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Build System

Bitcoin Knots uses the same build system as Bitcoin Core, supporting both CMake and Autotools.

Quick Build (Linux)​

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/bitcoinknots/bitcoin.git
cd bitcoin
git checkout 29.x-knots

# Install dependencies (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool autotools-dev automake \
  pkg-config bsdmainutils python3 libssl-dev libevent-dev \
  libboost-dev libsqlite3-dev

# For Qt GUI, also install:
sudo apt-get install libqt5gui5 libqt5core5a libqt5dbus5 qttools5-dev \
  qttools5-dev-tools libqrencode-dev

# Build
./autogen.sh
./configure
make -j$(nproc)

CMake Build (Preferred for v28+)​

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

Build Options​

Configure Options​

# Disable wallet
./configure --disable-wallet

# Disable GUI
./configure --without-gui

# Enable debug
./configure --enable-debug

# Static linking
./configure --enable-static

CMake Options​

cmake -DBUILD_WALLET=OFF ..
cmake -DBUILD_GUI=OFF ..
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..

Dependencies​

Required​

DependencyPurpose
BoostGeneral utilities
libeventNetwork events
OpenSSL/LibreSSLCryptography

Optional​

DependencyPurpose
Qt5/Qt6GUI
libqrencodeQR codes
SQLite3Descriptor wallets
BerkeleyDBLegacy wallets
ZMQNotifications

Cross-Compilation​

Using the depends system:

# Build dependencies for target
cd depends
make HOST=x86_64-w64-mingw32 -j$(nproc)

# Configure with depends
cd ..
./configure --prefix=$PWD/depends/x86_64-w64-mingw32
make -j$(nproc)

Reproducible Builds (Guix)​

./contrib/guix/guix-build

Produces deterministic binaries that can be verified by multiple builders.

Running Tests​

# Unit tests
make check

# Functional tests
./test/functional/test_runner.py

# Specific test
./test/functional/test_runner.py wallet_basic.py

See Also​