Updated for FreeBSD 14.0
This guide describes how to build bitcoind, command-line utilities, and GUI on FreeBSD.
Run the following as root to install the base dependencies for building.
pkg install boost-libs cmake git libevent pkgconf
See dependencies.md for a complete overview.
Now that git
and all the required dependencies are installed, let's clone the Bitcoin Core repository to a directory. All build scripts and commands will run from this directory.
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git
It is not necessary to build wallet functionality to run either bitcoind
or bitcoin-qt
.
sqlite3
is required to support descriptor wallets.
Skip if you don't intend to use descriptor wallets.
pkg install sqlite3
BerkeleyDB is only required if legacy wallet support is required.
It is required to use Berkeley DB 4.8. You cannot use the BerkeleyDB library from ports. However, you can build DB 4.8 yourself using depends.
pkg install gmake
gmake -C depends NO_BOOST=1 NO_LIBEVENT=1 NO_QT=1 NO_SQLITE=1 NO_NATPMP=1 NO_UPNP=1 NO_ZMQ=1 NO_USDT=1
When the build is complete, the Berkeley DB installation location will be displayed:
to: /path/to/bitcoin/depends/x86_64-unknown-freebsd[release-number]
Finally, set BDB_PREFIX
to this path according to your shell:
csh: setenv BDB_PREFIX [path displayed above]
sh/bash: export BDB_PREFIX=[path displayed above]
Bitcoin Core includes a GUI built with the cross-platform Qt Framework. To compile the GUI, we need to install
the necessary parts of Qt, the libqrencode and pass -DBUILD_GUI=ON
. Skip if you don't intend to use the GUI.
pkg install qt5-buildtools qt5-core qt5-gui qt5-linguisttools qt5-testlib qt5-widgets
The GUI will be able to encode addresses in QR codes unless this feature is explicitly disabled. To install libqrencode, run:
pkg install libqrencode
Otherwise, if you don't need QR encoding support, use the -DWITH_QRENCODE=OFF
option to disable this feature in order to compile the GUI.
Bitcoin Core can provide notifications via ZeroMQ. If the package is installed, support will be compiled in.
pkg install libzmq4
There is an included test suite that is useful for testing code changes when developing. To run the test suite (recommended), you will need to have Python 3 installed:
pkg install python3 databases/py-sqlite3
There are many ways to configure Bitcoin Core, here are a few common examples:
This disables legacy wallet support and enables the GUI, assuming sqlite
and qt
are installed.
cmake -B build -DWITH_BDB=OFF -DBUILD_GUI=ON
Run cmake -B build -LH
to see the full list of available options.
This enables support for both wallet types, assuming
sqlite3
and db4
are both installed.
cmake -B build -DBerkeleyDB_INCLUDE_DIR:PATH="${BDB_PREFIX}/include"
cmake -B build -DENABLE_WALLET=OFF
cmake --build build # Use "-j N" for N parallel jobs.
ctest --test-dir build # Use "-j N" for N parallel tests. Some tests are disabled if Python 3 is not available.