Building Bitcoin Core on OS X with Errors, Warnings and Solutions

Here we talk about how to build Bitcoin Core on OS X with some error messages and their solutions.

First, we assume the Xcode command line tools and MacPorts are installed. We also assume Bitcoin Core has been cloned with git.

We start with

  ./autogen.sh

If you get

  configuration failed, please install autoconf first

you need to install autoconf.

  sudo port install autoconf

If you get

Can't exec "/opt/local/bin/aclocal": No such file or directory at /opt/local/share/autoconf/Autom4te/FileUtils.pm line 326.
autoreconf: failed to run /opt/local/bin/aclocal: No such file or directory

automake is missing. You can install it with

  sudo port install automake

If you get

Makefile.am:8: error: Libtool library used but 'LIBTOOL' is undefined
Makefile.am:8:   The usual way to define 'LIBTOOL' is to add 'LT_INIT'
Makefile.am:8:   to 'configure.ac' and run 'aclocal' and 'autoconf' again.
Makefile.am:8:   If 'LT_INIT' is in 'configure.ac', make sure
Makefile.am:8:   its definition is in aclocal's search path.

and other errors, libtool is missing. You can install it with

  sudo port install libtool

Now that ./autogen.sh is working, it’s time to install Berkeley DB 4.8 with

  ./contrib/install_db4.sh `pwd`

Then ./configure BitCoin with

  export BDB_PREFIX=`pwd`'/db4'

  ./configure BDB_LIBS="-L${BDB_PREFIX}/lib -ldb_cxx-4.8" BDB_CFLAGS="-I${BDB_PREFIX}/include"

If you get

  configure: error: PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG macro not found. Please install pkg-config and re-run autogen.sh.

pgk-config is missing. You can install it with

  sudo port install pkgconfig

and run ./autogen.sh again, before retrying ./configure ....

If you get

configure: WARNING: Qt dependencies not found; bitcoin-qt frontend will not be built

you can install Qt.

  sudo port install qt59

If you get

checking for boostlib >= 1.47.0... configure: We could not detect the boost libraries (version 1.47 or higher). If you have a staged boost library (still not installed) please specify $BOOST_ROOT in your environment and do not give a PATH to --with-boost option.  If you are sure you have boost installed, then check your version number looking in <boost/version.hpp>. See http://randspringer.de/boost for more documentation.
checking whether the Boost::System library is available... no
checking whether the Boost::Filesystem library is available... no
checking whether the Boost::Program_Options library is available... no
checking whether the Boost::Thread library is available... no
checking whether the Boost::Chrono library is available... no
checking whether the Boost::Unit_Test_Framework library is available... no
checking for dynamic linked boost test... no
checking for mismatched boost c++11 scoped enums... ok
configure: error: No working boost sleep implementation found.

you are missing the Boost libraries.

  sudo port install boost

If you get

  configure: WARNING: libprotobuf not found; bitcoin-qt frontend will not be built

you can install protobuf.

  sudo port install protobuf-cpp

If you get

configure: error: libevent not found.

you need to install libevent.

  sudo port install libevent

Now that you have a successful ./configure ... you can build Bitcoin.

make

And everything should build properly.