Build from Source

Prerequisites

macOS/Linux

On macOS and Linux, a reproducible build environment is provided in the form of a Nix dev shell. You can install Nix using the Lix installer, then activate the build environment using nix develop.

Windows

node-webrtc uses cmake-js to build from source. When building from source, in addition to the prerequisites required by cmake-js, you will need

Git
Ninja
CMake 3.15 or newer
Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 or newer, with the Clang toolchain installed
Check the additional prerequisites listed by WebRTC - although their install is automated by the CMake scripts provided

Building

Once you have the prerequisites, just clone the repository, run npm install to install the Javascript dependencies, and npm run build to build node-webrtc for your host platform.

git clone https://github.com/node-webrtc/node-webrtc.git
cd node-webrtc
npm install
nix develop # macOS/Linux only
npm run build

Subsequent Builds

Subsequent builds can be triggered with cmake, e.g. on MacOS:

cmake --build build-darwin-arm64

You can pass either --debug or --release to build a debug or release build of node-webrtc (and the underlying WebRTC library). Refer to the CMake documentation for additional command line options.

Cross-Compiling

The supported cross-compilation directions are:

MacOS arm64 ➡️ MacOS x64
MacOS x64 ➡️ ️MacOS arm64
Linux x64 ➡️ Linux arm64

To run e.g. that that cross-compilation:

Set TARGET_ARCH to "arm64"
Re-run npm run build

Debug Builds

Set DEBUG=1
Re-run npm run build

This is only fully-supported on macOS/Linux; Windows support is a bit dicey thanks to CMake.

To run a release build after doing a debug build, unset DEBUG.

Other Notes

Linux

On Linux, we compile libwebrtc's sources with libwebrtc's Clang toolchain and libwebrtc's sysroot. We statically link against its libc++ and libc++abi. This is a little dangerous (due to ABI concerns) but we match Clang major versions so it's probably OK?

macOS

On macOS, we compile libwebrtc's sources with our own clang toolchain and our own sysroot. We statically link against its libc++ and libc++abi.

Windows

We use the Clang toolchain and the Ninja generator on Windows in order to have similar support for the clangd language server and compile_commands.json; Visual Studio proper has not been tested.

To fix the error Filename too long, when downloading libwebrtc, use (optionally with --global or --system switches to set for more than just this project):

git config core.longpaths true

Creating symbolic links with MKLINK is used by the build script but is disabled for non-Administrative users by default with a local security policy. On Windows 10, fix this with Run (Windows-R) then gpedit.msc. Edit key "Local Computer Policy -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment -> Create Symbolic Links" and add your user name. Log out and in to change the policy. Note the associated security vunerability.

The Windows SDK debugging tools should be installed. One way to achieve this is to Download the Windows Driver Kit.

Test

Unit & Integration Tests

Once everything is built, run

npm test

Warning

If testing a release build, make sure to remove the debug build in build-{os}-{arch}/Debug/wrtc.node first! This takes precedence in module resolution.

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