MultiChain

MultiChain is an open source platform for private blockchains, which offers a rich set of features including extensive configurability, rapid deployment, permissions management, native assets and data streams. Although it is designed to enable private blockchains, MultiChain provides maximal compatibility with the bitcoin ecosystem, including the peer-to-peer protocol, transaction/block formats and Bitcoin Core APIs/runtime parameters.

MultiChain is licensed under the GPLv3 open source license. We also offer commercial licenses for those wishing to integrate MultiChain into a proprietary software solution.

Copyright (c) 2014-2017 Coin Sciences Ltd
License: GNU General Public License version 3, see COPYING

Portions copyright (c) 2009-2016 The Bitcoin Core developers
Portions copyright many others - see individual files

System requirements

These compilation instructions have been tested on Ubuntu 14.04 x64 only.

C++ compilers are memory-hungry, so it is recommended to have at least 1 GB of memory available when compiling MultiChain. With less memory, compilation may take much longer due to swapfile thrashing.

Linux Build Notes (on Ubuntu 14.04 x64)

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool autotools-dev automake pkg-config libssl-dev libevent-dev bsdmainutils
sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libdb4.8-dev libdb4.8++-dev

Compile MultiChain for Ubuntu (64-bit)

./autogen.sh
./configure
make

Notes

• This will build multichaind, multichain-cli and multichain-util in the src directory.

• The release is built with GCC after which strip multichaind strings the debug symbols, which reduces the executable size by about 90%.

Windows Build Notes (on Ubuntu 14.04 x64)

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool autotools-dev automake pkg-config libssl-dev libevent-dev bsdmainutils
sudo apt-get install g++-mingw-w64-i686 mingw-w64-i686-dev g++-mingw-w64-x86-64 mingw-w64-x86-64-dev curl
sudo apt-get install libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-chrono-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-thread-dev
sudo apt-get install git
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libdb4.8-dev libdb4.8++-dev

Compile MultiChain for Windows (64-bit)

./autogen.sh
cd depends
make HOST=x86_64-w64-mingw32 -j4
cd ..
./configure --prefix=`pwd`/depends/x86_64-w64-mingw32 --enable-cxx --disable-shared --enable-static --with-pic
make

Notes

• This will build multichaind.exe, multichain-cli.exe and multitchain-util.exe in the src directory.

Mac Build Notes (on MacOS Sierra)

Install dependencies

Install XCode and XCode command line tools
Install git from git-scm
Install brew (follow instructions on brew.sh)
brew install autoconf automake berkeley-db4 libtool boost openssl pkg-config rename

Prepare for static linking

Apple does not support statically linked binaries as documented here, however, it is convenient for end-users to launch a binary without having to first install brew, a third-party system designed for developers.

To create a statically linked MultiChain which only depends on default MacOS dylibs, the following steps are taken:

1. Hide the brew boost dylibs from the build system: rename -e 's/.dylib/.dylib.hidden/' /usr/local/opt/boost/lib/*.dylib

2. Hide the brew berekley-db dylibs from the build system: rename -e 's/.dylib/.dylib.hidden/' /usr/local/opt/berkeley-db@4/lib/*.dylib

3. Hide the brew openssl dylibs from the build system: rename -e 's/.dylib/.dylib.hidden/' /usr/local/opt/openssl/lib/*.dylib

The default brew cookbook for berkeley-db and boost builds static libraries, but the default cookbook for openssl only builds dylibs.

3. Tell brew to build openssl static libraries: brew edit openssl In 'def configure_args' change 'shared' to 'no-shared' brew install openssl --force

Compile MultiChain for Mac (64-bit)

export LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib
export CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include
./autogen.sh
./configure --with-gui=no --with-libs=no --with-miniupnpc=no
make

Clean up

rename -e 's/.dylib.hidden/.dylib/' /usr/local/opt/berkeley-db\@4/lib/*.dylib.hidden
rename -e 's/.dylib.hidden/.dylib/' /usr/local/opt/boost/lib/*.dylib.hidden
rename -e 's/.dylib.hidden/.dylib/' /usr/local/opt/openssl/lib/*.dylib.hidden
brew edit openssl
    In 'def configure_args' change 'no-shared' to 'shared'

Notes

• This will build multichaind, multichain-cli and multichain-util in the src directory.