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gRPC C++ - Building from source

This document has detailed instructions on how to build gRPC C++ from source. Note that it only covers the build of gRPC itself and is mostly meant for gRPC C++ contributors and/or power users. Other should follow the user instructions. See the How to use instructions for guidance on how to add gRPC as a dependency to a C++ application (there are several ways and system wide installation is often not the best choice).

Pre-requisites

Linux

 $ [sudo] apt-get install build-essential autoconf libtool pkg-config

If you plan to build from source and run tests, install the following as well:

 $ [sudo] apt-get install libgflags-dev libgtest-dev
 $ [sudo] apt-get install clang-5.0 libc++-dev

MacOS

On a Mac, you will first need to install Xcode or Command Line Tools for Xcode and then run the following command from a terminal:

 $ [sudo] xcode-select --install

To build gRPC from source, you may need to install the following packages from Homebrew:

 $ brew install autoconf automake libtool shtool

If you plan to build from source and run tests, install the following as well:

 $ brew install gflags

Tip: when building, you may want to explicitly set the LIBTOOL and LIBTOOLIZE environment variables when running make to ensure the version installed by brew is being used:

 $ LIBTOOL=glibtool LIBTOOLIZE=glibtoolize make

Windows

To prepare for cmake + Microsoft Visual C++ compiler build

  • Install Visual Studio 2015 or 2017 (Visual C++ compiler will be used).
  • Install Git.
  • Install CMake.
  • Install Active State Perl (choco install activeperl) - required by boringssl
  • Install Go (choco install golang) - required by boringssl
  • Install nasm and add it to PATH (choco install nasm) - required by boringssl
  • (Optional) Install Ninja (choco install ninja)

Clone the repository (including submodules)

Before building, you need to clone the gRPC github repository and download submodules containing source code for gRPC's dependencies (that's done by the submodule command or --recursive flag). The following commands will clone the gRPC repository at the latest stable version.

Unix

 $ git clone -b $(curl -L https://grpc.io/release) https://github.com/grpc/grpc
 $ cd grpc
 $ git submodule update --init

Windows

> @rem You can also do just "git clone --recursive -b THE_BRANCH_YOU_WANT https://github.com/grpc/grpc"
> powershell git clone --recursive -b ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString(\"https://grpc.io/release\").Trim()) https://github.com/grpc/grpc
> cd grpc
> @rem To update submodules at later time, run "git submodule update --init"

NOTE: The bazel build tool uses a different model for dependencies. You only need to worry about downloading submodules if you're building with something else than bazel (e.g. cmake).

Build from source

In the C++ world, there's no "standard" build system that would work for in all supported use cases and on all supported platforms. Therefore, gRPC supports several major build systems, which should satisfy most users. Depending on your needs we recommend building using bazel or cmake.

Building with bazel (recommended)

Bazel is the primary build system for gRPC C++ and if you're comfortable with using bazel, we can certainly recommend it. Using bazel will give you the best developer experience as well as faster and cleaner builds.

You'll need bazel version 1.0.0 or higher to build gRPC. See Installing Bazel for instructions how to install bazel on your system. We support building with bazel on Linux, MacOS and Windows.

From the grpc repository root

# Build gRPC C++
$ bazel build :all

# Run all the C/C++ tests
$ bazel test --config=dbg //test/...

NOTE: If you are gRPC maintainer and you have access to our test cluster, you should use the our gRPC's Remote Execution environment to get significant improvement to the build and test speed (and a bunch of other very useful features).

CMake: Linux/Unix, Using Make

Run from grpc directory after cloning the repo with --recursive or updating submodules.

$ mkdir -p cmake/build
$ cd cmake/build
$ cmake ../..
$ make

If you want to build shared libraries (.so files), run cmake with -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON.

Building with CMake: Windows, Using Visual Studio 2015 or 2017 (can only build with OPENSSL_NO_ASM).

When using the "Visual Studio" generator, cmake will generate a solution (grpc.sln) that contains a VS project for every target defined in CMakeLists.txt (+ few extra convenience projects added automatically by cmake). After opening the solution with Visual Studio you will be able to browse and build the code.

> @rem Run from grpc directory after cloning the repo with --recursive or updating submodules.
> md .build
> cd .build
> cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 14 2015"
> cmake --build . --config Release

Building with CMake: Windows, Using Ninja (faster build, supports boringssl's assembly optimizations).

Please note that when using Ninja, you will still need Visual C++ (part of Visual Studio) installed to be able to compile the C/C++ sources.

> @rem Run from grpc directory after cloning the repo with --recursive or updating submodules.
> md .build
> cd .build
> call "%VS140COMNTOOLS%..\..\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x64
> cmake .. -GNinja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
> cmake --build .

Building with make (on UNIX systems)

NOTE: make used to be gRPC's default build system, but we're no longer recommending it. You should use bazel or cmake instead. The Makefile is only intended for internal usage and is not meant for public consumption.

From the grpc repository root

 $ make

NOTE: if you get an error on linux such as 'aclocal-1.15: command not found', which can happen if you ran 'make' before installing the pre-reqs, try the following:

$ git clean -f -d -x && git submodule foreach --recursive git clean -f -d -x
$ [sudo] apt-get install build-essential autoconf libtool pkg-config
$ make

A note on protoc

By default gRPC uses protocol buffers, you will need the protoc compiler to generate stub server and client code.

If you compile gRPC from source, as described below, the Makefile will automatically try compiling the protoc in third_party if you cloned the repository recursively and it detects that you do not already have 'protoc' compiler installed.