Before you can start compiling tinc from a fresh git clone, you have to install the very latest versions of the following packages:
meson
ormuon
(read below)ninja
orsamurai
pkgconf
orpkg-config
GCC
orClang
(any version with C11 support, although older versions might work)OpenSSL
* (1.1.0+) orLibreSSL
orlibgcrypt
(not needed if legacy protocol is disabled)
If you're on a constrained system that doesn't have (or cannot run) Python, you
can try building tinc with muon, which is a pure C reimplementation of
the same idea. Please note that meson
is considered to be the main way of
building tinc, and muon
is supported on a best-effort basis.
Plus a few optional dependencies. Support for them will be enabled if they're present:
ncurses
orPDCurses
readline
zlib
*LZO
*LZ4
*
If packages marked by *
are not available, tinc will fall back to its own
vendored copies. This behavior can be disabled by setting the appropriate meson
option to disabled
.
To build info
documentation you'll also need these packages:
texinfo
ormakeinfo
You might also need some additional command-line utilities to be able to run the integration test suite:
diffutils
procps
socat
netcat
Depending on the distribution, one of the following commands can be used to install all dependencies:
- Arch Linux:
sudo pacman --needed --sync base-devel meson ninja pkg-config openssl ncurses readline zlib lzo lz4 texinfo diffutils procps socat openbsd-netcat
- Debian:
sudo apt install meson ninja-build pkg-config build-essential libssl-dev libncurses-dev libreadline-dev zlib1g-dev liblzo2-dev liblz4-dev texinfo diffutils procps socat netcat-openbsd
- Alpine Linux:
doas apk add meson ninja pkgconf build-base linux-headers openssl-dev ncurses-dev readline-dev zlib-dev lzo-dev lz4-dev texinfo diffutils procps-ng socat netcat-openbsd
- Fedora:
sudo dnf install meson ninja-build pkgconf-pkg-config @development-tools openssl-devel ncurses-devel readline-devel zlib-devel lzo-devel lz4-devel texinfo diffutils procps-ng socat netcat
You can build tinc using either the native Windows SDK (which comes with Visual Studio), or with the Unix-like msys2 environment. Install either one of them, plus the latest version of meson.
If you prefer the native SDK, you might want to work on tinc (or build it) under Visual Studio. To do so, follow these instructions.
By default, tinc produces a static Windows build, so you don't need to install anything in order to run the compiled binaries.
Tinc's functionality can vary greatly depending on how you configure it. Have a
look at the available options in meson_options.txt
, or
run:
meson configure
First you need to create a build directory. If you want the default experience, run:
meson setup builddir
or with configuration options (your shell can probably autocomplete them on
Tab
, try it):
meson setup builddir -Dprefix=/usr/local -Dbuildtype=release
(For autotools users: this is a rough equivalent of
autoreconf -fsi && ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --with-foobar
).
This creates a build directory (named builddir
) with build type set to
release
(which enables compiler optimizations) and path prefix set to
/usr/local
.
Pass any additional options in the same way. Typically, this is not needed: tinc will autodetect available libraries and adjust its functionality accordingly.
If you'd like to reconfigure the project after running setup
, you can either
remove the build directory and start anew, or use:
meson configure builddir -Dlzo=disabled -Dlz4=enabled
You then need to build the project:
meson compile -C builddir
(For autotools users: this is an equivalent of make -j$(nproc)
).
You might want to run the test suite to ensure tinc is working correctly:
meson test -C builddir
(For autotools users: this is an equivalent of make -j$(nproc) test
).
To install tinc to your system, run:
meson install -C builddir
(For autotools users: this is an equivalent of make install
).
Please be aware that this is not the best method of installing software because it will not be tracked by your operating system's package manager. You should use packages provided by your operating system, or build your own (this is a large and complicated topic which is out of the scope of this document).
To uninstall tinc, run:
ninja -C builddir uninstall
(For autotools users: this is an equivalent of make uninstall
).
Cross-compilation is easy to do on Debian or its derivatives. Set $HOST
to
your target architecture and install the cross-compilation toolchain and -dev
versions of all libraries you'd like to link:
HOST=armhf
dpkg --add-architecture $HOST
apt update
apt install -y crossbuild-essential-$HOST zlib1g-dev:$HOST …
If you'd like to run tests on emulated hardware, install qemu-user
:
apt install -y qemu-user
update-binfmts --enable
Set two environment variables: the C compiler, and pkg-config, and then proceed as usual:
export CC=arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc
export PKG_CONFIG=arm-linux-gnueabihf-pkg-config
meson setup build --cross-file /dev/null
Or put the names into a cross file and pass it to meson:
cat >cross-armhf <<EOF
[binaries]
c = 'arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc'
pkgconfig = 'arm-linux-gnueabihf-pkg-config'
EOF
meson setup build --cross-file cross-armhf
Install cross-compilation toolchain:
apt install -y mingw-w64 mingw-w64-tools
tinc will use its own vendored libraries, so you don't need to install or build anything manually.
Prepare the cross file to let meson know you're building binaries for a different operating system. Take a look at the file used by CI for an example, or refer to examples provided by the meson project: x86,x86_64.
Then build as usual. Because Windows binaries are built with static linkage by default, you might want to enable link-time optimization. It is much slower than building without LTO, but produces binaries that are 80%+ smaller:
meson setup build -Dbuildtype=release -Db_lto=true --cross-file cross-windows
ninja -C build
First you need to install Android NDK.
Prepare a cross file. Here's a working example for reference:
[host_machine]
system = 'android'
cpu_family = 'arm'
cpu = 'aarch64'
endian = 'little'
[binaries]
c = 'aarch64-linux-android24-clang'
Then build as usual:
export ANDROID_NDK_ROOT=/tmp/ndk/android-ndk-r24
export PATH=$ANDROID_NDK_ROOT/toolchains/llvm/prebuilt/linux-x86_64/bin:$PATH
meson setup android-aarch64 -Dcrypto=nolegacy --cross-file android
ninja -C android-aarch64
The same instructions should work for iOS. Refer to this cross file for an example.