Rust setup

This guide is for reference only, please check the latest information on getting starting with Substrate here.

This page will guide you through the 2 steps needed to prepare a computer for Substrate development. Since Substrate is built with the Rust programming language, the first thing you will need to do is prepare the computer for Rust development - these steps will vary based on the computer's operating system. Once Rust is configured, you will use its toolchains to interact with Rust projects; the commands for Rust's toolchains will be the same for all supported, Unix-based operating systems.

Build dependencies

Substrate development is easiest on Unix-based operating systems like macOS or Linux. The examples in the Substrate Docs use Unix-style terminals to demonstrate how to interact with Substrate from the command line.

Ubuntu/Debian

Use a terminal shell to execute the following commands:

sudo apt update
# May prompt for location information
sudo apt install -y git clang curl libssl-dev llvm libudev-dev make pkg-config protobuf-compiler

Arch Linux

Run these commands from a terminal:

pacman -Syu --needed --noconfirm curl git clang

Fedora

Run these commands from a terminal:

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install clang curl git openssl-devel

OpenSUSE

Run these commands from a terminal:

sudo zypper install clang curl git openssl-devel llvm-devel libudev-devel

macOS

Apple M1 ARM If you have an Apple M1 ARM system on a chip, make sure that you have Apple Rosetta 2 installed through softwareupdate --install-rosetta. This is only needed to run the protoc tool during the build. The build itself and the target binaries would remain native.

Open the Terminal application and execute the following commands:

# Install Homebrew if necessary https://brew.sh/
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

# Make sure Homebrew is up-to-date, install protobuf and openssl
brew update
brew install protobuf openssl llvm@16

Also, add the following lines at the end of your ~/.zshrc:

# LLVM 16 from Homebrew
export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm@16/bin:$PATH"

export CC="/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm@16/bin/clang"
export CXX="/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm@16/bin/clang++"
export LIBCLANG_PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm@16/lib/libclang.dylib"

export LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm@16/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm@16/include"

Windows

PLEASE NOTE: Native Windows development of Substrate is not very well supported! It is highly recommend to use Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL) and follow the following instructions.

Rust developer environment

This guide uses the rustup.rs installer and the rustup tool to manage the Rust toolchain. First install and configure rustup:

# Install
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
# Configure
source ~/.cargo/env

This repository pins its Rust version and the wasm32v1-none target in rust-toolchain.toml, so rustup installs the correct toolchain automatically the first time you run cargo inside the repo. Alternatively, run the setup script:

./scripts/init.sh

Test your set-up

Now the best way to ensure that you have successfully prepared a computer for Substrate development is to follow the steps in our first Substrate tutorial.

Troubleshooting builds

To see what Rust toolchain you are presently using, run:

rustup show

Inside the repository the active toolchain should be the version pinned in rust-toolchain.toml (with the wasm32v1-none target installed), regardless of your global default — rustup reads the pin automatically. If the pinned toolchain or its target is missing, install it explicitly:

rustup toolchain install $(grep -oE '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+' rust-toolchain.toml | head -1)
rustup target add wasm32v1-none

Substrate uses WebAssembly (Wasm) to produce portable blockchain runtimes, which is why the wasm32v1-none target is required. Unlike upstream Substrate development, this repository does not use nightly Rust for the runtime build — the pinned toolchain builds everything.