash-node/
mkdir build
cd build

Next you need to choose between building just the node, the node with wallet support, or the node and the QT client.

Choose one:

# to build just the node, no wallet functionality, choose this:
cmake -GNinja .. -DBUILD_BITCOIN_WALLET=OFF -DBUILD_BITCOIN_QT=OFF

# to build the node, with wallet functionality, but without GUI, choose this:
cmake -GNinja .. -DBUILD_BITCOIN_QT=OFF

# to build node and QT GUI client, choose this:
cmake -GNinja ..

Next, finish the build

ninja

You will find the bitcoind, bitcoin-cli, bitcoin-tx (and optionally bitcoin-qt) binaries in /build/src/(qt).

Optionally, run the tests

ninja check # recommended

After a successful test you can install the newly built binaries to your bin directory. Note that this will probably overwrite any previous version installed, including binaries from different sources.

sudo ninja install #optional

Getting a newer cmake on older OS

On versions prior to Ubuntu 19.04 and Debian 10, the cmake package is too old and needs to be installed from the Kitware APT repository:

    sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https ca-certificates gnupg software-properties-common wget
    wget -O - https://apt.kitware.com/keys/kitware-archive-latest.asc 2>/dev/null | sudo apt-key add -

Add the repository corresponding to your version (see instructions from Kitware). For Ubuntu Bionic (18.04):

    sudo apt-add-repository 'deb https://apt.kitware.com/ubuntu/ bionic main'

Then update the package list and install cmake:

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install cmake