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Building SELF Chain

This guide covers building SELF Chain from source.

Prerequisites​

Required​

  • Rust 1.70.0 or later
  • Git
  • C compiler (gcc, clang, or MSVC)
  • pkg-config (Linux/macOS)
  • OpenSSL development headers

Platform-Specific​

Ubuntu/Debian​

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev git curl

macOS​

# Install Xcode Command Line Tools
xcode-select --install

# Install Homebrew if needed
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

# Install dependencies
brew install pkg-config openssl

Windows​

Installing Rust​

# Install rustup
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Add to PATH
source $HOME/.cargo/env

# Verify installation
rustc --version
cargo --version

Building from Source​

1. Clone the Repository​

git clone https://github.com/SELF-Technology/self-chain-public.git
cd self-chain-public

2. Build Debug Version​

# Build with default features
cargo build

# Build with all features
cargo build --all-features

3. Build Release Version​

# Optimized build (takes longer)
cargo build --release

# The binary will be in target/release/

4. Run Tests​

# Run all tests
cargo test

# Run tests with output
cargo test -- --nocapture

# Run specific test
cargo test test_name

Build Features​

SELF Chain supports various build features:

[features]
default = ["std", "network", "storage"]
std = []
network = ["libp2p", "tls"]
storage = ["ipfs", "orbitdb"]
cuda = ["cuda-support"]  # GPU acceleration

Build with specific features:

# Build with CUDA support
cargo build --features cuda

# Build without default features
cargo build --no-default-features

# Build with specific features
cargo build --no-default-features --features std,network

Cross-Compilation​

Linux → Windows​

# Add Windows target
rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

# Install cross-compilation tools
sudo apt install mingw-w64

# Build for Windows
cargo build --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu --release

Linux → macOS​

# Requires osxcross toolchain
# See: https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross

cargo build --target x86_64-apple-darwin --release

For ARM (Raspberry Pi)​

# Add ARM target
rustup target add armv7-unknown-linux-gnueabihf

# Install cross-compilation tools
sudo apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf

# Build for ARM
cargo build --target armv7-unknown-linux-gnueabihf --release

Build Optimization​

Release Optimizations​

Edit Cargo.toml for custom optimization:

[profile.release]
opt-level = 3          # Maximum optimization
lto = true            # Link-time optimization
codegen-units = 1     # Single codegen unit
strip = true          # Strip symbols
panic = "abort"       # Smaller binary

Build for Production​

# Maximum optimization
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" cargo build --release

# Check binary size
ls -lh target/release/self-chain-node

Development Build​

Quick Iteration​

# Faster builds, slower runtime
cargo build --profile dev

# Check for errors without building
cargo check

# Auto-rebuild on changes
cargo install cargo-watch
cargo watch -x build

Debug Symbols​

# Build with debug symbols in release
cargo build --release --features debug-symbols

# Or set in Cargo.toml
[profile.release]
debug = true

Docker Build​

Build Docker Image​

# Build standard image
docker build -t self-chain:latest .

# Build with specific features
docker build --build-arg FEATURES="cuda" -t self-chain:cuda .

# Multi-stage build for smaller image
docker build -f Dockerfile.alpine -t self-chain:alpine .

Using Pre-built Images​

# Pull latest image
docker pull selfchain/node:latest

# Run container
docker run -d \
  --name self-node \
  -p 9000:9000 \
  -v ~/.self:/root/.self \
  selfchain/node:latest

Troubleshooting​

Common Build Issues​

OpenSSL Not Found​

# macOS
export OPENSSL_DIR=$(brew --prefix openssl)

# Linux
sudo apt install libssl-dev pkg-config

Out of Memory​

# Limit parallel jobs
cargo build -j 2

# Or set in config
[build]
jobs = 2

Slow Builds​

# Use sccache for caching
cargo install sccache
export RUSTC_WRAPPER=sccache

# Use mold linker (Linux)
sudo apt install mold
RUSTFLAGS="-C link-arg=-fuse-ld=mold" cargo build

Clean Build​

# Remove build artifacts
cargo clean

# Deep clean (removes all target dirs)
find . -type d -name target -exec rm -rf {} +

Build Verification​

Verify Binary​

# Check version
./target/release/self-chain-node --version

# Verify functionality
./target/release/self-chain-node --help

# Run basic test
./target/release/self-chain-node validate-config

Security Verification​

# Check for known vulnerabilities
cargo audit

# Verify checksums
sha256sum target/release/self-chain-node

Next Steps​

After building:

  1. Configure your node
  2. Join the network
  3. Set up storage

Getting Help​