downloading and building

To download the latest version of libtorrent, clone the github repository.

The build systems supported "out of the box" in libtorrent are boost-build cmake. If you still can't build after following these instructions, you can usually get help in the #libtorrent IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.

building from git

To build libtorrent from git you need to clone the libtorrent repository from github. Note that the git repository depends on other git repositories via submodules, which also need to be initialized and updated. If you downloaded a release tarball, you can skip this section.

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/arvidn/libtorrent.git

building with boost build

The primary reason to use boost-build is that it will automatically build the dependent boost libraries with the correct compiler settings, in order to ensure that the build targets are link compatible (see boost guidelines for some details on this issue).

Since BBv2 will build the boost libraries for you, you need the full boost source package. Having boost installed via some package system is usually not enough (and even if it is enough, the necessary environment variables are usually not set by the package installer).

If you want to build against an installed copy of boost, you can skip directly to step 3 (assuming you also have boost build installed).

build commands

Linux:

sudo apt install libboost-tools-dev libboost-dev libboost-system-dev
echo "using gcc ;" >>~/user-config.jam
b2 crypto=openssl cxxstd=14 release

Mac OS:

brew install boost-build boost openssl@1.1
echo "using darwin ;" >>~/user-config.jam
b2 crypto=openssl cxxstd=14 release

Windows (assuming the boost package is saved to C:\boost_1_69_0):

set BOOST_ROOT=c:\boost_1_69_0
set BOOST_BUILD_PATH=%BOOST_ROOT%\tools\build
(cd %BOOST_ROOT% && .\bootstrap.bat)
echo using msvc ; >>%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\user-config.jam
%BOOST_ROOT%\b2.exe --hash cxxstd=14 release

docker file

A Docker file is available that's used to build and run the fuzzers, at OSS-Fuzz.

Step 1: Download boost

If you want to build against boost installed on your system, you can skip this strep. Just make sure to have BOOST_ROOT unset for the b2 invocation.

You'll find boost here.

Extract the archive to some directory where you want it. For the sake of this guide, let's assume you extract the package to c:\boost_1_69_0. You'll need at least version 1.67 of the boost library in order to build libtorrent.

Step 2: Setup BBv2

If you have installed boost-build via a package manager, you can skip this step. If not, you need to build boost build from the boost source package.

First you need to build b2. You do this by opening a terminal (In windows, run cmd). Change directory to c:\boost_1_69_0\tools\build. Then run the script called bootstrap.bat or bootstrap.sh on a Unix system. This will build b2 and place it in a directory src/engine/bin.<architecture>. Copy the b2.exe (or b2 on a Unix system) to a place that's in you shell's PATH. On Linux systems a place commonly used may be /usr/local/bin or on Windows c:\windows (you can also add directories to the search paths by modifying the environment variable called PATH).

Now you have b2 installed. b2 can be considered an interpreter that the boost-build system is implemented on. So boost-build uses b2. So, to complete the installation you need to make two more things. You need to set the environment variable BOOST_BUILD_PATH. This is the path that tells b2 where it can find boost-build, your configuration file and all the toolsets (descriptions used by boost-build to know how to use different compilers on different platforms). Assuming the boost install path above, set it to c:\boost_1_69_0\tools\build.

To set an environment variable in windows, type for example:

set BOOST_BUILD_PATH=c:\boost_1_69_0\tools\build\v2

In a terminal window.

The last thing to do is to configure which compiler(s) to use. Create a file user-config.jam in your home directory. Depending on your platform and which compiler you're using, you should add a line for each compiler and compiler version you have installed on your system that you want to be able to use with BBv2. For example, if you're using Microsoft Visual Studio 14.2 (2019), just add a line:

using msvc : 14.2 ;

If you use GCC, add the line:

using gcc ;

If you have more than one version of GCC installed, you can add the command line used to invoke g++ after the version number, like this:

using gcc : 6.0 : g++-6 ;
using gcc : 7.0 : g++-7 ;

Another toolset worth mentioning is the darwin toolset (for macOS). From Tiger (10.4) macOS comes with both GCC 3.3 and GCC 4.0. Then you can use the following toolsets:

using darwin : 3.3 : g++-3.3 ;
using darwin : 4.0 : g++-4.0 ;

Note that the spaces around the semi-colons and colons are important!

Also see the boost-build documentation.

Step 3: Building libtorrent

When building libtorrent, boost is either picked up from system installed locations or from a boost source package, if the BOOST_ROOT environment variable is set pointing to one. If you're building boost from source, set BOOST_ROOT to your boost directory, e.g. c:\boost_1_69_0.

Then the only thing left is simply to invoke b2. If you want to specify a specific toolset to use (compiler) you can just add that to the command line. For example:

b2 msvc-14.2
b2 gcc-7.0
b2 darwin-4.0

To build different versions you can also just add the name of the build variant. Some default build variants in BBv2 are release, debug, profile.

You can build libtorrent as a DLL too, by typing link=shared, or link=static to build a static library.

If you want to explicitly say how to link against the runtime library, you can set the runtime-link feature on the command line, either to shared or static. Most operating systems will only allow linking shared against the runtime, but on windows you can do both. Example:

b2 msvc-14.2 variant=release link=static runtime-link=static debug-symbols=on

The build targets are put in a directory called bin, and under it they are sorted in directories depending on the toolset and build variant used.

To build the examples, just change directory to the examples directory and invoke b2 from there. To build and run the tests, go to the test directory and run b2.

Note that if you're building on windows using the msvc toolset, you cannot run it from a cygwin terminal, you'll have to run it from a cmd terminal. The same goes for cygwin, if you're building with gcc in cygwin you'll have to run it from a cygwin terminal. Also, make sure the paths are correct in the different environments. In cygwin, the paths (BOOST_BUILD_PATH and BOOST_ROOT) should be in the typical Unix-format (e.g. /cygdrive/c/boost_1_69_0). In the windows environment, they should have the typical windows format (c:/boost_1_69_0).

The Jamfile will define NDEBUG when it's building a release build. For more build configuration flags see Build configurations.

Jamfile will look in some default directory for the openssl headers and libraries. On macOS, it will look for the homebrew openssl package. On Windows, it will look in C:\OpenSSL-Win32, or C:\OpenSSL-Win64 if compiling in 64-bit.

To customize the library path and include path for openssl, set the features openssl-lib and openssl-include respectively.

The option to link with wolfSSL (by setting the crypto feature to wolfssl), requires a custom build of wolfSSL using the following options: --enable-asio --enable-sni --enable-nginx.

To customize the library path and include path for wolfSSL, set the features wolfssl-lib and wolfssl-include respectively.

To disable linking against any SSL library, set the crypto build feature to built-in. This will use an embedded version if SHA-1.

Build features

boost build feature	values
cxxstd	The version of C++ to use, e.g. 11, 14, 17, 20. The C++ version may affect the libtorrent ABI (the ambition is to avoid that).
boost-link	static - links statically against the boost libraries. shared - links dynamically against the boost libraries.
openssl-lib	can be used to specify the directory where libssl and libcrypto are installed (or the windows counterparts).
openssl-include	can be used to specify the include directory where the openssl headers are installed.
logging	off - logging alerts disabled. The reason to disable logging is to keep the binary size low where that matters. on - default. logging alerts available, still need to be enabled by the alert mask.
lto	on - enables link time optimization, also known as whole program optimization.
alert-msg	on - (default) return human readable messages from the alert::message() call. off - Always return empty strings from alert::message(), and save binary size.
dht	on - build with DHT support off - build without DHT support.
asserts	auto - asserts are on if in debug mode on - asserts are on, even in release mode off - asserts are disabled production - assertion failures are logged to asserts.log in the current working directory, but won't abort the process. The file they are logged to can be customized by setting the global pointer extern char const* libtorrent_assert_log to a different filename. system use the libc assert macro
encryption	on - encrypted bittorrent connections enabled. (Message Stream encryption).(default) off - turns off support for encrypted connections. The shipped public domain SHA-1 implementation is used.
mutable-torrents	on - mutable torrents are supported (BEP 38) (default). off - mutable torrents are not supported.
crypto	openssl - (default) links against openssl and libcrypto to use for SHA-1 hashing. This also enables HTTPS-tracker support and support for bittorrent over SSL. built-in - (default) uses built-in SHA-1 implementation. In macOS/iOS it uses CommonCrypto SHA-1 implementation. wolfssl - links against wolfssl to use it for SHA-1 hashing and HTTPS tracker support. libcrypto - links against libcrypto to use the SHA-1 implementation. (no SSL support) gcrypt - links against libgcrypt to use the SHA-1 implementation. (no SSL support)
openssl-version	This can be used on windows to link against the special OpenSSL library names used on windows prior to OpenSSL 1.1. 1.1 - link against the normal openssl library name. (default) pre1.1 - link against the old windows names (i.e. ssleay32 and libeay32.
link	static - builds libtorrent as a static library (.a / .lib) shared - builds libtorrent as a shared library (.so / .dll).
runtime-link	static - links statically against the run-time library (if available on your platform). shared - link dynamically against the run-time library (default).
variant	debug - builds libtorrent with debug information and invariant checks. release - builds libtorrent in release mode without invariant checks and with optimization. profile - builds libtorrent with profile information.
invariant-checks	This setting only affects debug builds (where NDEBUG is not defined). It defaults to on. on - internal invariant checks are enabled. off - internal invariant checks are disabled. The resulting executable will run faster than a regular debug build. full - turns on extra expensive invariant checks.
debug-symbols	on - default for debug builds. This setting is useful for building release builds with symbols. off - default for release builds.
deprecated-functions	on - default. Includes deprecated functions of the API (might produce warnings during build when deprecated functions are used). off - excludes deprecated functions from the API. Generates build errors when deprecated functions are used.
i2p	on - default. build with I2P support off - build without I2P support
profile-calls	off - default. No additional call profiling. on - Enable logging of stack traces of calls into libtorrent that are blocking. On session shutdown, a file blocking_calls.txt is written with stack traces of blocking calls ordered by the number of them.
utp-log	off - default. Do not print verbose uTP log. on - Print verbose uTP log, used to debug the uTP implementation.
picker-debugging	off - default. no extra invariant checks in piece picker. on - include additional invariant checks in piece picker. Used for testing the piece picker.
extensions	on - enable extensions to the bittorrent protocol.(default) off - disable bittorrent extensions.
streaming	on - enable streaming functionality. i.e. set_piece_deadline(). (default) off - disable streaming functionality.
super-seeding	on - enable super seeding feature. (default) off - disable super seeding feature
share-mode	on - enable share-mode feature. (default) off - disable share-mode feature
predictive-pieces	on - enable predictive piece announce feature. i.e. settings_pack::predictive_piece_announce (default) off - disable feature.
fpic	off - default. Build without specifying -fPIC. on - Force build with -fPIC (useful for building a static library to be linked into a shared library).
mmap-disk-io	on - default. Enable mmap disk storage (if available. off - disable mmap storage, and fall back to single-threaded, portable file operations.

The variant feature is implicit, which means you don't need to specify the name of the feature, just the value.

When building the example client on windows, you need to build with link=static otherwise you may get unresolved external symbols for some boost.program-options symbols.

For more information, see the Boost build v2 documentation, or more specifically the section on built-in features.

Step 4: Installing libtorrent

To install libtorrent run b2 with the install target:

b2 install --prefix=/usr/local

Change the value of the --prefix argument to install it in a different location.

Custom build flags

Custom build flags can be passed to the command line via the cflags, cxxflags and linkflags features. When specifying custom flags, make sure to build everything from scratch, to not accidentally mix incompatible flags. Example:

b2 cxxflags=-msse4.1

Custom flags can also be configured in the toolset, in ~/user-config.jam, Jamroot.jam or project-config.jam. Example:

using gcc : sse41 : g++ : <cxxflags>-msse4.1 ;

Cross compiling

To cross compile libtorrent, configure a new toolset for b2 to use. Toolsets can be configured in ~/user-config.jam, Jamroot.jam or project-config.jam. The last two live in the libtorrent root directory.

A toolset configuration is in this form:

using toolset : version : command-line : features ;

Toolset is essentially the family of compiler you're setting up, choose from this list.

Perhaps the most common ones would be gcc, clang, msvc and darwin (Apple's version of clang).

The version can be left empty to be auto configured, or a custom name can be used to identify this toolset.

The command-line is what to execute to run the compiler. This is also an opportunity to insert a call to ccache for example.

features are boost-build features. Typical features to set here are <compileflags>, <cflags> and <cxxflags>. For the gcc toolset, the <archiver> can be set to specify which tool to use to create a static library/archive. This is especially handy when cross compiling.

Here's an example toolset for cross compiling for ARM Linux:

using gcc : arm : arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++ : <archiver>arm-linux-gnueabihf-ar ;

To build using this toolset, specify gcc-arm as the toolset on the b2 command line. For example:

b2 toolset=gcc-arm

building with cmake

First of all, you need to install cmake. Additionally you need a build system to actually schedule builds, for example ninja.

Step 1: Generating the build system

Create a build directory for out-of-source build inside the libtorrent root directory:

mkdir build

and cd there:

cd build

Run cmake in the build directory, like this:

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=14 -G Ninja ..

The CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD has to be at least 14, but you may want to raise it to 17 if your project use a newer version of the C++ standard.

Other build options are:

BUILD_SHARED_LIBS	Defaults ON. Builds libtorrent as a shared library.
static_runtime	Defaults OFF. Link libtorrent statically against the runtime libraries.
build_tests	Defaults OFF. Also build the libtorrent tests.
build_examples	Defaults OFF. Also build the examples in the examples directory.
build_tools	Defaults OFF. Also build the tools in the tools directory.
python-bindings	Defaults OFF. Also build the python bindings in bindings/python directory.
encryption	Defaults ON. Support trackers and bittorrent over TLS, and obfuscated bittorrent connections.

Options are set on the cmake command line with the -D option or later on using ccmake or cmake-gui applications. cmake run outputs a summary of all available options and their current values.

Step 2: Building libtorrent

In the terminal, run:

ninja

If you enabled test in the configuration step, to run them, run:

ctest

building with VCPKG

You can download and install libtorrent using the vcpkg dependency manager:

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
./vcpkg integrate install
./vcpkg install libtorrent

The libtorrent port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. If the version is out of date, please create an issue or pull request on the vcpkg repository.

build configurations

By default libtorrent is built In debug mode, and will have pretty expensive invariant checks and asserts built into it. If you want to disable such checks (you want to do that in a release build) you can see the table below for which defines you can use to control the build. Make sure to define the same macros in your own code that compiles and links with libtorrent.

macro	description
NDEBUG	If you define this macro, all asserts, invariant checks and general debug code will be removed. Since there is quite a lot of code in in header files in libtorrent, it may be important to define the symbol consistently across compilation units, including the clients files. Potential problems is different compilation units having different views of structs and class layouts and sizes.
TORRENT_DISABLE_LOGGING	This macro will disable support for logging alerts, like log_alert, torrent_log_alert and peer_log_alert. With this build flag, you cannot enable those alerts.
TORRENT_DISABLE_ALERT_MSG	Human readable messages returned from the alert message() member functions will return empty strings.
TORRENT_DISABLE_SUPERSEEDING	This macro will disable support for super seeding. The settings will exist, but will not have an effect, when this macro is defined.
TORRENT_DISABLE_SHARE_MODE	This macro will disable support for share-mode. i.e. the mode to maximize upload/download ratio for a torrent.
TORRENT_DISABLE_MUTABLE_TORRENTS	Disables mutable torrent support (BEP 38)
TORRENT_DISABLE_STREAMING	Disables set_piece_deadline() and associated functionality.
TORRENT_DISABLE_PREDICTIVE_PIECES	Disables settings_pack::predictive_piece_announce feature.
TORRENT_LINKING_SHARED	If this is defined when including the libtorrent headers, the classes and functions will be tagged with __declspec(dllimport) on msvc and default visibility on GCC 4 and later. Set this in your project if you're linking against libtorrent as a shared library. (This is set by the Jamfile when link=shared is set).
TORRENT_BUILDING_SHARED	If this is defined, the functions and classes in libtorrent are marked with __declspec(dllexport) on msvc, or with default visibility on GCC 4 and later. This should be defined when building libtorrent as a shared library. (This is set by the Jamfile when link=shared is set).
TORRENT_DISABLE_DHT	If this is defined, the support for trackerless torrents will be disabled.
TORRENT_DISABLE_ENCRYPTION	This will disable any encryption support and the dependencies of a crypto library. Encryption support is the peer connection encrypted supported by clients such as uTorrent, Azureus and KTorrent. If this is not defined, either TORRENT_USE_LIBCRYPTO or TORRENT_USE_LIBGCRYPT must be defined.
TORRENT_DISABLE_EXTENSIONS	When defined, libtorrent plugin support is disabled along with support for the extension handshake (BEP 10).
TORRENT_USE_INVARIANT_CHECKS	If defined to non-zero, this will enable internal invariant checks in libtorrent. The invariant checks can sometimes be quite expensive, they typically don't scale very well.
TORRENT_EXPENSIVE_INVARIANT_CHECKS	This will enable extra expensive invariant checks. Useful for finding particular bugs or for running before releases.
TORRENT_NO_DEPRECATE	This will exclude all deprecated functions from the header files and source files.
TORRENT_PRODUCTION_ASSERTS	Define to either 0 or 1. Enables assert logging in release builds.
TORRENT_USE_ASSERTS	Define as 0 to disable asserts unconditionally.
TORRENT_USE_SYSTEM_ASSERTS	Uses the libc assert macro rather then the custom one.
TORRENT_HAVE_MMAP	Define as 0 to disable mmap support.
TORRENT_USE_OPENSSL	Link against libssl for SSL support. Must be combined with TORRENT_USE_LIBCRYPTO
TORRENT_USE_GNUTLS	Link against libgnutls for SSL support.
TORRENT_USE_LIBCRYPTO	Link against libcrypto for SHA-1 support and other hashing algorithms.
TORRENT_USE_LIBGCRYPT	Link against libgcrypt for SHA-1 support and other hashing algorithms.
TORRENT_SSL_PEERS	Define to enable support for SSL torrents, peers are connected over authenticated SSL streams.

If you experience that libtorrent uses unreasonable amounts of CPU, it will definitely help to define NDEBUG, since it will remove the invariant checks within the library.

building openssl for windows

To build openssl for windows with Visual Studio 7.1 (2003) execute the following commands in a command shell:

perl Configure VC-WIN32 --prefix="c:/openssl
call ms\do_nasm
call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\vc7\bin\vcvars32.bat"
nmake -f ms\nt.mak
copy inc32\openssl "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\vc7\include\"
copy out32\libeay32.lib "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\vc7\lib"
copy out32\ssleay32.lib "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\vc7\lib"

This will also install the headers and library files in the visual studio directories to be picked up by libtorrent.

list of macros

The following is a list of defines that libtorrent is built with: BOOST_ALL_NO_LIB, BOOST_ASIO_ENABLE_CANCELIO, BOOST_ASIO_HAS_STD_CHRONO, BOOST_MULTI_INDEX_DISABLE_SERIALIZATION, BOOST_NO_DEPRECATED, BOOST_SYSTEM_NO_DEPRECATED

Make sure you define the same at compile time for your code to avoid any runtime errors and other issues.

These might change in the future, so it's always best to verify these every time you upgrade to a new version of libtorrent. The simplest way to see the full list of macros defined is to build libtorrent with -n -a switches added to b2 command line:

b2 -n -a toolset=msvc-14.2 link=static runtime-link=static boost-link=static variant=release

This will output all compiler switches, including defines (such as -DBOOST_ASIO_ENABLE_CANCELIO).