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Prepare your machine

The Nimbus beacon node runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, and Android.

System requirements

Check that your machine matches the minimal system requirements.

Build prerequisites

Tip

If you are planning to use the precompiled binaries, you can skip this section and go straight to the binaries!

When building from source, you will need additional build dependencies to be installed:

  • Developer tools (C compiler, Make, Bash, Git)
  • CMake

On common Linux distributions the dependencies can be installed with:

# Debian and Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install build-essential git-lfs cmake

# Fedora
dnf install @development-tools cmake

# Arch Linux, using an AUR manager
yourAURmanager -S base-devel git-lfs cmake

With Homebrew:

brew install cmake

To build Nimbus on Windows, the MinGW-w64 build environment is recommended.

Install Mingw-w64 for your architecture using the "MinGW-W64 Online Installer":

  1. Select your architecture in the setup menu (i686 on 32-bit, x86_64 on 64-bit).
  2. Set threads to win32.
  3. Set exceptions to "dwarf" on 32-bit and "seh" on 64-bit.
  4. Change the installation directory to C:\mingw-w64 and add it to your system PATH in "My Computer"/"This PC" -> Properties -> Advanced system settings -> Environment Variables -> Path -> Edit -> New -> C:\mingw-w64\mingw64\bin (C:\mingw-w64\mingw32\bin on 32-bit).

Note

If the online installer isn't working you can try installing mingw-w64 through MSYS2.

Install Git for Windows and use a "Git Bash" shell to clone and build nimbus-eth2.

  • Install the Termux app from FDroid or the Google Play store
  • Install a PRoot of your choice following the instructions for your preferred distribution. Note, the Ubuntu PRoot is known to contain all Nimbus prerequisites compiled on Arm64 architecture (the most common architecture for Android devices).

Assuming you use Ubuntu PRoot:

apt install build-essential git-lfs

Time

The beacon chain relies on your computer having the correct time set (±0.5 seconds). It is important that you periodically synchronize the time with an NTP server.

If the above sounds like Latin to you, don't worry. You should be fine as long as you haven't changed the time and date settings on your computer (they should be set automatically).

On Linux, it is recommended to install chrony.

To install it:

# Debian and Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install -y chrony

# Fedora
sudo dnf install chrony

# Archlinux, using an AUR manager
yourAURmanager chrony

Make sure that the options for setting time automatically are enabled.