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).
$ [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
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
To prepare for cmake + Microsoft Visual C++ compiler build
choco install activeperl) - required by boringsslchoco install golang) - required by boringsslPATH (choco install nasm) - required by boringsslchoco install ninja)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.
$ git clone -b $(curl -L https://grpc.io/release) https://github.com/grpc/grpc $ cd grpc $ git submodule update --init
> @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).
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.
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).
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.
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
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 .
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
protocBy 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.