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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 the macOS command line tools:

xcode-select --install

When the popup appears, click Install.

Then install Homebrew.

Dependencies

brew install automake berkeley-db4 libtool boost miniupnpc pkg-config python qt libevent qrencode

See dependencies.md for a complete overview.

If you want to build the disk image with make deploy (.dmg / optional), you need RSVG:

brew install librsvg

Berkeley DB

It is recommended to use Berkeley DB 4.8. If you have to build it yourself, you can use this script to install it like so:

./contrib/install_db4.sh .

from the root of the repository.

Note: You only need Berkeley DB if the wallet is enabled (see Disable-wallet mode).

Build Bitcoin Core

  1. Clone the Bitcoin Core source code:

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

  2. Build Bitcoin Core:

    Configure and build the headless Bitcoin Core binaries as well as the GUI (if Qt is found).

    You can disable the GUI build by passing --without-gui to configure.

    ./autogen.sh
./configure
make

  3. It is recommended to build and run the unit tests:

    make check

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

    make deploy

disable-wallet mode

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

./configure --disable-wallet

In this case there is no dependency on Berkeley DB 4.8.

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

Running

Bitcoin Core is now available at ./src/bitcoind

Before running, you may create an empty configuration file:

mkdir -p "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin"

touch "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf"

chmod 600 "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf"

The first time you run bitcoind, 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:

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

Notes

  • Tested on OS X 10.12 Sierra through macOS 10.15 Catalina on 64-bit Intel processors only.
  • Building with downloaded Qt binaries is not officially supported. See the notes in #7714.

Deterministic macOS DMG Notes

Working macOS DMGs are created in Linux by combining a recent clang, the Apple binutils (ld, ar, etc) and DMG authoring tools.

Apple uses clang extensively for development and has upstreamed the necessary functionality so that a vanilla clang can take advantage. It supports the use of -F, -target, -mmacosx-version-min, and --sysroot, which are all necessary when building for macOS.

Apple's version of binutils (called cctools) contains lots of functionality missing in the FSF's binutils. In addition to extra linker options for frameworks and sysroots, several other tools are needed as well such as install_name_tool, lipo, and nmedit. These do not build under Linux, so they have been patched to do so. The work here was used as a starting point: mingwandroid/toolchain4.

In order to build a working toolchain, the following source packages are needed from Apple: cctools, dyld, and ld64.

These tools inject timestamps by default, which produce non-deterministic binaries. The ZERO_AR_DATE environment variable is used to disable that.

This version of cctools has been patched to use the current version of clang's headers and its libLTO.so rather than those from llvmgcc, as it was originally done in toolchain4.

To complicate things further, all builds must target an Apple SDK. These SDKs are free to download, but not redistributable. To obtain it, register for an Apple Developer Account, then download the Xcode 7.3.1 dmg.

This file is several gigabytes in size, but only a single directory inside is needed:

Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.11.sdk

Unfortunately, the usual Linux tools (7zip, hpmount, loopback mount) are incapable of opening this file. To create a tarball suitable for Gitian input, there are two options:

Using macOS, you can mount the DMG, and then create it with:

hdiutil attach Xcode_7.3.1.dmg
tar -C /Volumes/Xcode/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/ -czf MacOSX10.11.sdk.tar.gz MacOSX10.11.sdk

Alternatively, you can use 7zip and SleuthKit to extract the files one by one. The script extract-osx-sdk.sh automates this. First ensure the DMG file is in the current directory, and then run the script. You may wish to delete the intermediate 5.hfs file and MacOSX10.11.sdk (the directory) when you've confirmed the extraction succeeded.

apt-get install p7zip-full sleuthkit
contrib/macdeploy/extract-osx-sdk.sh
rm -rf 5.hfs MacOSX10.11.sdk

The Gitian descriptors build 2 sets of files: Linux tools, then Apple binaries which are created using these tools. The build process has been designed to avoid including the SDK's files in Gitian's outputs. All interim tarballs are fully deterministic and may be freely redistributed.

genisoimage is used to create the initial DMG. It is not deterministic as-is, so it has been patched. A system genisoimage will work fine, but it will not be deterministic because the file-order will change between invocations. The patch can be seen here: theuni/osx-cross-depends. No effort was made to fix this cleanly, so it likely leaks memory badly. But it's only used for a single invocation, so that's no real concern.

genisoimage cannot compress DMGs, so afterwards, the DMG tool from the libdmg-hfsplus project is used to compress it. There are several bugs in this tool and its maintainer has seemingly abandoned the project. It has been forked and is available (with fixes) here: theuni/libdmg-hfsplus.

The DMG tool has the ability to create DMGs from scratch as well, but this functionality is broken. Only the compression feature is currently used. Ideally, the creation could be fixed and genisoimage would no longer be necessary.

Background images and other features can be added to DMG files by inserting a .DS_Store before creation. This is generated by the script contrib/macdeploy/custom_dsstore.py.

As of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, using an Apple-blessed key to sign binaries is a requirement in order to satisfy the new Gatekeeper requirements. Because this private key cannot be shared, we'll have to be a bit creative in order for the build process to remain somewhat deterministic. Here's how it works:

  • Builders use Gitian to create an unsigned release. This outputs an unsigned DMG which users may choose to bless and run. It also outputs an unsigned app structure in the form of a tarball, which also contains all of the tools that have been previously (deterministically) built in order to create a final DMG.
  • The Apple keyholder uses this unsigned app to create a detached signature, using the script that is also included there. Detached signatures are available from this repository.
  • Builders feed the unsigned app + detached signature back into Gitian. It uses the pre-built tools to recombine the pieces into a deterministic DMG.