node/BUILDING.md

Building Node.js

Depending on what platform or features you require the build process may differ slightly. After you've successfully built a binary, running the test suite to validate that the binary works as intended is a good next step.

If you consistently can reproduce a test failure, search for it in the Node.js issue tracker or file a new issue.

Supported platforms

This list of supported platforms is current as of the branch / release to which it is attached.

Input

Node.js relies on V8 and libuv. Therefore, we adopt a subset of their supported platforms.

Strategy

Support is divided into three tiers:

• Tier 1: Full test coverage and maintenance by the Node.js core team and the broader community.
• Tier 2: Full test coverage but more limited maintenance, often provided by the vendor of the platform.
• Experimental: Known to compile but not necessarily reliably or with a full passing test suite. These are often working to be promoted to Tier 2 but are not quite ready. There is at least one individual actively providing maintenance and the team is striving to broaden quality and reliability of support.

Supported platforms

System	Support type	Version	Architectures	Notes
GNU/Linux	Tier 1	kernel >= 2.6.18, glibc >= 2.5	x86, x64, arm, arm64
macOS	Tier 1	>= 10.10	x64
Windows	Tier 1	>= Windows 7 or >= Windows2008R2	x86, x64
SmartOS	Tier 2	>= 14	x86, x64
FreeBSD	Tier 2	>= 10	x64
GNU/Linux	Tier 2	kernel >= 4.2.0, glibc >= 2.19	ppc64be
GNU/Linux	Tier 2	kernel >= 3.13.0, glibc >= 2.19	ppc64le
macOS	Experimental	>= 10.8 < 10.10	x64	no test coverage
Linux (musl)	Experimental	musl >= 1.0	x64

Supported toolchains

Depending on host platform, the selection of toolchains may vary.

Unix

• GCC 4.8 or newer
• Clang 3.4.1 or newer

Windows

• Building Node: Visual Studio 2013 or Visual C++ Build Tools 2013 or newer
• Building native add-ons: Visual Studio 2013 or Visual C++ Build Tools 2013 or newer

Building Node.js on supported platforms

Unix / OS X

Prerequisites:

• gcc and g++ 4.8 or newer, or
• clang and clang++ 3.4.1 or newer
• Python 2.6 or 2.7
• GNU Make 3.81 or newer

On OS X, you will also need:

• Xcode

  • You also need to install the Command Line Tools via Xcode. You can find this under the menu Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads
  • This step will install gcc and the related toolchain containing make

• After building, you may want to setup firewall rules to avoid popups asking to accept incoming network connections when running tests:

$ sudo ./tools/macosx-firewall.sh

Running this script will add rules for the executable node in the out directory and the symbolic node link in the projects root directory.

On FreeBSD and OpenBSD, you may also need:

• libexecinfo (FreeBSD and OpenBSD only)

$ ./configure
$ make
$ [sudo] make install

If your Python binary is in a non-standard location or has a non-standard name, run the following instead:

$ export PYTHON=/path/to/python
$ $PYTHON ./configure
$ make
$ [sudo] make install

Note that the above requires that python resolve to Python 2.6 or 2.7 and not a newer version.

To run the tests:

$ make test

To run the native module tests:

$ make test-addons

To run the npm test suite:

note: to run the suite on node v4 or earlier you must first run make install

$ make test-npm

To build the documentation:

This will build Node.js first (if necessary) and then use it to build the docs:

$ make doc

If you have an existing Node.js you can build just the docs with:

$ NODE=node make doc-only

(Where node is the path to your executable.)

To read the documentation:

$ man doc/node.1

To test if Node.js was built correctly:

$ node -e "console.log('Hello from Node.js ' + process.version)"

Windows

Prerequisites:

• Python 2.6 or 2.7
• One of:
  • Visual C++ Build Tools
  • Visual Studio 2013 / 2015, all editions including the Community edition
  • Visual Studio Express 2013 / 2015 for Desktop
• Basic Unix tools required for some tests, Git for Windows includes Git Bash and tools which can be included in the global PATH.

> .\vcbuild nosign

To run the tests:

> .\vcbuild nosign test

To test if Node.js was built correctly:

> Release\node -e "console.log('Hello from Node.js', process.version)"

Android / Android-based devices (e.g. Firefox OS)

Although these instructions for building on Android are provided, please note that Android is not an officially supported platform at this time. Patches to improve the Android build are accepted. However, there is no testing on Android in the current continuous integration environment. The participation of people dedicated and determined to improve Android building, testing, and support is encouraged.

Be sure you have downloaded and extracted [Android NDK] (https://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html) before in a folder. Then run:

$ ./android-configure /path/to/your/android-ndk
$ make

Intl (ECMA-402) support:

Intl support is not enabled by default.

"small" (English only) support

This option will build with "small" (English only) support, but the full Intl (ECMA-402) APIs. With --download=all it will download the ICU library as needed.

Unix / OS X:

$ ./configure --with-intl=small-icu --download=all

Windows:

> .\vcbuild nosign small-icu download-all

The small-icu mode builds with English-only data. You can add full data at runtime.

Note: more docs are on the node wiki.

Build with full ICU support (all locales supported by ICU):

With the --download=all, this may download ICU if you don't have an ICU in deps/icu.

Unix / OS X:

$ ./configure --with-intl=full-icu --download=all

Windows:

> .\vcbuild nosign full-icu download-all

Building without Intl support

The Intl object will not be available. This is the default at present, so this option is not normally needed.

Unix / OS X:

$ ./configure --with-intl=none

Windows:

> .\vcbuild nosign intl-none

Use existing installed ICU (Unix / OS X only):

$ pkg-config --modversion icu-i18n && ./configure --with-intl=system-icu

If you are cross compiling, your pkg-config must be able to supply a path that works for both your host and target environments.

Build with a specific ICU:

You can find other ICU releases at the ICU homepage. Download the file named something like icu4c-**##.#**-src.tgz (or .zip).

Unix / OS X

# from an already-unpacked ICU:
$ ./configure --with-intl=[small-icu,full-icu] --with-icu-source=/path/to/icu

# from a local ICU tarball
$ ./configure --with-intl=[small-icu,full-icu] --with-icu-source=/path/to/icu.tgz

# from a tarball URL
$ ./configure --with-intl=full-icu --with-icu-source=http://url/to/icu.tgz

Windows

First unpack latest ICU to deps/icu icu4c-##.#-src.tgz (or .zip) as deps/icu (You'll have: deps/icu/source/...)

> .\vcbuild nosign full-icu

Building Node.js with FIPS-compliant OpenSSL

NOTE: Windows is not yet supported

It is possible to build Node.js with OpenSSL FIPS module.

Note: building in this way does not allow you to claim that the runtime is FIPS 140-2 validated. Instead you can indicate that the runtime uses a validated module. See the security policy page 60 for more details. In addition, the validation for the underlying module is only valid if it is deployed in accordance with its security policy. If you need FIPS validated cryptography it is recommended that you read both the security policy and user guide.

Instructions

1. Obtain a copy of openssl-fips-x.x.x.tar.gz. To comply with the security policy you must ensure the path through which you get the file complies with the requirements for a "secure installation" as described in section 6.6 in the user guide. For evaluation/experimentation you can simply download and verify openssl-fips-x.x.x.tar.gz from https://www.openssl.org/source/
2. Extract source to openssl-fips folder and cd openssl-fips
3. ./config
4. make
5. make install (NOTE: to comply with the security policy you must use the exact commands in steps 3-5 without any additional options as per Appendix A in the security policy. The only exception is that ./config no-asm can be used in place of ./config, and the FIPSDIR environment variable may be used to specify a non-standard install folder for the validated module, as per User Guide sections 4.2.1, 4.2.2, and 4.2.3.
6. Get into Node.js checkout folder
7. ./configure --openssl-fips=/path/to/openssl-fips/installdir For example on ubuntu 12 the installation directory was /usr/local/ssl/fips-2.0
8. Build Node.js with make -j
9. Verify with node -p "process.versions.openssl" (1.0.2a-fips)