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
April 2025	10.3.1	10.7.0.0	9.6.7	3.12.1.0

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:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

2. To install packages and tools required for downloading and compiling Cardano Node source code, type:

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

To list all packages installed on your computer, type apt list --installed

3. To use the GHCup installer to install GHC and Cabal, type:

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

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 stack, 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:

source $HOME/.bashrc
ghcup --version

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:

ghcup install ghc <GHCVersionNumber>
ghcup set ghc <GHCVersionNumber>
ghc --version

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:

ghcup install cabal <CabalVersionNumber>
ghcup set cabal <CabalVersionNumber>
cabal --version

8. To create a working directory to store source code and builds related to Cardano Node, type:

mkdir $HOME/git
cd $HOME/git

9. To download, compile and install libsodium, type:

git clone https://github.com/input-output-hk/libsodium
cd libsodium
git checkout dbb48cc
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

If you are using the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, then you may need to type the following command to create a symbolic link:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libsodium.so.23.3.0 /usr/lib/libsodium.so.23

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:

sudo ldconfig

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:

sudo apt-get install libnuma-dev

10. To download, compile and install libsecp256k1, type:

cd $HOME/git
git clone --depth 1 --branch v0.3.2 https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1
cd secp256k1
./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-module-schnorrsig --enable-experimental
make
make check
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

11. To download and install the blst library, type:

cd $HOME/git
git clone https://github.com/supranational/blst
cd blst
git checkout v0.3.11
./build.sh
cat > libblst.pc << EOF
prefix=/usr/local
exec_prefix=\${prefix}
libdir=\${exec_prefix}/lib
includedir=\${prefix}/include

Name: libblst
Description: Multilingual BLS12-381 signature library
URL: https://github.com/supranational/blst
Version: 0.3.11
Cflags: -I\${includedir}
Libs: -L\${libdir} -lblst
EOF
sudo cp libblst.pc /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/
sudo cp bindings/blst_aux.h bindings/blst.h bindings/blst.hpp /usr/local/include/
sudo cp libblst.a /usr/local/lib
sudo chmod u=rw,go=r /usr/local/{lib/{libblst.a,pkgconfig/libblst.pc},include/{blst.{h,hpp},blst_aux.h}}

12. Using a text editor, open the $HOME/.bashrc file, and then add the following lines at the end of the file:

# Set environment variables so that the compiler finds libsodium, libsecp256k1 and blst libraries on your computer
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH"
# Set an environment variable indicating the file path to configuration files and scripts
# related to operating your Cardano node
export NODE_HOME="$HOME/cardano-my-node"
# Set an environment variable indicating the Cardano network cluster where your node runs
export NODE_CONFIG="mainnet"
# Set an environment variable indicating where the Cardano node socket file is located
export CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH="$NODE_HOME/db/socket"

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:

mkdir $HOME/cardano-my-node

15. To reload your shell profile, type:

source $HOME/.bashrc

16. On each computer hosting a relay or block-producing node for your stake pool, repeat steps 1 to 15