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Build Codex ​

Table of Contents ​

Optional

Prerequisites ​

To build nim-codex, developer tools need to be installed and accessible in the OS.

Instructions below correspond roughly to environmental setups in nim-codex's CI workflow and are known to work.

Other approaches may be viable. On macOS, some users may prefer MacPorts to Homebrew. On Windows, rather than use MSYS2, some users may prefer to install developer tools with winget, Scoop, or Chocolatey, or download installers for e.g. Make and CMake while otherwise relying on official Windows developer tools. Community contributions to these docs and our build system are welcome!

Rust ​

The current implementation of Codex's zero-knowledge proving circuit requires the installation of rust v1.76.0 or greater. Be sure to install it for your OS and add it to your terminal's path such that the command cargo --version gives a compatible version.

Linux ​

Package manager commands may require sudo depending on OS setup.

On a bare bones installation of Debian (or a distribution derived from Debian, such as Ubuntu), run

shell
apt-get update && apt-get install build-essential cmake curl git rustc cargo

Non-Debian distributions have different package managers: apk, dnf, pacman, rpm, yum, etc.

For example, on a bare bones installation of Fedora, run

shell
dnf install @development-tools cmake gcc-c++ rust cargo

In case your distribution does not provide required Rust version, we may install it using rustup

shell
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs/ | sh -s -- --default-toolchain=1.76.0 -y

. "$HOME/.cargo/env"

macOS ​

Install the Xcode Command Line Tools by opening a terminal and running

shell
xcode-select --install

Install Homebrew (brew) and in a new terminal run

shell
brew install bash cmake rust

Check that PATH is setup correctly

shell
which bash cmake

# /usr/local/bin/bash
# /usr/local/bin/cmake

Windows + MSYS2 ​

Instructions below assume the OS is 64-bit Windows and that the hardware or VM is x86-64 compatible.

Download and run the installer from msys2.org.

Launch an MSYS2 environment. UCRT64 is generally recommended: from the Windows Start menu select MSYS2 MinGW UCRT x64.

Assuming a UCRT64 environment, in Bash run

shell
pacman -Suy
pacman -S base-devel git unzip mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-cmake mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-rust

We should downgrade GCC to version 13 [1]

shell
pacman -U --noconfirm \
  https://repo.msys2.org/mingw/ucrt64/mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc-13.2.0-6-any.pkg.tar.zst \
  https://repo.msys2.org/mingw/ucrt64/mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc-libs-13.2.0-6-any.pkg.tar.zst

Optional: VSCode Terminal integration ​

You can link the MSYS2-UCRT64 terminal into VSCode by modifying the configuration file as shown below. File: C:/Users/<username>/AppData/Roaming/Code/User/settings.json

json
{
    ...
    "terminal.integrated.profiles.windows": {
      ...
      "MSYS2-UCRT64": {
        "path": "C:\\msys64\\usr\\bin\\bash.exe",
        "args": [
          "--login",
          "-i"
        ],
        "env": {
          "MSYSTEM": "UCRT64",
          "CHERE_INVOKING": "1",
          "MSYS2_PATH_TYPE": "inherit"
        }
      }
    }
}

Other ​

It is possible that nim-codex can be built and run on other platforms supported by the Nim language: BSD family, older versions of Windows, etc. There has not been sufficient experimentation with nim-codex on such platforms, so instructions are not provided. Community contributions to these docs and our build system are welcome!

Repository ​

In Bash run

shell
git clone https://github.com/codex-storage/nim-codex.git repos/nim-codex && cd repos/nim-codex

nim-codex uses the nimbus-build-system, so next run

shell
make update

This step can take a while to complete because by default it builds the Nim compiler.

To see more output from make pass V=1. This works for all make targets in projects using the nimbus-build-system

shell
make V=1 update

Executable ​

In Bash run

shell
make

The default make target creates the build/codex executable.

Tools ​

Circuit download tool ​

To build the circuit download tool located in tools/cirdl run:

shell
make cirdl

Example usage ​

See the instructions in the Quick Start.

Tests ​

In Bash run

shell
make test

testAll ​

Prerequisites ​

To run the integration tests, an Ethereum test node is required. Follow these instructions to set it up.

Windows (do this before 'All platforms') ​
  1. Download and install Visual Studio 2017 or newer. (Not VSCode!) In the Workloads overview, enable Desktop development with C++. ( https://visualstudio.microsoft.com )
All platforms ​
  1. Install NodeJS (tested with v18.14.0), consider using NVM as a version manager. Node Version Manager (nvm)
  2. Open a terminal
  3. Go to the vendor/codex-contracts-eth folder: cd /<git-root>/vendor/codex-contracts-eth/
  4. npm install -> Should complete with the number of packages added and an overview of known vulnerabilities.
  5. npm test -> Should output test results. May take a minute.

Before the integration tests are started, you must start the Ethereum test node manually.

  1. Open a terminal
  2. Go to the vendor/codex-contracts-eth folder: cd /<git-root>/vendor/codex-contracts-eth/
  3. npm start -> This should launch Hardhat, and output a number of keys and a warning message.

Run ​

The testAll target runs the same tests as make test and also runs tests for nim-codex's Ethereum contracts, as well a basic suite of integration tests.

To run make testAll.

Use a new terminal to run:

shell
make testAll

Known issues ​

  1. At the moment Codex can't be compiled with GCC 14 - [BUG] - Compile Codex with GCC 14 #875. ↩︎