Installing HackRF Software¶
HackRF software includes HackRF Tools and libhackrf. HackRF Tools are the commandline utilities that let you interact with your HackRF. libhackrf is a low level library that enables software on your computer to operate with HackRF.
Install Using Package Managers¶
Unless developing or testing new features for HackRF, we highly recommend that most users use build systems or package managers provided for their operating system. Our suggested operating system for use with HackRF is Ubuntu.
FreeBSD¶
You can use the binary package: # pkg install hackrf
You can also build and install from ports:
# cd /usr/ports/comms/hackrf
# make install
Linux: Arch¶
pacman -S hackrf
Linux: Fedora / Red Hat¶
sudo dnf install hackrf -y
Linux: Gentoo¶
emerge -a net-wireless/hackrf-tools
Linux: Ubuntu / Debian¶
sudo apt-get install hackrf
OS X (10.5+): Homebrew¶
brew install hackrf
OS X (10.5+): MacPorts¶
sudo port install hackrf
Installing From Source¶
Linux / OS X / *BSD: Building HackRF Software From Source¶
Acquire the source for the HackRF tools from either a release archive or git: git clone https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf.git
Once you have the source downloaded, the host tools can be built as follows:
cd hackrf/host
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
If you have HackRF hardware, you may need to update the firmware to match the host tools versions.
Windows: Prerequisites for Cygwin, MinGW, or Visual Studio¶
- cmake-2.8.12.1 or later from http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html
- libusbx-1.0.18 or later from http://sourceforge.net/projects/libusbx/files/latest/download?source=files
- fftw-3.3.5 or later from http://www.fftw.org/install/windows.html
- Install Windows driver for HackRF hardware or use Zadig see http://sourceforge.net/projects/libwdi/files/zadig
- If you want to use Zadig select HackRF USB device and just install/replace it with WinUSB driver.
Note for Windows build: You shall always execute hackrf-tools from Windows command shell and not from Cygwin or MinGW shell because on Cygwin/MinGW Ctrl+C is not managed correctly and especially for hackrf_transfer the Ctrl+C (abort) will not stop correctly and will corrupt the file.
Windows: Installing HackRF Software via Cygwin¶
mkdir host/build
cd host/build
cmake ../ -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_LEGACY_CYGWIN_WIN32=1 -DLIBUSB_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/local/include/libusb-1.0/
make
make install
Windows: Installing HackRF Software via MinGW¶
mkdir host/build
cd host/build
cmake ../ -G "MSYS Makefiles" -DLIBUSB_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/local/include/libusb-1.0/
make
make install
Windows: Installing HackRF Software via Visual Studio 2015 x64¶
Create library definition for MSVC to link to C:\fftw-3.3.5-dll64> lib /machine:x64 /def:libfftw3f-3.def
c:\hackrf\host\build> cmake ../ -G "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64" \
-DLIBUSB_INCLUDE_DIR=c:\libusb-1.0.21\libusb \
-DLIBUSB_LIBRARIES=c:\libusb-1.0.21\MS64\dll\lib\libusb-1.0.lib \
-DTHREADS_PTHREADS_INCLUDE_DIR=c:\pthreads-w32-2-9-1-release\Pre-built.2\include \
-DTHREADS_PTHREADS_WIN32_LIBRARY=c:\pthreads-w32-2-9-1-release\Pre-built.2\lib\x64\pthreadVC2.lib \
-DFFTW_INCLUDES=C:\fftw-3.3.5-dll64 \
-DFFTW_LIBRARIES=C:\fftw-3.3.5-dll64\libfftw3f-3.lib
CMake will produce a solution file named HackRF.sln
and a series of project files which can be built with msbuild as follows: c:\hackrf\host\build> msbuild HackRF.sln