- Library Requirements
- Ubuntu
- Fedora
- FreeBSD
- OpenBSD
- NixOS
- macOS
- Android
- Raspberry Pi
- Armbian
- Alpine
- Additional steps
You will need several development libraries:
- libsqlite3: for database support.
- libgmp: for secp256k1
- zlib: for compression routines.
For actually doing development and running the tests, you will also need:
- pip3: to install python-bitcoinlib
- valgrind: for extra debugging checks
You will also need a version of bitcoind with segregated witness and estimatesmartfee with ECONOMICAL mode support, such as the 0.16 or above.
OS version: Ubuntu 15.10 or above
Get dependencies:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
autoconf automake build-essential git libtool libgmp-dev libsqlite3-dev \
python3 python3-pip net-tools zlib1g-dev libsodium-dev gettext
pip3 install --upgrade pip
pip3 install --user poetry
If you don't have Bitcoin installed locally you'll need to install that as well. It's now available via snapd.
sudo apt-get install snapd
sudo snap install bitcoin-core
# Snap does some weird things with binary names; you'll
# want to add a link to them so everything works as expected
sudo ln -s /snap/bitcoin-core/current/bin/bitcoin{d,-cli} /usr/local/bin/
Clone lightning:
git clone https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning.git
cd lightning
For development or running tests, get additional dependencies:
sudo apt-get install -y valgrind libpq-dev shellcheck cppcheck \
libsecp256k1-dev jq
If you want to build the Rust plugins (currently, cln-grpc):
sudo apt-get install -y cargo rustfmt
Build lightning:
poetry install
./configure
poetry run make
sudo make install
Running lightning:
bitcoind &
./lightningd/lightningd &
./cli/lightning-cli help
OS version: Fedora 27 or above
Get dependencies:
$ sudo dnf update -y && \
sudo dnf groupinstall -y \
'C Development Tools and Libraries' \
'Development Tools' && \
sudo dnf install -y \
clang \
gettext \
git \
gmp-devel \
libsq3-devel \
python3-devel \
python3-pip \
python3-setuptools \
net-tools \
valgrind \
wget \
zlib-devel \
libsodium-devel && \
sudo dnf clean all
Make sure you have bitcoind available to run
Clone lightning:
$ git clone https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning.git
$ cd lightning
Build and install lightning:
$lightning> ./configure
$lightning> make
$lightning> sudo make install
Running lightning (mainnet):
$ bitcoind &
$ lightningd --network=bitcoin
Running lightning on testnet:
$ bitcoind -testnet &
$ lightningd --network=testnet
OS version: FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE or above
Core Lightning is in the FreeBSD ports, so install it as any other port (dependencies are handled automatically):
# pkg install c-lightning
for a binary, pre-compiled package. If you want to compile locally and fiddle with compile time options:
# cd /usr/ports/net-p2p/c-lightning && make install
mrkd is required to build man pages from markdown files (not done by the port):
# cd /usr/ports/devel/py-pip && make install
$ pip install --user poetry
$ poetry install
See /usr/ports/net-p2p/c-lightning/Makefile for instructions on how to
build from an arbitrary git commit, instead of the latest release tag.
Note: Make sure you've set an utf-8 locale, e.g.
export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8, otherwise manpage installation may fail.
Running lightning:
Configure bitcoind, if not already: add rpcuser=<foo> and rpcpassword=<bar>
to /usr/local/etc/bitcoin.conf, maybe also testnet=1.
Configure lightningd: copy /usr/local/etc/lightningd-bitcoin.conf.sample to
/usr/local/etc/lightningd-bitcoin.conf and edit according to your needs.
# service bitcoind start
# service lightningd start
# lightning-cli --rpc-file /var/db/c-lightning/bitcoin/lightning-rpc --lightning-dir=/var/db/c-lightning help
OS version: OpenBSD 6.7
Install dependencies:
pkg_add git python gmake py3-pip libtool gmp
pkg_add automake # (select highest version, automake1.16.2 at time of writing)
pkg_add autoconf # (select highest version, autoconf-2.69p2 at time of writing)
Install mako and mrkd otherwise we run into build errors:
pip3.7 install --user poetry
poetry install
Add /home/<username>/.local/bin to your path:
export PATH=$PATH:/home/<username>/.local/bin
Needed for configure:
export AUTOCONF_VERSION=2.69
export AUTOMAKE_VERSION=1.16
./configure
Finally, build c-lightning:
gmake
Use nix-shell launch a shell with a full clightning dev environment:
$ nix-shell -Q -p gdb sqlite autoconf git clang libtool gmp sqlite autoconf \
autogen automake libsodium 'python3.withPackages (p: [p.bitcoinlib])' \
valgrind --run make
Assuming you have Xcode and Homebrew installed. Install dependencies:
$ brew install autoconf automake libtool python3 gmp gnu-sed gettext libsodium
$ ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/gettext/0.20.1/bin/xgettext /usr/local/opt
$ export PATH="/usr/local/opt:$PATH"
If you need SQLite (or get a SQLite mismatch build error):
$ brew install sqlite
$ export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/sqlite/lib"
$ export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/sqlite/include"
Some library paths are different when using homebrew with M1 macs, therefore the following two variables need to be set for M1 machines
$ export CPATH=/opt/homebrew/include
$ export LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/homebrew/lib
If you need Python 3.x for mako (or get a mako build error):
$ brew install pyenv
$ echo -e 'if command -v pyenv 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then\n eval "$(pyenv init -)"\nfi' >> ~/.bash_profile
$ source ~/.bash_profile
$ pyenv install 3.7.4
$ pip install --upgrade pip
$ pip install poetry
If you don't have bitcoind installed locally you'll need to install that as well:
$ brew install berkeley-db4 boost miniupnpc pkg-config libevent
$ git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
$ cd bitcoin
$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure
$ make src/bitcoind src/bitcoin-cli && make install
Clone lightning:
$ git clone https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning.git
$ cd lightning
Build lightning:
$ poetry install
$ ./configure
$ poetry run make
Running lightning:
Note: Edit your ~/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
to include rpcuser=<foo> and rpcpassword=<bar> first, you may also
need to include testnet=1
bitcoind &
./lightningd/lightningd &
./cli/lightning-cli help
Make a standalone toolchain as per https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/standalone_toolchain.html. For Core Lightning you must target an API level of 24 or higher.
Depending on your toolchain location and target arch, source env variables such as:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/android/toolchain/bin
# Change next line depending on target device arch
target_host=arm-linux-androideabi
export AR=$target_host-ar
export AS=$target_host-clang
export CC=$target_host-clang
export CXX=$target_host-clang++
export LD=$target_host-ld
export STRIP=$target_host-strip
Two makefile targets should not be cross-compiled so we specify a native CC:
make CC=clang clean ccan/tools/configurator/configurator
make clean -C ccan/ccan/cdump/tools \
&& make CC=clang -C ccan/ccan/cdump/tools
Install the qemu-user package.
This will allow you to properly configure
the build for the target device environment.
Build with:
BUILD=x86_64 MAKE_HOST=arm-linux-androideabi \
make PIE=1 DEVELOPER=0 \
CONFIGURATOR_CC="arm-linux-androideabi-clang -static"
Obtain the official Raspberry Pi toolchains. This document assumes compilation will occur towards the Raspberry Pi 3 (arm-linux-gnueabihf as of Mar. 2018).
Depending on your toolchain location and target arch, source env variables will need to be set. They can be set from the command line as such:
export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/arm-linux-gnueabihf/bin
# Change next line depending on specific Raspberry Pi device
target_host=arm-linux-gnueabihf
export AR=$target_host-ar
export AS=$target_host-as
export CC=$target_host-gcc
export CXX=$target_host-g++
export LD=$target_host-ld
export STRIP=$target_host-strip
Install the qemu-user package. This will allow you to properly configure the
build for the target device environment.
Config the arm elf interpreter prefix:
export QEMU_LD_PREFIX=/path/to/raspberry/arm-bcm2708/arm-rpi-4.9.3-linux-gnueabihf/arm-linux-gnueabihf/sysroot/
Obtain and install cross-compiled versions of sqlite3, gmp and zlib:
Download and build zlib:
wget https://zlib.net/zlib-1.2.12.tar.gz
tar xvf zlib-1.2.12.tar.gz
cd zlib-1.2.12
./configure --prefix=$QEMU_LD_PREFIX
make
make install
Download and build sqlite3:
wget https://www.sqlite.org/2018/sqlite-src-3260000.zip
unzip sqlite-src-3260000.zip
cd sqlite-src-3260000
./configure --enable-static --disable-readline --disable-threadsafe --disable-load-extension --host=$target_host --prefix=$QEMU_LD_PREFIX
make
make install
Download and build gmp:
wget https://gmplib.org/download/gmp/gmp-6.1.2.tar.xz
tar xvf gmp-6.1.2.tar.xz
cd gmp-6.1.2
./configure --disable-assembly --host=$target_host --prefix=$QEMU_LD_PREFIX
make
make install
Then, build Core Lightning with the following commands:
./configure
make
For all the other Pi devices out there, consider using Armbian.
You can compile in customize-image.sh using the instructions for Ubuntu.
A working example that compiles both bitcoind and Core Lightning for Armbian can be found here.
Get dependencies:
apk update
apk add ca-certificates alpine-sdk autoconf automake git libtool \
gmp-dev sqlite-dev python python3 py3-mako net-tools zlib-dev libsodium gettext
Clone lightning:
git clone https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning.git
cd lightning
git submodule update --init --recursive
Build and install:
./configure
make
make install
Clean up:
cd .. && rm -rf lightning
apk del ca-certificates alpine-sdk autoconf automake git libtool \
gmp-dev sqlite python3 py3-mako net-tools zlib-dev libsodium gettext
Go to README for more information how to create an address, add funds, connect to a node, etc.