Getting ready to install the Cardano Node (v8.1.1)

Now the most complicated part (not so complicated if you follow this guide :) ) - is the installation process!

to successfully install (compile) the Carano node, we need to be sure that we have all the necessary ingredients! To get them (install) type the following commands:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

sudo apt-get install automake build-essential pkg-config libffi-dev libgmp-dev libssl-dev libtinfo-dev libsystemd-dev zlib1g-dev make g++ tmux git jq wget libncursesw5 libtool autoconf curl python3 htop  nload -y
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"

This will install all the necessary software packages for our next steps.

As the Cardano node is using cabal, so let's install it as well. We will use the recommended version 3.6.2.0 and install it to our local bin folder (.local/bin)

to install cabal, we will be using ghcup (ghcup is an installer for the general-purpose language Haskell), for more info you can check: https://www.haskell.org/ghcup/

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://get-ghcup.haskell.org | sh

This Haskell installation script will ask for input:

Haskell Installation script

Press ENTER to continue

• When asked "Do you want ghcup to automatically add the required PATH variable to "/home/cardano/.bashrc?" press "A"

• When asked "Do you want to install haskell-language-server (HLS)?" Answer "No" (by pressing "N")

• When asked "Do you want to install stack?" Answer "No" (by pressing "N")

Press ENTER to proceed with the installation

When the installation is finished, you should see the following screen:

let's reload environment variables:

source /home/cardano/.ghcup/env

Let's install the 3.8.1.0 version and set this one as the default:

ghcup install cabal 3.8.1.0
ghcup set cabal 3.8.1.0
cabal update

Let's check which version we have installed

 cabal --version 
 

you should see version 3.8.1.0

You should now have the cabal installed in /home/cardano/.ghcup/bin folder.

GHC 8.10.7 installation

Let's move to the next step - installing GHC - the Haskell code compiler (Cardano node is based on the Haskell programming language).

As we already installed the handy ghcup tool, then this is done super easily:

ghcup install ghc 8.10.7

GHC installation

After a short while, you should have GHC installed! Let's set it as the default version:

ghcup set ghc 8.10.7

And check if everything has gone as planned:

ghc --version

You should see:

Install Libsodium

One more thing we need is the Libsodium libraries so let's do this! let's create a git folder where we will be compiling libsodium library from the source code:

mkdir -p ~/git && cd ~/git

Download and install libsodium library ( we need a specific branch of the library, so follow the guide)

Starting from Cardano Node v8.0.0 needs a newer version of libsodium

git clone https://github.com/input-output-hk/libsodium
cd libsodium
git checkout dbb48cc
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

Let's add the following PATHs to our .bashrc file and load them.

echo "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

additionally, we need the libsodium-dev package installed on our system

sudo apt install libsodium-dev

Installing Secp256k1

mkdir -p ~/git && cd ~/git
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1
cd secp256k1
git checkout ac83be33
./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-module-schnorrsig --enable-experimental
make
sudo make install

Let's move to the next step - the actual installation of Cardano Node!