Build Guide

Please follow this guide to build and test WasmEdge from the source code.

• Linux
• MacOS
• Windows
• Android
• OpenWrt
• RISC-V
• OpenHarmony
• seL4
• Raspberry Pi

note

If you just want the latest builds from the HEAD of the master branch, and do not want to build it yourself, you can download the release package directly from our Github Action's CI artifact. Here is an example.

What Will Be Built

WasmEdge provides various tools for enabling different runtime environments for optimal performance. You can find that there are several wasmedge related tools:

1. wasmedge is the general wasm runtime.

   • wasmedge executes a WASM file in the interpreter mode or a compiled WASM file in the ahead-of-time compilation mode.
   • To disable building all tools, you can set the CMake option WASMEDGE_BUILD_TOOLS to OFF.

2. wasmedgec is the ahead-of-time WASM compiler.

   • wasmedgec compiles a general WASM file into a compiled WASM file.
   • To disable building the ahead-of-time compiler only, you can set the CMake option WASMEDGE_BUILD_AOT_RUNTIME to OFF.
   note

   The usage of wasmedgec is equal to wasmedge compile. We decide to deprecate wasmedgec in the future.

3. libwasmedge.so is the WasmEdge C API shared library. (libwasmedge.dylib on MacOS and wasmedge.dll on Windows)

   • libwasmedge.so, libwasmedge.dylib, or wasmedge.dll provides the C API for the ahead-of-time compiler and the WASM runtime.
   • The APIs related to the ahead-of-time compiler will always fail if the CMake option WASMEDGE_BUILD_AOT_RUNTIME is set as OFF.
   • To disable building just the shared library, you can set the CMake option WASMEDGE_BUILD_SHARED_LIB to OFF.

4. ssvm-qitc is for AI applications and supports the ONNC runtime for AI models in the ONNX format.

   • If you want to try ssvm-qitc, please refer to ONNC-Wasm project to set up the working environment and tryout several examples.
   • And here is our tutorial for ONNC-WASM project(YouTube Video).

CMake Building Options

Developers can set the CMake options to customize the WasmEdge building.

1. WASMEDGE_BUILD_TESTS: build the WasmEdge tests. Default is OFF.
2. WASMEDGE_USE_LLVM: build with LLVM-based runtime for supporting Ahead-of-Time and Just-In-Time compiler. Default is ON.
3. WASMEDGE_BUILD_SHARED_LIB: build the WasmEdge shared library (libwasmedge.so, libwasmedge.dylib, or wasmedge.dll). Default is ON.
   • By default, the WasmEdge shared library will link to the LLVM shared library.
4. WASMEDGE_BUILD_STATIC_LIB: build the WasmEdge static library (libwasmedge.a, Linux and MacOS platforms, experimental). Default is OFF.
   • If this option is set as ON, the option WASMEDGE_FORCE_DISABLE_LTO will forcefully be set as ON.
   • If this option is set as ON, the libz and libtinfo on Linux platforms will be statically linked.
   • For linking with libwasmedge.a, developers should also add the -ldl, -pthread, -lm, and -lstdc++ linker options on both Linux and MacOS platforms, and -lrt on Linux platforms.
5. WASMEDGE_BUILD_TOOLS: build the wasmedge and wasmedgec tools. Default is ON.
   • The wasmedge and wasmedgec tools will link to the WasmEdge shared library by default.
   • If this option is set as ON and WASMEDGE_USE_LLVM is set as OFF, the wasmedgec tool for the AOT compiler will not be built.
   • If this option is set as ON but the option WASMEDGE_LINK_TOOLS_STATIC is set as OFF, the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_SHARED_LIB will forcefully be set as ON.
   • If this option and the option WASMEDGE_LINK_TOOLS_STATIC are both set as ON, the WASMEDGE_LINK_LLVM_STATIC and WASMEDGE_BUILD_STATIC_LIB will both be set as ON, and the wasmedge and wasmedgec tools will link to the WasmEdge static library instead. In this case, the plug-ins will not work in tools.
6. WASMEDGE_BUILD_PLUGINS: build the WasmEdge plug-ins. Default is ON.
7. WASMEDGE_BUILD_EXAMPLE: build the WasmEdge examples. Default is OFF.
8. WASMEDGE_FORCE_DISABLE_LTO: forcefully turn off the link time optimization. Default is OFF.
9. WASMEDGE_LINK_LLVM_STATIC: link the LLVM and lld libraries statically (Linux and MacOS platforms only). Default is OFF.
10. WASMEDGE_LINK_TOOLS_STATIC: make the wasmedge and wasmedgec tools to link the WasmEdge library and LLVM libraries statically (Linux and MacOS platforms only). Default is OFF.
    • If the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_TOOLS and this option are both set as ON, the WASMEDGE_LINK_LLVM_STATIC will be set as ON.
11. WASMEDGE_ENABLE_UB_SANITIZER: enable the undefined behavior sanitizer. Default is OFF.
12. WASMEDGE_PLUGIN_WASI_NN_BACKEND: build the WasmEdge WASI-NN plug-in (Linux platforms only). Default is empty.
    • This option is useless if the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_PLUGINS is set as OFF.
    • To build the WASI-NN plug-in with backend, please use -DWASMEDGE_PLUGIN_WASI_NN_BACKEND=<backend_name>.
    • To build the WASI-NN plug-in with multiple backends, please use -DWASMEDGE_PLUGIN_WASI_NN_BACKEND=<backend_name1>,<backend_name2>.
13. WASMEDGE_PLUGIN_WASI_CRYPTO: build the WasmEdge WASI-Crypto plug-in (Linux and MacOS platforms only). Default is OFF.
    • This option is useless if the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_PLUGINS is set as OFF.
14. WASMEDGE_PLUGIN_WASI_LOGGING: build the WasmEdge WASI-Logging plug-in (Linux and MacOS platforms only). Default is ON.
    • In WasmEdge 0.14.1, the WASI-Logging plug-in is bundled into the WasmEdge library and will not generate the plug-in shared library target.
    • This option is useless if the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_PLUGINS is set as OFF.
15. WASMEDGE_PLUGIN_WASM_BPF: build the WasmEdge wasm_bpf plugin (Linux platforms only). Default is OFF.
    • This option is useless if the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_PLUGINS is set as OFF.
16. WASMEDGE_PLUGIN_IMAGE: build the WasmEdge image plugin (Linux and MacOS platforms only). Default is OFF.
    • This option is useless if the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_PLUGINS is set as OFF.
17. WASMEDGE_PLUGIN_TENSORFLOW: build the WasmEdge TensorFlow plugin (Linux and MacOS platforms only). Default is OFF.
    • This option is useless if the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_PLUGINS is set as OFF.
18. WASMEDGE_PLUGIN_TENSORFLOWLITE: build the WasmEdge TensorFlow-Lite plug-in (Linux and MacOS platforms only). Default is OFF.
    • This option is useless if the option WASMEDGE_BUILD_PLUGINS is set as OFF.

Build WasmEdge with Plug-ins

Developers can follow the steps to build WasmEdge with plug-ins from source.

• WASI-NN (with several backends)
• WASI-Crypto
• WasmEdge-Image
• WasmEdge-TensorFlow
• WasmEdge-TensorFlowLite
• WASI-Logging

Run Tests

The tests are only available when the build option WASMEDGE_BUILD_TESTS is set to ON.

Users can use these tests to verify the correctness of WasmEdge binaries built.

cd <path/to/wasmedge/build_folder>
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(pwd)/lib/api ctest