Build from source

rqlite can be compiled for a wide variety of operating systems and platforms.

Release process

A rqlite release is generated automatically using GitHub Actions anytime a new GitHub release is created and tagged.

While SQLite functionality is compiled into rqlite (so you do not need SQLite to be installed on the host machine) glibc is dynamically linked. This shouldn’t cause any issues in practise and maximises compatibility with whatever host machine you run rqlite on.

Building rqlite

Building rqlite requires Go 1.22 or later. gvm is a great tool for installing and managing your versions of Go. You must also have a C compiler installed.

One goal of rqlite is to keep the build process as simple as possible, to aid development and debugging. Download, build, and run rqlite like so (tested on 64-bit Ubuntu 20.04, macOS, and Windows):

mkdir rqlite # Or any directory of your choice.
cd rqlite/
export GOPATH=$PWD
mkdir -p src/github.com/rqlite
cd src/github.com/rqlite
git clone https://github.com/rqlite/rqlite.git
cd rqlite
go install ./...
$GOPATH/bin/rqlited ~/node.1

This starts a rqlite server listening on localhost, port 4001. This single node automatically becomes the Leader.

To rebuild and run, perhaps after making some changes to the source, do something like the following:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/rqlite/rqlite
go install ./...
$GOPATH/bin/rqlited ~/node.1

Compilation errors locating SQLite functions

If, during compilation, you experience errors about undefined SQLite functions, your C compilation step is probably not configured correctly. Check that you have a C compiler installed and that the environment variable CGO_ENABLED must be set to 1. You can explicitly set the C compiler using the CC environment variable.

Code generation

This step is not necessary unless you are making changes to Protobuf defintions or command-line flags.

go install google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go
go install github.com/rqlite/flagforge/cmd/flagforge@latest
export GOBIN=$GOPATH/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOBIN
go generate ./...

Speeding up the build process

It can be rather slow to rebuild rqlite, due to the repeated compilation of the SQLite source code. You can compile and install the SQLite libary once, so subsequent builds are much faster. To do so, execute the following commands:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/rqlite/rqlite
go install github.com/rqlite/go-sqlite3

Cloning a fork

If you wish to work with fork of rqlite, your own fork for example, you must still follow the directory structure above. But instead of cloning the main repo, instead clone your fork. You must fork the project if you want to contribute upstream.

Follow the steps below to work with a fork:

export GOPATH=$HOME/rqlite
mkdir -p $GOPATH/src/github.com/rqlite
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/rqlite
git clone git@github.com:<your Github username>/rqlite

Retaining the directory structure $GOPATH/src/github.com/rqlite is necessary so that Go imports work correctly.

Testing

Be sure to run the unit test suite before opening a pull request. An example test run is shown below.

$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/rqlite/rqlite
$ go test ./...
?       github.com/rqlite/rqlite       [no test files]
ok      github.com/rqlite/rqlite/auth  0.001s
?       github.com/rqlite/rqlite/cmd/rqlite    [no test files]
?       github.com/rqlite/rqlite/cmd/rqlited   [no test files]
ok      github.com/rqlite/rqlite/db    0.769s
ok      github.com/rqlite/rqlite/http  0.006s
ok      github.com/rqlite/rqlite/store 6.117s
ok      github.com/rqlite/rqlite/system_test   7.853s

Development philosophy

Clean commit histories

If you open a pull request, please ensure the commit history is clean. Squash the commits into logical blocks, perhaps a single commit if that makes sense. What you want to avoid is commits such as “WIP” and “fix test” in the history. This is so we keep history on master clean and straightforward.

Third-party libraries

Please avoid using libaries other than those available in the standard library, unless necessary. This requirement is relaxed somewhat for software other than rqlite node software itself. To understand why this approach is taken, check out this post.