hackrf/host

This repository contains host software (Linux/Windows) for HackRF, a project to produce a low cost, open source software radio platform.

How to build the host software on Linux:

Prerequisites for Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake libusb-1.0-0-dev pkg-config libfftw3-dev

Build host software on Linux:

mkdir host/build
cd host/build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

By default this will attempt to install an udev rule to /etc/udev/rules.d to provide the usb or plugdev group access to HackRF. If your setup requires the udev rule to be installed elsewhere you can modify the path with -DUDEV_RULES_PATH=/path/to/udev.

Note: The udev rule is not installed by default for PyBOMBS installs as they do not ususally get installed with root privileges.

Clean CMake temporary files/dirs:

cd host/build
rm -rf *

How to build host software on Windows:

Prerequisites for Cygwin, MinGW, or Visual Studio:

You will need to install these tools:

• cmake-3.8 or later from http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.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.

You will also need these dependency libraries:

• libusb-1.0.18 or later from https://libusb.info/
  • Make sure to grab the binaries corresponding to your VS version from the zip file
• fftw-3.3.5 or later from http://www.fftw.org/install/windows.html

If your environment has a package manager, such as Cygwin or MSYS2, you should be able to install these from there. Otherwise, you can download binaries directly from these sites and copy them to a build dependencies prefix. DLLs go in the bin folder, headers in include, .dll.a and .lib files in the lib folder, like normal.

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.

For 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

For MinGW:

If you downloaded the fftw3 binaries above, you have to turn that fftw3 DLL into something MinGW can link to by running these commands in your prefix bin folder:

C:\your\build\prefix\bin> dlltool -d libfftw3f-3.def -l libfftw3f-3.dll.a -D libfftw3f-3.dll
C:\your\build\prefix\bin> dlltool -d libfftw3-3.def -l libfftw3-3.dll.a -D libfftw3-3.dll

Then move the generated .dll.a files to your prefix lib folder.

Now you can build from a Windows command prompt:

mkdir host/build
cd host/build
cmake ../ -G "MinGW Makefiles" -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:/your/build/prefix -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:/your/install/prefix
mingw32-make
mingw32-make install

For Visual Studio 2015 x64

Similarly to the MinGW instructions, create fftw3 import libraries for MSVC to link to. You may have to run these from a Visual Studio command prompt in the folder where you extracted the fftw3 .dll and .def files:

C:\your\build\prefix\bin> lib /machine:x64 /def:libfftw3f-3.def
C:\your\build\prefix\bin> lib /machine:x64 /def:libfftw3-3.def

Then move the generated .lib files to your prefix lib folder. Also rename them to get rid of the "lib" prefix, e.g. fftw3-3.lib.

For libusb, libusb-1.0.dll needs to be extracted to your bin folder, libusb-1.0.lib needs to be extracted to your lib folder and renamed usb-1.0.lib, and the libusb-1.0/ folder needs to be extracted to your include folder.

For MSVC you will also need one additional dependency, pthreads-win32. Download that and extract the headers and pthreadVC2.lib from the prebuilts folder inside the zip.

c:\hackrf\host\build> cmake ../ -G "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64" -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:/your/build/prefix -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:/your/install/prefix

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

How to build host the software on FreeBSD

You can use the binary package: # pkg install hackrf

You can build and install from ports:

# cd /usr/ports/comms/hackrf
# make install

principal author: Michael Ossmann mike@ossmann.com

http://greatscottgadgets.com/hackrf/