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
Windows: Binaries
Binaries are provided as part of the PothosSDR project, they can be downloaded here.
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