Getting started with ndn-cxx

Supported platforms

ndn-cxx uses continuous integration and has been tested on the following platforms:

  • Ubuntu 16.04 (amd64, armhf, i386)
  • Ubuntu 18.04 (amd64)
  • Ubuntu 19.10 (amd64)
  • macOS 10.13
  • macOS 10.14
  • macOS 10.15
  • CentOS 7 (with gcc 7 and boost 1.58.0)

ndn-cxx is known to work on the following platforms, although they are not officially supported:

  • Debian >= 9
  • Fedora >= 24
  • Gentoo Linux
  • Raspbian >= 2017-08-16
  • FreeBSD 11.2

Prerequisites

Required:

  • GCC >= 5.3, or clang >= 3.6
  • python2 >= 2.7, or python3 >= 3.4
  • Boost libraries >= 1.58
  • pkg-config
  • SQLite 3.x
  • OpenSSL >= 1.0.2
  • Apple Security framework (on macOS only)

Following are the detailed steps for each platform to install the compiler, all necessary development tools and libraries, and ndn-cxx prerequisites.

  • macOS

    • Install Xcode from the App Store, or at least the Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)

    • If using Homebrew (recommended), enter the following in a terminal:

      brew install boost openssl pkg-config

      Note

      If a major OS upgrade is performed after installing the dependencies with Homebrew, remember to reinstall all packages.

  • Ubuntu

    In a terminal, enter:

    sudo apt install build-essential libboost-all-dev libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev pkg-config python-minimal

  • Fedora

    In a terminal, enter:

    sudo yum install gcc-g++ sqlite-devel boost-devel openssl-devel

  • FreeBSD

    In a terminal, enter:

    sudo pkg install python pkgconf sqlite3 boost-libs

Optional:

To build tutorials, manpages, and API documentation the following dependencies need to be installed:

  • doxygen
  • graphviz
  • python-sphinx
  • sphinxcontrib-doxylink

The following lists steps for common platforms to install these prerequisites:

  • On macOS with Homebrew and pip:

    brew install doxygen graphviz
sudo pip install sphinx sphinxcontrib-doxylink

  • On Ubuntu:

    sudo apt install doxygen graphviz python3-pip
sudo pip3 install sphinx sphinxcontrib-doxylink

  • On Fedora:

    sudo yum install doxygen graphviz python-sphinx
sudo pip install sphinxcontrib-doxylink

  • On FreeBSD:

    sudo pkg install doxygen graphviz py27-sphinx

Build

Note

These are instructions for regular builds of ndn-cxx (release mode). To do development of ndn-cxx code itself, see “Development build” below.

To build in a terminal, change directory to the ndn-cxx root, then enter:

./waf configure
./waf
sudo ./waf install

By default, only the shared version of ndn-cxx library is built. To build the static library, use --enable-static option for ./waf configure command:

./waf configure --enable-static

To disable build of the shared library and build only the static library, use additional --disable-shared option. Note that at least one version of the library needs to be enabled.

./waf configure --enable-static --disable-shared

After the shared library is installed, on Linux it is also necessary to run:

sudo ldconfig

Note

When the library is installed in a non-standard path (in general: not in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib; on some Linux distros including Fedora: not in /usr/lib), additional actions may be necessary.

The installation path should be added to /etc/ld.so.conf (or in /etc/ld.so.conf.d) before running sudo ldconfig. For example:

echo /usr/local/lib | sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ndn-cxx.conf

Alternatively, the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable can be set to point to the installation directory of the shared library:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib

The ./waf install command installs the following files:

  • <LIBPATH>/libndn-cxx.a: static NDN C++ library (if enabled).
  • <LIBPATH>/libndn-cxx.so, <LIBPATH>/libndn-cxx.so.<VERSION> (on Linux), <LIBPATH>/libndn-cxx.dylib, <LIBPATH>/libndn-cxx.<VERSION>.dylib (on macOS): shared NDN C++ library (if enabled).
  • <LIBPATH>/pkgconfig/libndn-cxx.pc: pkgconfig file storing all neccessary flags to build against the library. For example, if pkg-config or pkgconf package is installed and PKG_CONFIG_PATH is configured properly (or <LIBPATH>/pkgconfig is a default path), pkgconfig --libs --clflags libndn-cxx will return all necessary compile and link flags for the library.
  • <BINPATH>/ndnsec: tool to manage NDN keys and certificates.
  • <BINPATH>/ndnsec-*: convenience aliases for ndnsec tools.

If configured with tests (./waf configure --with-tests), the above commands will also produce:

  • build/unit-tests: a unit test binary for the library.

1.5GB available memory per CPU core is necessary for efficient compilation. On a multi-core machine with less than 1.5GB available memory per CPU core, limit the objects being compiled in parallel with ./waf -jN where N is the amount of available memory divided by 1.5GB (eg. ./waf -j1 for 1.5GB memory), which should usually avoid memory thrashing and result in faster compilation.

Build with examples

By default, examples in examples/ are not built. To enable them, use the --with-examples configure option:

./waf configure --with-examples
./waf
sudo ./waf install
sudo ldconfig # (on Linux only)

To run examples:

# trivial producer app
./build/examples/producer

# trivial consumer app
./build/examples/consumer

# trivial consumer app with timers
./build/examples/consumer-with-timer

If you want to test out a sample application, just create a .cpp file in examples/ folder and it will be compiled on the next run on ./waf. For example:

cp examples/consumer.cpp examples/my-new-consumer-app.cpp
./waf
sudo ./waf install
sudo ldconfig # (on Linux only)
./build/examples/my-new-consumer-app

Debug symbols

The default compiler flags enable debug symbols to be included in binaries (i.e., -g flag for ./waf configure and -g3 for ./waf configure --debug). This potentially allows more meaningful debugging information if your application crashes.

The default build flags can easily be overridden:

CXXFLAGS="-O2" ./waf configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
./waf
sudo ./waf install

Documentation

ndn-cxx tutorials and API documentation can be built using the following commands:

# Full set of documentation (tutorials + API) in build/docs
./waf docs

# Only tutorials in `build/docs`
./waf sphinx

# Only API docs in `build/docs/doxygen`
./waf doxygen

Manpages are automatically created and installed during the normal build process (e.g., during ./waf and ./waf install), if python-sphinx module is detected during ./waf configure stage. By default, manpages are installed into ${PREFIX}/share/man (where default value for PREFIX is /usr/local). This location can be changed during ./waf configure stage using --prefix, --datarootdir, or --mandir options.

For more details, refer to ./waf --help.

Development build

The following is the suggested configure command for development builds:

./waf configure --debug --with-tests
./waf
sudo ./waf install
sudo ldconfig # (on Linux only)

In the development build most compiler optimizations are disabled by default and all warnings are treated as errors. The default behavior can be overridden by setting CXXFLAGS environment variable before running ./waf configure:

CXXFLAGS="-O1 -g3" ./waf configure --debug --with-tests
...

Customizing the compiler

To choose a custom C++ compiler for building ndn-cxx, set the CXX environment variable to point to the compiler binary. For example, to build with clang on Linux, use the following:

CXX=clang++ ./waf configure