Building rtl_433

rtl_433 currently supports these input types:

• RTL-SDR (optional, recommended)
• SoapySDR (optional)
• files: CU8, CS16, CF32 I/Q data, U16 AM data (built-in)
• rtl_tcp remote data servers (built-in)

Building rtl_433 with RTL-SDR or SoapySDR support is optional but using RTL-SDR is highly recommended. The libraries and header files for RTL-SDR and/or SoapySDR should be installed beforehand.

Nightly builds

Some distributions offer nightly builds.

openSUSE

openSUSE users of at least Leap 42.3 or Tumbleweed can add the repository with daily builds:

$ sudo zypper addrepo -f obs://home:mnhauke:rtl_433:nightly/rtl_433
rtl_433-nightly
$ sudo zypper install rtl_433

The usual update mechanism will now keep the rtl_433 version current.

Fedora

Fedora users (38, 39 and Rawhide) can add the following copr repository to get nightly builds:

$ sudo dnf copr enable tvass/rtl_433
$ sudo dnf install rtl_433

The usual update mechanism will now keep the rtl_433 version current.

Linux / Mac OS X

Depending on your system, you may need to install the following libraries.

Debian:

sudo apt-get install libtool libusb-1.0-0-dev librtlsdr-dev rtl-sdr build-essential cmake pkg-config

• If you require TLS connections, also install libssl-dev (sudo apt-get install libssl-dev).

Centos/Fedora/RHEL with EPEL repo using cmake:

• If dnf doesn't exist, use yum.
• If you require TLS connections, install openssl-devel.

sudo dnf install libtool libusb1-devel rtl-sdr-devel rtl-sdr cmake

Mac OS X with MacPorts:

• If you require TLS connections, install openssl from either MacPorts or Homebrew.

sudo port install rtl-sdr cmake

Mac OS X with Homebrew:

brew install rtl-sdr cmake pkg-config

CMake

Get the rtl_433 git repository if needed:

git clone https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433.git

Installation using CMake and Make (commonly available):

cd rtl_433/
cmake -B build
cmake --build build --target install

Installation using CMake and Ninja (newer and faster):

cd rtl_433/
cmake -DFORCE_COLORED_BUILD:BOOL=ON -GNinja -B build
cmake --build build -j 4
cmake --build build --target install

If installing to a global prefix (e.g. the default /usr/local) then instead run make install with privileges, .i.e.

sudo cmake --build build --target install

Use CMake with -DENABLE_SOAPYSDR=ON (default: AUTO) to require SoapySDR (e.g. with Debian needs the package libsoapysdr-dev), use -DENABLE_RTLSDR=OFF (default: ON) to disable RTL-SDR if needed. E.g. use:

cmake -DENABLE_SOAPYSDR=ON ..

Package maintainers

To properly configure builds without relying on automatic feature detection you should set all options explicitly, e.g.

cmake -DENABLE_RTLSDR=ON -DENABLE_SOAPYSDR=ON -DENABLE_OPENSSL=ON -DBUILD_DOCUMENTATION=OFF -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -GNinja -B build
cmake --build build -j 10
DESTDIR=/tmp/destdir cmake --build build --target install

Windows

Visual Studio 2017

You need PothosSDR installed to get RTL-SDR and SoapySDR libraries. Any recent version should work, e.g. 2021.07.25-vc16.

When installing PothosSDR choose "Add PothosSDR to the system PATH for the current user".

For TLS support (mqtts and influxs) you need OpenSSL installed. E.g. install Chocolatey then open a Command Prompt and

choco install openssl

Clone the project, e.g. open Visual Studio, change to "Team Explorer" > "Projects" > "Manage Connections" > "Clone" and enter https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433.git

If you want to change options, in the menu select "CMake" > "Change CMake Settings" > "rtl433", select e.g. "x64-Release", change e.g.

"buildRoot": "${workspaceRoot}\\build",
"installRoot": "${workspaceRoot}\\install",

To start a build use in the menu e.g. "CMake" > "Build all"

Or build at the Command Prompt without opening Visual Studio. Clone rtl_433 sources, then

cd rtl_433
cmake -G "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" -B build
cmake --build build

MinGW-w64

You'll probably want librtlsdr and libusb.

libusb has prebuilt binaries for windows, librtlsdr needs to be built (or extracted from the PothosSDR installer)

librtlsdr

taken and adapted from here: https://www.onetransistor.eu/2017/03/compile-librtlsdr-windows-mingw.html

• install MinGW-w64 and CMake
  • it's easiest if you select the option to include CMake in your path, otherwise you'll need to do this manually
• download the libusb binaries from https://sourceforge.net/projects/libusb/files/libusb-1.0/ or from https://libusb.info/
  • take the latest release and then download the .7z file, the other file contains the sources (or 'windows binaries' on the .info website)
• extract the archive and open the extracted folder
• copy the contents of the include folder to <mingw_installation_folder>/include
• copy the mingw64/dll/libusb-1.0.dll.a file to `<mingw_installation_folder>/lib
• copy the mingw64/dll/libusb-1.0.dll file to <mingw_installation_folder>/bin
• download the source code of librtlsdr https://github.com/steve-m/librtlsdr
• go into the librtlsdr folder
• open CMakeLists.txt with an editor that knows unix line endings
• go to # Find build dependencies (around line 65) and comment/remove the line with find_package(Threads)
• add the following lines instead:

SET(CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT "-lpthread")
SET(CMAKE_HAVE_THREADS_LIBRARY 1)
SET(Threads_FOUND TRUE)

• go into the cmake/modules folder and open FindLibUSB.cmake with a text editor
• find the lines with the following text in them

/usr/include/libusb-1.0
/usr/include
/usr/local/include

• add some extra lines to point to the MinGW include folder where you extracted libusb-1.0, making it look like this
  • take note of the "" around the folder names, these are needed when there are spaces in the folder name
  • you'll need to find out the exact paths for your system

/usr/include/libusb-1.0
/usr/include
/usr/local/include
"C:/Program Files/mingw-w64/x86_64-8.1.0-posix-seh-rt_v6-rev0/mingw64/include"
"C:/Program Files/mingw-w64/x86_64-8.1.0-posix-seh-rt_v6-rev0/mingw64/include/libusb-1.0"

• open a MinGW terminal in the librtlsdr folder
• generate makefiles for MinGW: cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" -B build
• build the librtlsdr library: cmake --build build

rtl_433

• clone the rtl_433 repository and cd into it
• run cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" -B build in the build directory
• run cmake-gui (this is easiest)
• set the source (the rtl_433 source code directory) and the build directory (one might create a build directory in the source directory)
• click configure
• select the grouped and advanced tickboxes
• go into the librtlsdr config group
• point the LIBRTLSDR_INCLUDE_DIRS to the include folder of the librtlsdr source
• point the LIBRTLSDR_LIBRARIES to the librtlsdr.dll.a file in the <librtlsdr_source>/build/src folder
  • that's the one you've built earlier
• start a MinGW terminal and run cmake --build build to build
  • when something in the tests folder doesn't build, you can disable it by commenting out add_subdirectory(tests) in the CMakeLists.txt file in the source folder of rtl_433
• rtl_433.exe should be built now
• you need to place it in the same folder as librtlsdr.dll and libusb-1.0.dll (you should have seen both of them by now)
• good luck!

If your system is missing or you find these steps are outdated please PR an update or open an issue.