build-freebsd.md

FreeBSD Build Guide

Updated for FreeBSD 12.2

This guide describes how to build dashd, command-line utilities, and GUI on FreeBSD.

Dependencies

The following dependencies are required:

Library	Purpose	Description
autoconf	Build	Automatically configure software source code
automake	Build	Generate makefile (requires autoconf)
libtool	Build	Shared library support
pkgconf	Build	Configure compiler and linker flags
git	Clone	Version control system
gmake	Compile	Generate executables
boost-libs	Utility	Library for threading, data structures, etc
libevent	Networking	OS independent asynchronous networking

The following dependencies are optional:

Library	Purpose	Description
db5	Berkeley DB	Wallet storage (only needed when wallet enabled)
qt5	GUI	GUI toolkit (only needed when GUI enabled)
gmp	Optimized math routines	Arbitrary precision arithmetic library
libqrencode	QR codes in GUI	Generating QR codes (only needed when GUI enabled)
libzmq4	ZMQ notification	Allows generating ZMQ notifications (requires ZMQ version >= 4.0.0)
sqlite3	SQLite DB	Wallet storage (only needed when wallet enabled)
python3	Testing	Python Interpreter (only needed when running the test suite)

See dependencies.md for a complete overview.

Preparation

1. Install Required Dependencies

Run the following as root to install the base dependencies for building.

pkg install autoconf automake boost-libs git gmake libevent libtool pkgconf

2. Clone Dash Repo

Now that git and all the required dependencies are installed, let's clone the Dash Core repository to a directory. All build scripts and commands will run from this directory.

git clone https://github.com/dashpay/dash.git

3. Install Optional Dependencies

GMP

pkg install gmp

Wallet Dependencies

It is not necessary to build wallet functionality to run dashd or the GUI. To enable legacy wallets, you must install db5. To enable descriptor wallets, sqlite3 is required. Skip db5 if you intend to exclusively use descriptor wallets

Legacy Wallet Support

db5 is required to enable support for legacy wallets. Skip if you don't intend to use legacy wallets

pkg install db5

Descriptor Wallet Support

sqlite3 is required to enable support for descriptor wallets. Skip if you don't intend to use descriptor wallets.

pkg install sqlite3

---

GUI Dependencies

Qt5

Dash Core includes a GUI built with the cross-platform Qt Framework. To compile the GUI, we need to install qt5. Skip if you don't intend to use the GUI.

pkg install qt5

libqrencode

The GUI can encode addresses in a QR Code. To build in QR support for the GUI, install libqrencode. Skip if not using the GUI or don't want QR code functionality.

pkg install libqrencode

---

Test Suite Dependencies

There is an included test suite that is useful for testing code changes when developing. To run the test suite (recommended), you will need to have Python 3 installed:

pkg install python3 databases/py-sqlite3

---

Building Dash Core

1. Configuration

There are many ways to configure Dash Core, here are a few common examples:

Wallet (BDB + SQlite) Support, No GUI:

This explicitly enables legacy wallet support and disables the GUI. If sqlite3 is installed, then descriptor wallet support will be built.

./autogen.sh
./configure --with-gui=no --with-incompatible-bdb \
    BDB_LIBS="-ldb_cxx-5" \
    BDB_CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/db5" \
    MAKE=gmake

Wallet (only SQlite) and GUI Support:

This explicitly enables the GUI and disables legacy wallet support. If qt5 is not installed, this will throw an error. If sqlite3 is installed then descriptor wallet functionality will be built. If sqlite3 is not installed, then wallet functionality will be disabled.

./autogen.sh
./configure --without-bdb --with-gui=yes MAKE=gmake

No Wallet or GUI

./autogen.sh
./configure --without-wallet --with-gui=no MAKE=gmake

2. Compile

Important: Use gmake (the non-GNU make will exit with an error).

gmake # use "-j N" for N parallel jobs
gmake check # Run tests if Python 3 is available