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Building Node.js

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

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

Table of Contents

Supported platforms

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

Input

Node.js relies on V8 and libuv. We adopt a subset of their supported platforms.

Strategy

There are three support tiers:

  • Tier 1: Full test coverage and maintenance by the Node.js core team and the broader community.
  • Tier 2: Full test coverage. Limited maintenance, often provided by the vendor of the platform.
  • Experimental: May not compile or test suite may not pass. These are often approaching Tier 2 support but are not quite ready. There is at least one individual providing maintenance.

Supported platforms

The community does not build or test against end-of-life distributions (EoL). For production applications, run Node.js on supported platforms only.

System Support type Version Architectures Notes
GNU/Linux Tier 1 kernel >= 2.6.32, glibc >= 2.12 x64, arm
GNU/Linux Tier 1 kernel >= 3.10, glibc >= 2.17 arm64
macOS/OS X Tier 1 >= 10.11 x64
Windows Tier 1 >= Windows 7/2008 R2/2012 R2 x86, x64 2,3,4
SmartOS Tier 2 >= 15 < 16.4 x86, x64 1
FreeBSD Tier 2 >= 10 x64
GNU/Linux Tier 2 kernel >= 3.13.0, glibc >= 2.19 ppc64le >=power8
AIX Tier 2 >= 7.1 TL04 ppc64be >=power7
GNU/Linux Tier 2 kernel >= 3.10, glibc >= 2.17 s390x
GNU/Linux Experimental kernel >= 2.6.32, glibc >= 2.12 x86 limited CI
Linux (musl) Experimental musl >= 1.0 x64

1: The gcc4.8-libs package needs to be installed, because node binaries have been built with GCC 4.8, for which runtime libraries are not installed by default. For these node versions, the recommended binaries are the ones available in pkgsrc, not the one available from nodejs.org. Note that the binaries downloaded from the pkgsrc repositories are not officially supported by the Node.js project, and instead are supported by Joyent. SmartOS images >= 16.4 are not supported because GCC 4.8 runtime libraries are not available in their pkgsrc repository

2: Tier 1 support for building on Windows is only on 64-bit hosts. Support is experimental for 32-bit hosts.

3: On Windows, running Node.js in Windows terminal emulators like mintty requires the usage of winpty for the tty channels to work correctly (e.g. winpty node.exe script.js). In "Git bash" if you call the node shell alias (node without the .exe extension), winpty is used automatically.

4: The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is not directly supported, but the GNU/Linux build process and binaries should work. The community will only address issues that reproduce on native GNU/Linux systems. Issues that only reproduce on WSL should be reported in the WSL issue tracker. Running the Windows binary (node.exe) in WSL is not recommended. It will not work without workarounds such as stdio redirection.

Supported toolchains

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

Unix

  • GCC 4.9.4 or newer
  • Clang 3.4.2 or newer

AIX

  • GCC 6.3 or newer

Windows

  • Visual Studio 2017 with the Windows 10 SDK on a 64-bit host.

OpenSSL asm support

OpenSSL-1.1.1 requires the following assembler version for use of asm support on x86_64 and ia32.

For use of AVX-512,

  • gas (GNU assembler) version 2.26 or higher
  • nasm version 2.11.8 or higher in Windows

Note that AVX-512 is disabled for Skylake-X by OpenSSL-1.1.1.

For use of AVX2,

  • gas (GNU assembler) version 2.23 or higher
  • Xcode version 5.0 or higher
  • llvm version 3.3 or higher
  • nasm version 2.10 or higher in Windows

Please refer to https://www.openssl.org/docs/man1.1.1/man3/OPENSSL_ia32cap.html for details.

If compiling without one of the above, use configure with the --openssl-no-asm flag. Otherwise, configure will fail.

Building Node.js on supported platforms

The bootstrapping guide explains how to install all prerequisites.

Unix/macOS

Prerequisites

  • gcc and g++ 4.9.4 or newer, or
  • clang and clang++ 3.4.2 or newer (macOS: latest Xcode Command Line Tools)
  • Python 2.6 or 2.7
  • GNU Make 3.81 or newer

On macOS, install the Xcode Command Line Tools by running xcode-select --install. Alternatively, if you already have the full Xcode installed, you can find them under the menu Xcode -> Open Developer Tool -> More Developer Tools.... This step will install clang, clang++, and make.

If the path to your build directory contains a space, the build will likely fail.

On FreeBSD and OpenBSD, you may also need:

  • libexecinfo

Building Node.js

To build Node.js:

$ ./configure
$ make -j4

The -j4 option will cause make to run 4 simultaneous compilation jobs which may reduce build time. For more information, see the GNU Make Documentation.

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

After building, setting up firewall rules can avoid popups asking to accept incoming network connections when running tests.

Running the following script on macOS will add the firewall rules for the executable node in the out directory and the symbolic node link in the project's root directory.

$ sudo ./tools/macos-firewall.sh

Running Tests

To verify the build:

$ make test-only

At this point, you are ready to make code changes and re-run the tests.

If you are running tests before submitting a Pull Request, the recommended command is:

$ make -j4 test

make -j4 test does a full check on the codebase, including running linters and documentation tests.

Optionally, continue below.

To run the tests and generate code coverage reports:

$ ./configure --coverage
$ make coverage

This will generate coverage reports for both JavaScript and C++ tests (if you only want to run the JavaScript tests then you do not need to run the first command ./configure --coverage).

The make coverage command downloads some tools to the project root directory and overwrites the lib/ directory. To clean up after generating the coverage reports:

$ make coverage-clean

Building the documentation

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 build, you can build just the docs with:

$ NODE=/path/to/node make doc-only

To read the documentation:

$ man doc/node.1

If you prefer to read the documentation in a browser, run the following after make doc is finished:

$ make docopen

This will open a browser with the documentation.

To test if Node.js was built correctly:

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

To install this version of Node.js into a system directory:

$ [sudo] make install

Building a debug build

If you run into an issue where the information provided by the JS stack trace is not enough, or if you suspect the error happens outside of the JS VM, you can try to build a debug enabled binary:

$ ./configure --debug
$ make -j4

make with ./configure --debug generates two binaries, the regular release one in out/Release/node and a debug binary in out/Debug/node, only the release version is actually installed when you run make install.

To use the debug build with all the normal dependencies overwrite the release version in the install directory:

$ make install --prefix=/opt/node-debug/
$ cp -a -f out/Debug/node /opt/node-debug/node

When using the debug binary, core dumps will be generated in case of crashes. These core dumps are useful for debugging when provided with the corresponding original debug binary and system information.

Reading the core dump requires gdb built on the same platform the core dump was captured on (i.e. 64-bit gdb for node built on a 64-bit system, Linux gdb for node built on Linux) otherwise you will get errors like not in executable format: File format not recognized.

Example of generating a backtrace from the core dump:

$ gdb /opt/node-debug/node core.node.8.1535359906
$ backtrace

Windows

Prerequisites:

  • Python 2.6 or 2.7
  • The "Desktop development with C++" workload from Visual Studio 2017 or the "Visual C++ build tools" workload from the Build Tools, with the default optional components.
  • Basic Unix tools required for some tests, Git for Windows includes Git Bash and tools which can be included in the global PATH.
  • The NetWide Assembler, for OpenSSL assembler modules. If not installed in the default location, it needs to be manually added to PATH. A build with the openssl-no-asm option does not need this, nor does a build targeting ARM64 Windows.
  • Optional (to build the MSI): the WiX Toolset v3.11 and the Wix Toolset Visual Studio 2017 Extension.
  • Optional Requirements for compiling for Windows 10 on ARM (ARM64):
    • ARM64 Windows build machine
      • Due to a GYP limitation, this is required to run compiled code generation tools (like V8's builtins and mksnapshot tools)
    • Visual Studio 15.9.0 or newer
    • Visual Studio optional components
      • Visual C++ compilers and libraries for ARM64
      • Visual C++ ATL for ARM64
    • Windows 10 SDK 10.0.17763.0 or newer

If the path to your build directory contains a space or a non-ASCII character, the build will likely fail.

> .\vcbuild

To run the tests:

> .\vcbuild 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)

Android is not a supported platform. Patches to improve the Android build are welcome. 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 before in a folder. Then run:

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

Intl (ECMA-402) support:

Intl support is enabled by default, with English data only.

Default: small-icu (English only) support

By default, only English data is included, but the full Intl (ECMA-402) APIs. It does not need to download any dependencies to function. You can add full data at runtime.

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. (The embedded small-icu included in the default Node.js source does not include all locales.)

Unix/macOS:
$ ./configure --with-intl=full-icu --download=all
Windows:
> .\vcbuild full-icu download-all

Building without Intl support

The Intl object will not be available, nor some other APIs such as String.normalize.

Unix/macOS:
$ ./configure --without-intl
Windows:
> .\vcbuild without-intl

Use existing installed ICU (Unix/macOS 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).

To check the minimum recommended ICU, run ./configure --help and see the help for the --with-icu-source option. A warning will be printed during configuration if the ICU version is too old.

Unix/macOS

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 full-icu

Building Node.js with FIPS-compliant OpenSSL

This version of Node.js does not support FIPS.

Building Node.js with external core modules

It is possible to specify one or more JavaScript text files to be bundled in the binary as built-in modules when building Node.js.

Unix/macOS

This command will make /root/myModule.js available via require('/root/myModule') and ./myModule2.js available via require('myModule2').

$ ./configure --link-module '/root/myModule.js' --link-module './myModule2.js'

Windows

To make ./myModule.js available via require('myModule') and ./myModule2.js available via require('myModule2'):

> .\vcbuild link-module './myModule.js' link-module './myModule2.js'

Note for downstream distributors of Node.js

The Node.js ecosystem is reliant on ABI compatibility within a major release. To maintain ABI compatibility it is required that production builds of Node.js will be built against the same version of dependencies as the project vendors. If Node.js is to be built against a different version of a dependency please create a custom NODE_MODULE_VERSION to ensure ecosystem compatibility. Please consult with the TSC by opening an issue at https://github.com/nodejs/tsc/issues if you decide to create a custom NODE_MODULE_VERSION so we can avoid duplication in the ecosystem.