Build from source

Tenzir uses CMake as build system with a C++23 compiler.

Manual

Compile

Clone the repository:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/tenzir/tenzir
cd tenzir

Ensure all dependencies are available, then configure and build using a preset:

cmake --list-presets          # discover available presets
cmake --preset <preset-name>
cmake --build --preset <preset-name>

For example, to build a release on macOS:

cmake --preset macos-clang-release
cmake --build --preset macos-clang-release

For custom configurations without presets:

cmake -B build -G Ninja
cmake --build build

Note

CMake defaults to a Debug build. When performance matters, use -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release.

Test

Run unit tests via CTest:

ctest --test-dir build

Run integration tests via tenzir-test:

cd test
uvx tenzir-test

Install

Install Tenzir system-wide:

cmake --install build

Options:

• --prefix /path/to/prefix — custom install location
• --strip — remove debug symbols
• --component Runtime — install only runtime files, not development headers

Clean

Delete the build tree to start fresh:

rm -rf build

This avoids configuration glitches when switching build types.

Docker

The Dockerfile provides multiple build targets.

Build the default image:

docker build -t tenzir/tenzir .

Build the node image (runs tenzir-node as entrypoint):

docker build -t tenzir/tenzir-node --target tenzir-node .

Build the development image with all build-time dependencies for creating custom plugins:

docker build -t tenzir/tenzir-dev --target development .

Nix

We use Nix for reproducible builds on Linux and macOS. The flake provides all dependencies:

nix develop
cmake --preset nix-clang-release
cmake --build --preset nix-clang-release

For pre-built dependencies, configure the Tenzir binary cache:

nix run nixpkgs#cachix -- use tenzir

You can also delegate the entire build to Nix with nix build .#tenzir-de, but this doesn’t support incremental builds.

To build static binaries on Linux:

nix develop .#tenzir-static.unchecked
cmake --preset nix-static-release
cmake --build --preset nix-static-release

Dependencies

Required	Dependency	Version	Description
✓	C++ Compiler	C++23 required	Tenzir is tested to compile with GCC >= 14.0 and Clang >= 19.0.
✓	CMake	>= 3.30	Cross-platform tool for building, testing and packaging software.
✓	CAF	>= 1.1.0	Implementation of the actor model in C++. (Bundled as submodule.)
✓	OpenSSL		Utilities for secure networking and cryptography.
✓	FlatBuffers	>= 2.0.8	Memory-efficient cross-platform serialization library.
✓	Boost	>= 1.83.0	Required as a general utility library.
✓	Apache Arrow	>= 18.0.0	Required for in-memory data representation. Must be built with Compute, Filesystem, S3, Zstd and Parquet enabled. For the gcs plugin, GCS needs to be enabled.
✓	re2		Required for regular expression evaluation.
✓	yaml-cpp	>= 0.6.2	Required for reading YAML configuration files.
✓	simdjson	>= 4.0.0	Required for high-performance JSON parsing. (Bundled as submodule.)
✓	spdlog	>= 1.5	Required for logging.
✓	fmt	>= 10.0.0	Required for formatted text output.
✓	xxHash	>= 0.8.0	Required for computing fast hash digests.
✓	robin-map	>= 0.6.3	Fast hash map and hash set using robin hood hashing. (Bundled as subtree.)
✓	fast_float	>= 3.2.0	Required for parsing floating point numbers. (Bundled as submodule.)
✓	libbacktrace	>= 1.0	Required for generating stack traces. (Only on Linux.)
✓	libmaxminddb	>= 1.8.0	Required for the geoip context.
✓	reproc++	>= v14.2.5	Required for subprocess control.
	libpcap		Required for building the pcap plugin.
	librdkafka		Required for building the kafka plugin.
	http-parser		Required for building the web plugin.
	cppzmq		Required for building the zmq plugin.
	clickhouse-cpp	>= fbd7945	Required for building the clickhouse plugin. (Bundled as submodule.)
	pfs		Required for the processes and sockets operators on Linux.
	Protocol Buffers	>= 1.4.1	Required for building the velociraptor plugin.
	gRPC	>= 1.51	Required for building the velociraptor plugin.
	rabbitmq-c		Required for building the rabbitmq plugin.
	yara	>= 4.4.0	Required for building the yara plugin.
	poetry		Required for building the Python bindings.
	Doxygen		Required to build documentation for libtenzir.
	Pandoc		Required to build the manpage for Tenzir.
	bash	>= 4.0.0	Required to run the integration tests.
	bats	>= 1.8.0	Required to run the integration tests.
	uv	>= 0.7.2	Required to run the python operator.

The minimum specified versions reflect those used in CI and manual testing. Older versions may still work.

SBOM

Every release includes an SBOM in SPDX format listing all dependencies and their versions:

Latest SBOM

Download the Software Bill of Materials in SPDX format