Build and Run rippled on macOS

The macOS platform is not recommended for rippled production use. For production, consider using the Ubuntu platform, which has received the highest level of quality assurance and testing.

That said, macOS is suitable for many development and testing tasks. rippled has been tested for use with macOS up to 10.15.7 Catalina.

For development purposes, run rippled as a non-admin user, not using sudo.

  1. Install Xcode .

  2. Install Xcode command line tools.

    xcode-select --install

  3. Install Homebrew .

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

  4. Update Homebrew.

    brew update

  5. Use Homebrew to install dependencies.

    brew install git cmake pkg-config protobuf openssl ninja conan

  6. Install a compatible version of Boost. rippled 1.9.4 is compatible with Boost 1.75.0. To compile Boost yourself, complete the following steps:

    1. Download version 1.75.0 of Boost .

    2. Extract it to a folder. Be sure to note the location.

    3. In a terminal, run:

      cd /LOCATION/OF/YOUR/BOOST/DIRECTORY
./bootstrap.sh
./b2 cxxflags="-std=c++14"

  7. Ensure that your BOOST_ROOT environment points to the directory created by the Boost installation:

    1. To find your Boost directory, use pwd if you installed the Boost manually or use brew --prefix boost if you installed the Boost with Homebrew.

    2. Edit the code below with your Boost directory location and run it to add Boost environment variable to your .zshrc or .bash_profile file so it's automatically set when you log in.

        # for zsh
  echo "export BOOST_ROOT=/Users/my_user/boost_1_75_0" >> ~/.zshrc
  # for bash
  echo "export BOOST_ROOT=/Users/my_user/boost_1_75_0" >> ~/.bash_profile

  8. If you updated your .bash_profile file in the previous step, be sure to source it in a new Terminal window. For example:

    # zsh
source ~/.zshrc
# bash
source ~/.bash_profile

  9. Clone the rippled source code into your desired location and access the rippled directory. To do this, you'll need to set up Git (installed earlier using Homebrew) and GitHub. For example, you'll need to create a GitHub account and set up your SSH key. For more information, see Set up git .

    git clone https://github.com/XRPLF/rippled.git
cd rippled

  10. Switch to the appropriate branch for the software version you want:

    For the latest stable release, use the master branch.

    git checkout master

    For the latest release candidate, use the release branch:

    git checkout release

    For the latest in-progress version, use the develop branch:

    git checkout develop

    Or, you can checkout one of the tagged releases listed on GitHub .

  11. Check the commit log to be sure you're compiling the right code. The most recent commit should be signed by a well-known community developer and should set the version number to the latest released version. The release announcements for rippled generally show the exact commit to expect for that release.

    git log -1

  12. In the rippled directory you cloned, create your build directory and access it. For example:

    mkdir my_build
cd my_build

  13. Build rippled. This could take about 5 minutes, depending on your hardware specs.

    cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..

    You can set CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to the Debug or Release build type. All four standard CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE values are supported.

  14. Run the build using CMake. This could take about 10 minutes, depending on your hardware specs.

    cmake --build . -- -j 4

    Tip: This example uses a -j parameter set to 4, which uses four processes to build in parallel. The best number of processes to use depends on how many CPU cores your hardware has available. Use sysctl -n hw.ncpu to get your CPU core count.

  15. Run unit tests built into the server executable. This could take about 5 minutes, depending on your hardware specs. (optional, but recommended)

    ./rippled --unittest

  16. rippled requires the rippled.cfg config file to run. You can find an example config file, rippled-example.cfg in rippled/cfg. Make a copy and save it as rippled.cfg in a location that enables you to run rippled as a non-root user. Access the rippled directory and run:

    mkdir -p $HOME/.config/ripple
cp cfg/rippled-example.cfg $HOME/.config/ripple/rippled.cfg

  17. Edit rippled.cfg to set necessary file paths. The user you plan to run rippled as must have write permissions to all of the paths you specify here.

    • Set the [node_db] path to the location where you want to store the ledger database.

    • Set the [database_path] to the location where you want to store other database data. (This includes an SQLite database with configuration data, and is typically one level above the [node_db] path field.)

    • Set the [debug_logfile] to a path where rippled can write logging information.

    These are the only configurations required for rippled to start up successfully. All other configuration is optional and can be tweaked after you have a working server. For more information, see Additional Configurations.

  18. rippled requires the validators.txt file to run. You can find an example validators file, validators-example.txt, in rippled/cfg/. Make a copy and save it as validators.txt in the same folder as your rippled.cfg file. Access the rippled directory and run:

    cp cfg/validators-example.txt $HOME/.config/ripple/validators.txt

    Warning: The validators.txt file contains settings that determine how your server declares a ledger to be validated. If you are not careful, changes to this file could cause your server to diverge from the rest of the network and report out of date, incomplete, or inaccurate data. Acting on such data can cause you to lose money.

  19. Access your build directory, my_build for example, and start the rippled service.

    ./rippled

    Here's an excerpt of what you can expect to see in your terminal:

2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.593738 JobQueue:NFO Auto-tuning to 6 validation/transaction/proposal threads.
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.599634 Amendments:DBG Amendment 4C97EBA926031A7CF7D7B36FDE3ED66DDA5421192D63DE53FFB46E43B9DC8373 is supported.
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.599874 Amendments:DBG Amendment 6781F8368C4771B83E8B821D88F580202BCB4228075297B19E4FDC5233F1EFDC is supported.
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.599965 Amendments:DBG Amendment 42426C4D4F1009EE67080A9B7965B44656D7714D104A72F9B4369F97ABF044EE is supported.
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.600024 Amendments:DBG Amendment 08DE7D96082187F6E6578530258C77FAABABE4C20474BDB82F04B021F1A68647 is supported.
...
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.603201 OrderBookDB:DBG Advancing from 0 to 3
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.603291 OrderBookDB:DBG OrderBookDB::update>
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.603480 OrderBookDB:DBG OrderBookDB::update< 0 books found
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.649617 ValidatorList:DBG Loading configured trusted validator list publisher keys
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.649709 ValidatorList:DBG Loaded 0 keys
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.649798 ValidatorList:DBG Loading configured validator keys
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.650213 ValidatorList:DBG Loaded 5 entries
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.650266 ValidatorSite:DBG Loading configured validator list sites
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.650319 ValidatorSite:DBG Loaded 0 sites
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.650829 NodeObject:DBG NodeStore.main target size set to 131072
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.650876 NodeObject:DBG NodeStore.main target age set to 120000000000
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.650931 TaggedCache:DBG LedgerCache target size set to 256
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.650981 TaggedCache:DBG LedgerCache target age set to 180000000000
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.654252 TaggedCache:DBG TreeNodeCache target size set to 512000
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.654336 TaggedCache:DBG TreeNodeCache target age set to 90000000000
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.674131 NetworkOPs:NFO Consensus time for #3 with LCL AF8D8984A226AE7099D8A9749B09CE1D84360D5AF9FB86CE2F37500FE1009F9D
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.674271 ValidatorList:DBG 5  of 5 listed validators eligible for inclusion in the trusted set
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.674334 ValidatorList:DBG Using quorum of 4 for new set of 5 trusted validators (5 added, 0 removed)
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.674400 LedgerConsensus:NFO Entering consensus process, watching, synced=no
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.674475 LedgerConsensus:NFO Consensus mode change before=observing, after=observing
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.674539 NetworkOPs:DBG Initiating consensus engine
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.751225 Server:NFO Opened 'port_rpc_admin_local' (ip=127.0.0.1:5005, admin IPs:127.0.0.1, http)
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.751515 Server:NFO Opened 'port_peer' (ip=0.0.0.0:51235, peer)
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.751689 Server:NFO Opened 'port_ws_admin_local' (ip=127.0.0.1:6006, admin IPs:127.0.0.1, ws)
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.751915 Application:FTL Startup RPC:
{
    "command" : "log_level",
    "severity" : "warning"
}
2018-Oct-26 18:21:39.752079 Application:FTL Result: {}
2018-Oct-26 18:22:33.013409 NetworkOPs:WRN We are not running on the consensus ledger
2018-Oct-26 18:22:33.013875 LedgerConsensus:WRN Need consensus ledger 81804C95ADE119CC874572BAF24DB0C0D240AC58168597951B0CB64C4DA2C628
2018-Oct-26 18:22:33.883648 LedgerConsensus:WRN View of consensus changed during open status=open,  mode=wrongLedger
2018-Oct-26 18:22:33.883815 LedgerConsensus:WRN 81804C95ADE119CC874572BAF24DB0C0D240AC58168597951B0CB64C4DA2C628 to 9250C6C8326A48C339E6F99167F4E6BFD0DB00C35518027724D7B376340D21A1
2018-Oct-26 18:22:33.884068 LedgerConsensus:WRN {"accepted":true,"account_hash":"BBA0E7273005D42E5548DD6456E5AD1F7C89B6EDCB01881E1EECD393E8545947","close_flags":0,"close_time":593893350,"close_time_human":"2018-Oct-26 18:22:30.000000","close_time_resolution":30,"closed":true,"hash":"9250C6C8326A48C339E6F99167F4E6BFD0DB00C35518027724D7B376340D21A1","ledger_hash":"9250C6C8326A48C339E6F99167F4E6BFD0DB00C35518027724D7B376340D21A1","ledger_index":"3","parent_close_time":593893290,"parent_hash":"AF8D8984A226AE7099D8A9749B09CE1D84360D5AF9FB86CE2F37500FE1009F9D","seqNum":"3","totalCoins":"100000000000000000","total_coins":"100000000000000000","transaction_hash":"0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"}
2018-Oct-26 18:23:03.034119 InboundLedger:WRN Want: D901E53926E68EFDA33172DDAC74E8C767D280B68EE68E3010AB0E3179D07B1C
2018-Oct-26 18:23:03.034334 InboundLedger:WRN Want: 1C01EE79083DE5CE76F3634519D6364C589C4D48631CB9CD10FC2408F87684E2
2018-Oct-26 18:23:03.034560 InboundLedger:WRN Want: 8CFE3912001BDC5B2C4B2691F3C7811B9F3F193E835D293459D80FBF1C4E684E
2018-Oct-26 18:23:03.034750 InboundLedger:WRN Want: 8DFAD21AD3090DE5D6F7592B3821C3DA77A72287705B4CF98DC0F84D5DD2BDF8

For information about rippled log messages, see Understanding Log Messages.

Next Steps

It can take several minutes to sync with the rest of the XRP Ledger network, during which time the server outputs various warnings. For information about log messages, see Understanding Log Messages.

You can use the rippled commandline interface to see if your server is synced with the network:

./rippled server_info

If the server_state in the response is full or proposing, then your server is fully synced to the network. Otherwise, you may need to wait longer. Fresh servers usually sync within 15 minutes; servers that already have ledger history stored can take longer.

After your server has synchronized with the rest of the network, you have a fully functional XRP Ledger peer-to-peer server that you can use to submit transactions or get API access to the XRP Ledger. See Client Libraries or HTTP / WebSocket APIs for different ways to communicate with the server.

If you use the XRP Ledger for your business or you want to contribute to the stability of the network, you should run one server as a validator. For information about validating servers and why you might want to run one, see Run rippled as a Validator.

Having trouble getting your server started? See rippled Server Won't Start.

Additional Configuration

rippled should connect to the XRP Ledger with the default configuration. However, you can change your settings by editing the rippled.cfg file. For recommendations about configuration settings, see Capacity Planning.

The recommended installation uses the config file /etc/opt/ripple/rippled.cfg by default. Other places you can put a config file include $HOME/.config/ripple/rippled.cfg (where $HOME is the home directory of the user running rippled), $HOME/.local/ripple/rippled.cfg, or the current working directory from where you start rippled.

See the rippled GitHub repository for a description of all configuration options.

You must restart rippled for any configuration changes to take effect:

  • Use Ctrl-C to stop rippled, then start it again:
    ./rippled

If you change the [debug_logfile] or [database_path] sections, you may need to grant ownership of the new configured path to the user you run rippled as.

Updates

You must update rippled regularly to remain synced with the rest of the XRP Ledger network. You can subscribe to the rippled Google Group to receive notifications of new rippled releases.

The rippled package includes a script you can use to enable automatic updates on Linux. On other platforms, you must update manually.

See Also