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Cardano Node Installation process (Environment Setup)

The Cardano node is the core component that underpins the Cardano network. Ultimately, a blockchain network is just a collection of interconnected nodes, all working together to validate transactions and blocks by means of consensus. The definition of consensus for any given network varies, but for the Cardano network it’s defined by the Ouroboros protocol.

In this section, we will walk you through the process of downloading, compiling, and installing cardano-node and cardano-cli into your Linux-based operating system.

note

Refer to the official document Installing the node from source in case of difficulties.

Installing Operating System dependencies​

To download the source code and build it, you need the following packages and tools on your Linux system:

  • the version control system git,
  • the gcc C-compiler,
  • C++ support for gcc,
  • developer libraries for the arbitrary precision library gmp,
  • developer libraries for the compression library zlib,
  • developer libraries for systemd,
  • developer libraries for ncurses,
  • ncurses compatibility libraries,
  • the Haskell build tool cabal,
  • the GHC Haskell compiler (version 8.10.7 or above).

In Redhat, Fedora, and Centos:

sudo yum update -y
sudo yum install git gcc gcc-c++ tmux gmp-devel make tar xz wget zlib-devel libtool autoconf jq -y
sudo yum install systemd-devel ncurses-devel ncurses-compat-libs -y

For Debian/Ubuntu, use the following instead:

sudo apt-get update -y && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get install automake build-essential curl pkg-config libffi-dev libgmp-dev libssl-dev libtinfo-dev libsystemd-dev zlib1g-dev make g++ tmux git jq wget libncursesw5 libtool autoconf -y

If you are using a different flavor of Linux, you will need to use the correct package manager for your platform instead of yum or apt-get, and the names of the packages you need to install might differ.

Installing GHC and Cabal​

A popular way to install GHC (Glasgow Haskell Compiler) and Cabal (Common Architecture for Building Applications and Libraries) is to use ghcup.

Use the following command to install ghcup

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://get-ghcup.haskell.org | sh

Please follow the instructions and provide the necessary input to the installer.

Do you want ghcup to automatically add the required PATH variable to "/home/ubuntu/.bashrc"? - (P or enter)

Do you want to install haskell-language-server (HLS)? - (N or enter)

Do you want to enable better integration of stack with GHCup? - (N or enter)

Press ENTER to proceed or ctrl-c to abort. (enter)

Once complete, you should have ghc and cabal installed to your system.

note

ghcup will try to detect your shell and ask you to add it to the environment variables. Please restart your shell/terminal after installing ghcup or apply them in your current terminal session by typing

source $HOME/.bashrc

You can check if ghcup has been installed correctly by typing ghcup --version into the terminal. You should see something similar to the following:

ghcup --version

The GHCup Haskell installer, version v0.1.18.0

ghcup will install the latest stable version of ghc. However, as of the time of writing this, Input-Output recommends using ghc 8.10.7. So, we will use ghcup to install and switch to the required version.

ghcup install ghc 8.10.7
ghcup set ghc 8.10.7

ghcup will install the latest stable version of cabal. However, as of the time of writing this, Input-Output recommends using cabal 3.6.2.0. So, we will use ghcup to install and switch to the required version.

ghcup install cabal 3.8.1.0
ghcup set cabal 3.8.1.0

Finally, we check if we have the correct ghc and cabal versions installed.

Check ghc version:

ghc --version

You should see something like this:

The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 8.10.7

Check cabal version:

cabal --version

You should see something like this:

cabal-install version 3.6.2.0
compiled using version 3.6.2.0 of the Cabal library
important

Please confirm that the versions you have installed match the recommended versions above. If not, check if you have missed any of the previous steps.

Downloading & Compiling​

Let's create a working directory to store the source-code and builds for the components.

mkdir -p $HOME/cardano-src
cd $HOME/cardano-src

Next, we will download, compile and install libsodium.

git clone https://github.com/IntersectMBO/libsodium
cd libsodium
git checkout dbb48cc
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

Then we will add the following environment variables to your shell profile. E.G $HOME/.zshrc or $HOME/.bashrc depending on what shell application you are using. Add the following to the bottom of your shell profile/config file so that the compiler can be aware that libsodium is installed on your system.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH"

Once saved, we will then reload your shell profile to use the new variables. We can do that by typing source $HOME/.bashrc or source $HOME/.zshrc (depending on the shell application you use).

We need to install secp256k1 which is required from cardano-node version 1.35.0 onward:

Download and install libsecp256k1:

cd $HOME/cardano-src
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1
cd secp256k1
git checkout ac83be33
./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-module-schnorrsig --enable-experimental
make
make check
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

Now we are ready to download, compile and install cardano-node and cardano-cli. But first, we have to make sure we are back at the root of our working directory:

cd $HOME/cardano-src

Download the cardano-node repository:

git clone https://github.com/IntersectMBO/cardano-node.git
cd cardano-node
git fetch --all --recurse-submodules --tags

Switch the repository to the latest tagged commit:

git checkout $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/IntersectMBO/cardano-node/releases/latest | jq -r .tag_name)
important

If upgrading an existing node, please ensure that you have read the release notes on GitHub for any changes.

Configuring the build options​

We explicitly use the ghc version that we installed earlier. This avoids defaulting to a system version of ghc that might be newer or older than the one you have installed.

cabal update
cabal configure --with-compiler=ghc-8.10.7

If you are running non x86/x64 platform (eg. ARM) please install and configure LLVM with:

sudo apt install llvm-9
sudo apt install clang-9 libnuma-dev
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/llvm-config-9 /usr/bin/llvm-config
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/opt-9 /usr/bin/opt
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/llc-9 /usr/bin/llc
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/clang-9 /usr/bin/clang

Building and installing the node​

We can now build the Haskell-based cardano-node to produce executable binaries.

cabal build cardano-node cardano-cli

Install the newly built node and CLI commands to the $HOME/.local/bin directory:

mkdir -p $HOME/.local/bin
cp -p "$(./scripts/bin-path.sh cardano-node)" $HOME/.local/bin/
cp -p "$(./scripts/bin-path.sh cardano-cli)" $HOME/.local/bin/

We have to add this line below our shell profile so that the shell/terminal can recognize that cardano-node and cardano-cli are global commands. ($HOME/.zshrc or $HOME/.bashrc depending on the shell application you use)

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin/:$PATH"

Once saved, reload your shell profile by typing source $HOME/.zshrc or source $HOME/.bashrc (depending on the shell application you use).

Check the version that has been installed:

cardano-cli --version
cardano-node --version

Congratulations, you have successfully installed Cardano components into your Linux system! 🎉🎉🎉

References​