gRPC C++ - Building from source

gRPC C++ - Building from source

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).

Pre-requisites

Linux

 $ [sudo] apt-get install build-essential autoconf libtool pkg-config

If you plan to build using CMake

 $ [sudo] apt-get install cmake

If you are a contributor and plan to build and run tests, install the following as well:

 $ # clang and LLVM C++ lib is only required for sanitizer builds
 $ [sudo] apt-get install clang-5.0 libc++-dev

MacOS

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 using CMake, follow the instructions from https://cmake.org/download/

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

Windows

To prepare for cmake + Microsoft Visual C++ compiler build

• Install Visual Studio 2015 or 2017 (Visual C++ compiler will be used).
• Install Git.
• Install CMake.
• Install nasm and add it to PATH (choco install nasm) - required by boringssl
• (Optional) Install Ninja (choco install ninja)

Clone the repository (including submodules)

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). Use following commands
to clone the gRPC repository at the latest stable release tag

Unix

 $ git clone -b RELEASE_TAG_HERE https://github.com/grpc/grpc
 $ cd grpc
 $ git submodule update --init

Windows

> git clone -b RELEASE_TAG_HERE https://github.com/grpc/grpc
> cd grpc
> 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).

Build from source

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.

Building with bazel (recommended)

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).

Building with CMake

Linux/Unix, Using Make

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.

Windows, Using Visual Studio 2015 or 2017

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

If you want to build DLLs, run cmake with -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON.

Windows, Using Ninja (faster build).

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.
> cd cmake
> md build
> cd build
> call "%VS140COMNTOOLS%..\..\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x64
> cmake ..\.. -GNinja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
> cmake --build .

If you want to build DLLs, run cmake with -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON.

Dependency management

gRPC’s CMake build system has two options for handling dependencies.
CMake can build the dependencies for you, or it can search for libraries
that are already installed on your system and use them to build gRPC.

This behavior is controlled by the gRPC_<depname>_PROVIDER CMake variables,
e.g. gRPC_CARES_PROVIDER. The options that these variables take are as follows:

• module - build dependencies alongside gRPC. The source code is obtained from
  gRPC’s git submodules.
• package - use external copies of dependencies that are already available
  on your system. These could come from your system package manager, or perhaps
  you pre-installed them using CMake with the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX option.

For example, if you set gRPC_CARES_PROVIDER=module, then CMake will build
c-ares before building gRPC. On the other hand, if you set
gRPC_CARES_PROVIDER=package, then CMake will search for a copy of c-ares
that’s already installed on your system and use it to build gRPC.

Install after build

Perform the following steps to install gRPC using CMake.

• Set -DgRPC_INSTALL=ON
• Build the install target

The install destination is controlled by the
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX variable.

If you are running CMake v3.13 or newer you can build gRPC’s dependencies
in “module” mode and install them alongside gRPC in a single step.
Example

If you are building gRPC < 1.27 or if you are using CMake < 3.13 you will need
to select “package” mode (rather than “module” mode) for the dependencies.
This means you will need to have external copies of these libraries available
on your system. This example shows
how to install dependencies with cmake before proceeding to installing gRPC itself.

# NOTE: all of gRPC's dependencies need to be already installed
$ cmake ../.. -DgRPC_INSTALL=ON                \
              -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release       \
              -DgRPC_ABSL_PROVIDER=package     \
              -DgRPC_CARES_PROVIDER=package    \
              -DgRPC_PROTOBUF_PROVIDER=package \
              -DgRPC_RE2_PROVIDER=package      \
              -DgRPC_SSL_PROVIDER=package      \
              -DgRPC_ZLIB_PROVIDER=package
$ make
$ make install

Cross-compiling

You can use CMake to cross-compile gRPC for another architecture. In order to
do so, you will first need to build protoc and grpc_cpp_plugin
for the host architecture. These tools are used during the build of gRPC, so
we need copies of executables that can be run natively.

You will likely need to install the toolchain for the platform you are
targeting for your cross-compile. Once you have done so, you can write a
toolchain file to tell CMake where to find the compilers and system tools
that will be used for this build.

This toolchain file is specified to CMake by setting the CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE
variable.

$ cmake ../.. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=path/to/file
$ make

Cross-compile example

Building with make on UNIX systems (deprecated)

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

A note on protoc

By 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.