Building MariaDB on Windows

The Windows build process for MariaDB 5.2 and later is compatible with MySQL5.5, so you can use the instructions on the MySQL CMake Wiki. Also, detailed step-by-step instructions for Visual Studio Express users are available here. The instructions here assume knowledge of the above two sources and are therefore more compact than they would otherwise be.

Build Requirements

To build MariaDB you need the following:

• Visual C++: We currently support Visual Studio 2008 and 2010, including the express editions (generally we try to support the two most recent versions). Install latest service packs as well, which are (as of when this was written) SP1 for both VS2008 and VS2010.
• Bazaar: Required to build from the source tree. Use the standalone installer and choose the default install options.
• CMake 2.8: The build system.
• Bison from GnuWin32: Bison creates parts of the SQL parser. Choose "Complete package except sources" when downloading.
  • NOTE: Do not install this into your default path with spaces (e.g. under C:\Program Files\GnuWin32), the build will break due to this bison bug. Instead, install into C:\GnuWin32 instead.
  • Add C:\GnuWin32\bin to your system PATH after installation.
• Strawberry perl: Used to run the test suite. ActiveState Perl is another Win32 Perl distribution and should work as well (but it is not as well tested).
• Optional: If you intend to build the MSI packages, install Windows Installer XML version 3.0 or higher

Verify that bison.exe, bzr.exe, cmake.exe and perl.exe can be found in PATH environment variable, with "where bison", "where bzr", and etc... from the command line prompt.

Building Windows Binaries

The above instructions assume MariaDB 5.2 or higher. For instructions how to build 5.1, look in the section "Old Style Build".

Branch the MariaDB bzr repository, or unpack the source archive. On the command prompt, switch to your source directory, then execute:

mkdir bld
cd bld
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config Relwithdebinfo

The above example builds a release configured for 32 bit systems in a subdirectory named bld. "cmake ..." is the configuration step, "cmake --build . --config Relwithdebinfo" is the build step.

Build Variations:

Debug builds

Building Debug version is done with:

cmake --build . --config Debug

x64 builds

By default, cmake will create 32 bit projects. For 64 bit, you must pass CMake the "generator" parameter using -G in the configuration step, e.g.:

cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 10 Win64"

for VS2010 or

cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 9 2008 Win64"

for VS2008.

For complete list of available generators, call "cmake" without any parameters.

IDE builds

Instead of calling "cmake --build" as above, open MySQL.sln. When Visual Studio starts, choose Build/Compile.

NMake builds

Ensure the Visual Studio environment variable are correctly set, e.g. build from "Visual Studio 2010 Command prompt" (Start=>All Programs=>Microsoft Visual Studio 2010=>Visual Studio tools=>Visual Studio Commad Prompt (2010)). It can be convenient to create a shortcut from to "Visual Studio Command Prompt(2010) on the desktop (navigate in start menu to find it, then rightclick=>Send To=>Desktop (create shortcut)" On the command line, execute

mkdir bld
cd bld
cmake .. -G "NMake Makefiles"
nmake

You can optionally pass -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE={Debug|RelWithDebInfo} to cmake to build either debug or release.

devenv builds

Ensure the Visual Studio environment variable are correctly set (see above). to build, execute

  devenv mysql.sln /build relwithdebinfo

or, for debug builds

  devenv mysql.sln /build debug

Optional build parameters

MySQL CMake Wiki describes how to use optional parameters in build. Perhaps single important parameter in MariaDB is WITH_EMBEDDED_SERVER (build with embedded server). It is not set by default in the build, since it effectively doubles the compilation time. Use cmake -DWITH_EMBEDDED_SERVER=1 to enable embedded builds.

Building the ZIP package

cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo --target package

Building the MSI package

There are slight differences between VS2010 and VS2008 (for example, the target names are different)

• VS2010:

  cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo  --target win/packaging/msi
  

• VS2008:

  cmake --build . -- config relwithdebinfo --target msi
  

Code signing support for MariaDB release processing

MariaDB builds optionally support authenticode code signing with an optional parameter SIGNCODE. Use cmake -DSIGNCODE=1 during the configuration step to sign the binaries in the ZIP and MSI packages.

Important: for SIGNCODE=1 to work, the user who runs the build needs to install a valid authenticode digital certificate into his certificate store, otherwise the packaging step will fail.

Building packages for MariaDB releases

MySQL release packages are a mix of debug and optimized builds (they included debug versions of static libraries plus mysqld-debug.exe). MariaDB packages also can be built as a mix of release and debug builds.

The full script to create the release in an out-of-source build with Visual Studio 2010 with signed binaries might look like:

mkdir bld
cd bld
cmake .. -DWITH_EMBEDDED_SERVER=1 -DSIGNCODE=1
cmake --build . --config debug
cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo --target package
cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo  --target win/packaging/msi

Old-style building (MariaDB 5.1)

The difference between legacy MariaDB 5.1 builds vs later versions is that

• 5.1 cannot be built out-of-source.
• 5.1 requires an additional step (win\configure-mariadb.bat) during configuration.
• 5.1 requires a prepackaged source distribution (made on Unix only) to create the ZIP package. It also requires Cygwin to create the ZIP.
• 5.1 does not feature the new MSI installer, instead NSIS is used. Building NSIS also requires the pre-packaged source distribution and cannot be made from a bzr repository. Here is how to build in 5.1

  win\configure-mariadb.bat
  cmake .
  cmake . --build relwithdebinfo

ZIP packaging in 5.1

The process for producing the 5.1 binary ZIP is as follows:

• Make the source tarball. This can only be done on Unix (we use Linux) by running BUILD/compile-dist && make dist. See Creating the MariaDB Source Tarball for full instructions.
  • In BuildBot, this is done using the hardy-amd64-makedist builder.
• Compile and package on Windows. This is done by unpacking the source tarball on Windows and running sh win/make_mariadb_win_dist.
  • In Buildbot, this done by the win32-make-noinstall-zip builder.

NSIS installer in 5.1

If you want to create the release, you also need NSIS.

Build the server as usual. You should then build the release, not debug or any other. When the server has been built, simply run "cpack" in the top directory to create the .exe package.

Miscellaneous

• In 5.2 and later, Cygwin is not required for any build step and is not supported. Don't use it, if you can.