Installing the Glasgow Haskell Compiler and Cabal
To compile Cardano Node using source code, you must install the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) and Cabal for building applications and libraries.
For each Cardano Node release, Input-Output recommends compiling binaries using specific versions of GHC and Cabal. For example, refer to Installing cardano-node and cardano-cli from source in the Cardano Developer Portal to determine the GHC and Cabal versions required for the current Cardano Node release. Table 1 lists GHC and Cabal version requirements for the current Cardano Node release.
Table 1 Current Cardano Node Version Requirements
Release Date | Cardano Node Version | Cardano CLI Version | GHC Version | Cabal Version |
---|---|---|---|---|
October 2024 | 9.2.1 | 9.4.1.0 | 8.10.7 | 3.8.1.0 |
To install GHC and Cabal:
1. In a terminal window on the computer hosting your block-producing node, to install the latest versions of all previously installed packages assuming the answer yes
to all prompts, type:
2. To install packages and tools required for downloading and compiling Cardano Node source code, type:
To list all packages installed on your computer, type apt list --installed
3. To use the GHCup installer to install GHC and Cabal, type:
4. During installation, when prompted:
i. Press ENTER to proceed.
ii. To prepend the required PATH variable to $HOME/.bashrc
, type P
iii. When prompted to install haskell-language-server (HLS), type N
iv. When prompted to install slack, type N
v. Press ENTER to proceed.
The $HOME
environment variable or ~
tilde prefix refers to the home directory associated with your login name. The .bashrc
file is a Bash script that runs each time you open a new terminal window. In the .bashrc
file, you can add any command that you may type at the command prompt. Use .bashrc
to set up the shell as needed for your environment.
5. When GHCup finishes installing GHC and Cabal, type the following commands to reload your shell profile, and then confirm that GHCup installed correctly:
If GHCup is installed correctly, then the ghcup --version
command returns The GHCup Haskell installer, version <GHCupVersionNumber>
where <GHCupVersionNumber>
is the version number of GHCup installed on your computer.
6. To set the Glasgow Haskell Compiler to the version required for compiling the current Cardano Node release, type the following commands where <GHCVersionNumber>
is the GHC version that you need to install and use:
7. To set Cabal to the version required for compiling the current Cardano Node release, type the following commands where <CabalVersionNumber>
is the Cabal version that you need to install and use:
8. To create a working directory to store source code and builds related to Cardano Node, type:
9. To download, compile and install libsodium
, type:
If you are using the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, then you may need to type the following command to create a symbolic link:
If you are using the CentOS Linux distribution on Amazon Web Services, then you may need to update available symbolic links for currently shared libraries:
If you are using Ubuntu on a Raspberry Pi 4, then type the following command to resolve a cannot find -lnuma
error message when compiling libsodium
:
10. To download, compile and install libsecp256k1
, type:
11. To download and install the blst
library, type:
12. Using a text editor, open the $HOME/.bashrc
file, and then add the following lines at the end of the file:
If you plan to use your Cardano node on a testnet network instead of mainnet, then replace the line export NODE_CONFIG="mainnet"
in your $HOME/.bashrc
file with export NODE_CONFIG="testnet"
Also, when working through the How to Set Up a Cardano Stake Pool guide, replace every instance of the command option --mainnet
with --testnet-magic <MagicNumber>
where <MagicNumber>
is the network magic number for the testnet network that you want to use. For details on available testnet networks, see Environments.
13. Save and close the $HOME/.bashrc
file.
14. To create the folder set for the NODE_HOME
environment variable in your $HOME/.bashrc
file, type:
15. To reload your shell profile, type:
16. On each computer hosting a relay or block-producing node for your stake pool, repeat steps 1 to 15
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