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Building macOS binaries

✓ This binary should be reproducible, meaning you should be able to generate binaries that match the official releases.

This guide explains how to build Electrum binaries for macOS systems.

Building the binary

This needs to be done on a system running macOS or OS X.

The script is only tested on Intel-based Macs, and the binary built targets x86_64 currently.

Notes about compatibility with different macOS versions:

  • In general the binary is not guaranteed to run on an older version of macOS than what the build machine has. This is due to bundling the compiled Python into the PyInstaller binary.
  • The bundled version of Qt also imposes a minimum supported macOS version.
  • If you want to build binaries that conform to the macOS "Gatekeeper", so as to minimise the warnings users get, the binaries need to be codesigned with a certificate issued by Apple, and starting with macOS 10.15 the binaries also need to be notarized by Apple's central server. The catch is that to be able to build binaries that Apple will notarise (due to the requirements on the binaries themselves, e.g. hardened runtime) the build machine needs at least macOS 10.14. See #6128.

We currently build the release binaries on macOS 10.14.6, and these seem to run on 10.13 or newer.

Before starting, you should install brew.

Notes about reproducibility

  • We recommend creating a VM with a macOS guest, e.g. using VirtualBox, and building there.

  • The guest should run macOS 10.14.6 (that specific version).

  • The unix username should be vagrant, and electrum should be cloned directly to the user's home dir: /Users/vagrant/electrum.

  • Builders need to use the same version of Xcode; and note that full Xcode and Xcode commandline tools differ!

    • Xcode CLI tools are sufficient for everything, except it is missing altool, which is needed for the release-manager to notarise the .dmg.
    • so full Xcode is needed, to have altool.
    • however, brew now consider macOS 10.14 too old, and for some reason it requires Xcode CLI tools. (Error: Xcode alone is not sufficient on Mojave.)

    So, we need both full Xcode and Xcode CLI tools. Both with version 11.3.1. The two Xcodes should be located exactly as follows:

    $ xcode-select -p
/Users/vagrant/Downloads/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
$ xcrun --show-sdk-path
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk

  • Installing extraneous brew packages can result in build differences. For example, pyinstaller seems to pick up and bundle brew-installed libffi. So having a dedicated "electrum binary builder macOS VM" is recommended.

  • Make sure that you are building from a fresh clone of electrum (or run e.g. git clean -ffxd to rm all local changes).

1. Get Xcode

Notarizing the application requires full Xcode (not just command line tools as that is missing altool).

Get it from here. Unfortunately, you need an "Apple ID" account.

(note: the last Xcode that runs on macOS 10.14.6 is Xcode 11.3.1)

Install full Xcode:

$ shasum -a 256 "$HOME/Downloads/Xcode_11.3.1.xip"
9a92379b90734a9068832f858d594d3c3a30a7ddc3bdb6da49c738aed9ad34b5  /Users/vagrant/Downloads/Xcode_11.3.1.xip
$ xip -x "$HOME/Downloads/Xcode_11.3.1.xip"
$ sudo xcode-select -s "$HOME/Downloads/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/"
$ # agree with licence
$ sudo xcodebuild -license

(note: unsure if needed:)

$ # try this to install additional component:
$ sudo xcodebuild -runFirstLaunch

Install Xcode CLI tools:

$ sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
$ shasum -a 256 "$HOME/Downloads/Command_Line_Tools_for_Xcode_11.3.1.dmg"
1c4b477285641cca5313f456b712bf726aca8db77f38793420e1d451588673f9  /Users/vagrant/Downloads/Command_Line_Tools_for_Xcode_11.3.1.dmg
$ hdiutil attach "$HOME/Downloads/Command_Line_Tools_for_Xcode_11.3.1.dmg"
$ sudo installer -package "/Volumes/Command Line Developer Tools/Command Line Tools.pkg" -target /
$ hdiutil detach "/Volumes/Command Line Developer Tools"

2. Build Electrum

cd electrum
./contrib/osx/make_osx.sh

This creates both a folder named Electrum.app and the .dmg file.

If you want the binaries codesigned for MacOS and notarised by Apple's central server, provide these env vars to the make_osx.sh script:

CODESIGN_CERT="Developer ID Application: Electrum Technologies GmbH (L6P37P7P56)" \
APPLE_ID_USER="me@email.com" \
APPLE_ID_PASSWORD="1234" \
./contrib/osx/make_osx.sh

Verifying reproducibility and comparing against official binary

Every user can verify that the official binary was created from the source code in this repository.

  1. Build your own binary as described above.
  2. Use the provided compare_dmg script to compare the binary you built with the official release binary. 
    $ ./contrib/osx/compare_dmg dist/electrum-*.dmg electrum_dmg_official_release.dmg
    The compare_dmg script is mostly only needed as the official release binary is codesigned and notarized. Otherwise, the built .app bundles should be byte-identical. (Note that we are using hdutil to create the .dmg, and its output is not deterministic, but we cannot compare the .dmg files directly anyway as they contain codesigned files)