# Building from source

When building from source, you have three options:

1. Build using Nix, a package manager that keeps your system configuration intact and maintains a minimal set of dependencies
2. Build with Nix inside a Docker image (doesn’t require you to install nix)
3. Build using Cargo and the usual Rust build process

### Getting the repository

All those three methods require you to download Aleph’s code repository:

```bash
git clone https://github.com/Cardinal-Cryptography/aleph-node.git
cd aleph-node
```

### Nix

1. Install Nix:

```bash
sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon
```

2. Checkout a Testnet or Mainnet `aleph-node`tag, see <https://alephzero.org/developers#developer-resources>

```bash
git checkout r-15.2.0
```

1. Use nix to build the node binary:

```bash
nix-shell --pure --run 'cargo build --release --locked --package aleph-node' shell.nix
```

The binary will be stored as `target/release/aleph-node`

### Docker

In order to build a binary for `aleph-node` using docker we first need to install docker itself, i.e. in case of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, by executing `sudo apt install docker.io` (please consult your distribution's manual describing docker installation procedure). Build procedure can be invoked by running:

```bash
sudo docker build -t aleph-node/build -f nix/Dockerfile.build .
sudo docker run -ti --volume=$(pwd):/node/build aleph-node/build
```

Binary will be stored in `$(pwd)/aleph-node`

### Cargo

This way is not recommended as it can potentially interfere with your system’s configuration but we provide it for the sake of this guide’s completeness.

First of all, you will need some system-level dependencies. These are build dependencies we use in our Linux images for `aleph-node`:

```bash
bash
binutils
clang
git
glibc
llvm
nss-cacert
openssl
pkg-config
protobuf
rust-nightly
```

Version of the rust toolchain is specified by the [rust-toolchain](https://github.com/Cardinal-Cryptography/aleph-node/blob/main/rust-toolchain) file within the `aleph-node` repository. You can use [rustup](https://rustup.rs/) to install a specific version of rust, including its custom compilation targets. Using `rustup`, it should set a proper toolchain automatically while you call `rustup show` within project's root directory.

Example build procedure using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and bash shell:

```bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential curl git clang libclang-dev pkg-config libssl-dev protobuf-compiler
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"
git clone https://github.com/Cardinal-Cryptography/aleph-node.git
cd aleph-node
rustup show
rustup target add x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu wasm32-unknown-unknown
cargo build --profile production -p aleph-node
```

The binary will be located in the `target/release` directory in the `aleph-node` repository. It is named `aleph-node`.

Of course, if you want to build a specific release, you can checkout an appropriate tag after cloning the repository, similarly to the Nix guide above. For example:

```bash
git checkout r-15.2.0
```

{% hint style="info" %}
The best way to find the tag is to use page <https://alephzero.org/developers#developer-resources>
{% endhint %}