Install IOTA

In order to deploy your contracts and interact with the chains some tooling is required. IOTA has an excellent command-line tool that can be used for the most common tasks.

The simplest way to get up and running with IOTA is to install the binary from the latest release available in the IOTA GitHub Repository. Make sure to download the version that matches the network you want to work on.

You can also use the convenient docker images in the repository to run your own local network.

If you require full control over the installation sources and process, you can always build the binaries yourself from source.

Supported operating systems

IOTA supports the following operating systems:

• Linux - Ubuntu version 20.04 (Bionic Beaver) or later
• macOS - macOS Monterey or later
• Microsoft Windows - Windows 10 or later

Install Using a Package Manager

You can use Homebrew on macOS, Linux, or Windows Subsystem for Linux to install iota:

brew install iotaledger/tap/iota

Install From Binaries

You can find a set of binaries for most operating systems with each IOTA release that you can use to install IOTA. We recommend using the latest stable release for the network you are working on.

Linux

1. Go to https://github.com/iotaledger/iota/releases.
2. Click the release tagged Latest to open the release's page.
3. In the Assets section of the release, select the .tgz compressed file that corresponds to your operating system.
4. Extract all files from the .tgz file into the preferred location on your system. These instructions assume you extract the files into a iota folder at the user root of your system for demonstration purposes. Replace references to this location in subsequent steps if you choose a different directory.
5. Once you have downloaded and extracted the .tgz file that matches your operating system, you should open the folder and install the necessary binaries. You should start with the main IOTA binary:

Name	Description
iota	Main IOTA binary.
iota-data-ingestion	Capture full node data for indexer to store in a database.
iota-faucet	Local faucet to mint coins on local network.
iota-graphql-rpc	GraphQL service for IOTA RPC.
iota-indexer	An indexer for a local IOTA network.
iota-node	Run a local node.
iota-tool	Provides utilities for IOTA.
move-analyzer	Language Server Protocol implementation.

1. Add the folder containing the extracted files to your PATH variable. To do so, you can update your ~/.bashrc to include the location of the IOTA binaries. If using the suggested location, you type export PATH=$PATH:~/iota and press Enter.
2. Start a new terminal session or type source ~/.bashrc to load the new PATH value.

macOS

1. Go to https://github.com/iotaledger/iota/releases.
2. Click the release tagged Latest to open the release's page.
3. In the Assets section of the release, select the .tgz compressed file that corresponds to your operating system.
4. Extract all files from the .tgz file into the preferred location on your system. These instructions assume you extract the files into a iota folder at the user root of your system. Replace references to this location in subsequent steps if you choose a different directory.
5. Once you have downloaded and extracted the .tgz file that matches your operating system, you should open the folder and install the necessary binaries. You should start with the main IOTA binary:

Name	Description
iota	Main IOTA binary.
iota-data-ingestion	Capture full node data for indexer to store in a database.
iota-faucet	Local faucet to mint coins on local network.
iota-graphql-rpc	GraphQL service for IOTA RPC.
iota-indexer	An indexer for a local IOTA network.
iota-node	Run a local node.
iota-tool	Provides utilities for IOTA.
move-analyzer	Language Server Protocol implementation.

1. Add the folder containing the extracted files to your PATH variable. To do so, you can update your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc to include the location of the IOTA binaries. If using the suggested location, you type export PATH=$PATH:~/iota and press Enter.
2. Start a new terminal session or type source ~/.zshrc (or .bashrc) to load the new PATH value.
3. If running the binaries for the first time, you might receive an error from MacOS that prevents the binaries from running. If you receive this error, close the dialog and type xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/iota/* in your terminal and press Enter (be sure to adjust the path if different).

Windows

1. Go to https://github.com/iotaledger/iota/releases.
2. Click the release tagged Latest to open the release's page.
3. In the Assets section of the release, select the .tgz compressed file that corresponds to your operating system.
4. Extract all files from the .tgz file into the preferred location on your system. These instructions assume you extract the files into a iota folder at the root of your C drive. Replace references to this location in subsequent steps if you choose a different directory.

info

Older versions of Windows do not natively support .tgz files, but you can use a free app like 7Zip to extract them.

1. Navigate to the expanded folder. You should have the following extracted files

Name	Description
iota	Main IOTA binary.
iota-data-ingestion	Capture full node data for indexer to store in a database.
iota-faucet	Local faucet to mint coins on local network.
iota-graphql-rpc	GraphQL service for IOTA RPC.
iota-indexer	An indexer for a local IOTA network.
iota-node	Run a local node.
iota-tool	Provides utilities for IOTA.
move-analyzer	Language Server Protocol implementation.

1. Add the folder containing the extracted files to your PATH variable. There are several ways to get to the setting depending on your version of Windows. One way that works on all versions of Windows is to type sysdm.cpl in a console to open the System Properties window. Under the Advanced tab, click the Environment Variables... button.
2. In the Environment Variables window, select the Path variable and click the Edit... button.
3. In the Edit environment variable window, click New and add the path to your expanded folder. Using the example path, this would be C:\iota.
4. Click OK.

Requirement: PostgreSQL

For the IOTA binary to work you have to have PostgreSQL installed on your system.

You can for example use Chocolatey to install it with the following command:

choco install postgresql

info

Running binaries other than iota might require installing prerequisites itemized in the following section.

Test

You can quickly test if you have successfully installed the binaries by running the following command:

iota

It should output a message stating the currently installed IOTA version and some helpful commands.

Install From Source

You can use this section to install the Rust crates (packages) to interact with IOTA networks, including the IOTA CLI, from source.

tip

You can also download the source code to access files locally.

Prerequisites

Please ensure you install the following before attempting to install IOTA from source.

Rust and Cargo

Install

Like most Rust projects, IOTA uses Cargo as a package manager. You can find detailed instructions on how to install Rust and Cargo for your OS in the official Rust Documentation

You can use the following command to install Rust and Cargo on macOS or Linux:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Update

Since IOTA uses the latest version of Cargo to build and manage dependencies, you may need to update. The recommended update method is using rustup, as shown below:

rustup update stable

Additional Prerequisites by Operating System

Select the appropriate tab to view the requirements for your system.

Linux

The prerequisites needed for the Linux operating system include:

• cURL
• Rust and Cargo
• Git CLI
• CMake
• GCC
• libssl-dev
• libclang-dev
• libpq-dev
• build-essential

info

The Linux instructions assume a distribution that uses the APT package manager. You might need to adjust the instructions to use other package managers.

Install the prerequisites listed in this section. Use the following command to update apt-get:

sudo apt-get update

All Linux prerequisites

Reference the relevant sections that follow to install each prerequisite individually, or run the following to install them all at once:

sudo apt-get install curl git-all cmake gcc libssl-dev pkg-config libclang-dev libpq-dev build-essential

cURL

Install cURL with the following command:

sudo apt-get install curl

Verify that cURL is installed correctly with the following command:

curl --version

Git CLI

Run the following command to install Git, including the Git CLI:

sudo apt-get install git-all

For more information, see Install Git on Linux on the GitHub website.

CMake

Use the following command to install CMake.

sudo apt-get install cmake

To customize the installation, see Installing CMake on the CMake website.

GCC

Use the following command to install the GNU Compiler Collection, gcc:

sudo apt-get install gcc

libssl-dev

Use the following command to install libssl-dev:

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

If the version of Linux you use doesn't support libssl-dev, find an equivalent package for it on the ROS Index.

(Optional) If you have OpenSSL, you might also need also to install pkg-config:

sudo apt-get install pkg-config

libclang-dev

Use the following command to install libclang-dev:

sudo apt-get install libclang-dev

If the version of Linux you use doesn't support libclang-dev, find an equivalent package for it on the ROS Index.

libpq-dev

Use the following command to install libpq-dev:

sudo apt-get install libpq-dev

If the version of Linux you use doesn't support libpq-dev, find an equivalent package for it on the ROS Index.

build-essential

Use the following command to install build-essential:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

macOS

The prerequisites needed for the macOS operating system include:

• Rust and Cargo
• Homebrew
• cURL
• CMake
• libpq
• Git CLI

MacOS includes a version of cURL that you can use to install Homebrew. Use Homebrew to install other tools, including a newer version of cURL.

Homebrew

Use the following command to install Homebrew:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

info

You do not need to install anything else if you installed IOTA with Homebrew.

All macOS prerequisites

With Homebrew installed, you can install individual prerequisites from the following sections or install them all at once with this command:

brew install curl cmake libpq git

cURL

Use the following command to update the default cURL on macOS:

brew install curl

CMake

Use the following command to install CMake:

brew install cmake

To customize the installation, see Installing CMake on the CMake website.

libpq

Use the following command to install libpq:

brew install libpq

Git CLI

Use the following command to install Git:

brew install git

After installing Git, download and install the Git command line interface.

Windows

The prerequisites needed for the Windows 11 operating system include:

• cURL
• Rust and Cargo
• Git CLI
• CMake
• C++ build tools
• LLVM compiler

cURL

Windows 11 ships with an installed Microsoft version of cURL. If you want to use the curl project version instead, download and install it from https://curl.se/windows/.

Git CLI

Download and install the Git command line interface.

CMake

Download and install CMake from the CMake website.

Protocol Buffers

Download Protocol Buffers (protoc-xx.x-win32.zip or protoc-xx.x-win64.zip) and add the \bin directory to your Windows PATH environment variable.

Additional tools for Windows

IOTA requires the following additional tools for computers running Windows:

• For Windows on ARM64 only - Visual Studio 2022 Preview.
• C++ build tools is required to install Rust.
• The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure. Look for a file with a name similar to LLVM-15.0.7-win64.exe for 64-bit Windows or LLVM-15.0.7-win32.exe for 32-bit Windows.

Install IOTA Binaries From Source

Run the following command to install IOTA binaries from the testnet branch:

cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/iotaledger/iota.git --branch testnet iota

Alternative releases

Replace testnet with another branch if needed when working on anything besides the testnet. Common options would be develop for the absolute latest version, devnet and mainnet. See the repository details for more information on commonly used branches.

The installation process can take a while to complete. You can monitor the installation progress in the terminal. If you encounter an error, install the latest version of all prerequisites and try the command again.

To update to the latest stable version of Rust:

rustup update stable

The command installs IOTA components in the ~/.cargo/bin folder.

Upgrade IOTA Binaries

If you previously installed the IOTA binaries, you can update them to the most recent release with the same command you used to install them:

cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/iotaledger/iota.git --branch testnet iota