Building

Sunshine binaries are built using CMake and requires cmake > 3.25.

Building Locally

Compiler

It is recommended to use one of the following compilers:

Compiler

Version

GCC

13+

Clang

17+

Apple Clang

15+

Dependencies

FreeBSD

[!CAUTION] Sunshine support for FreeBSD is experimental and may be incomplete or not work as expected

Install dependencies
pkg install -y \
  audio/opus \
  audio/pulseaudio \
  devel/cmake \
  devel/evdev-proto \
  devel/git \
  devel/libayatana-appindicator \
  devel/libevdev \
  devel/libnotify \
  devel/ninja \
  devel/pkgconf \
  ftp/curl \
  graphics/libdrm \
  graphics/wayland \
  multimedia/libva \
  net/miniupnpc \
  ports-mgmt/pkg \
  security/openssl \
  shells/bash \
  www/npm \
  x11/libX11 \
  x11/libxcb \
  x11/libXfixes \
  x11/libXrandr \
  x11/libXtst

Linux

Dependencies vary depending on the distribution. You can reference our linux_build.sh script for a list of dependencies we use in Debian-based, Fedora-based and Arch-based distributions. Please submit a PR if you would like to extend the script to support other distributions.

KMS Capture

If you are using KMS, patching the Sunshine binary with setcap is required. Some post-install scripts handle this. If building from source and using the binary directly, this will also work:

sudo cp build/sunshine /tmp
sudo setcap cap_sys_admin+p /tmp/sunshine
sudo getcap /tmp/sunshine
sudo mv /tmp/sunshine build/sunshine
CUDA Toolkit

Sunshine requires CUDA Toolkit for NVFBC capture. There are two caveats to CUDA:

  1. The version installed depends on the version of GCC.

  2. The version of CUDA you use will determine compatibility with various GPU generations. At the time of writing, the recommended version to use is CUDA ~12.9. See CUDA compatibility for more info.

[!NOTE] To install older versions, select the appropriate run file based on your desired CUDA version and architecture according to CUDA Toolkit Archive

macOS

You can either use Homebrew or MacPorts to install dependencies.

Homebrew
dependencies=(
  "boost"  # Optional
  "cmake"
  "doxygen"  # Optional, for docs
  "graphviz"  # Optional, for docs
  "icu4c"  # Optional, if boost is not installed
  "miniupnpc"
  "ninja"
  "node"
  "openssl@3"
  "opus"
  "pkg-config"
)
brew install "${dependencies[@]}"

If there are issues with an SSL header that is not found:

@tabs{ @tab{ Intel | bash     ln -s /usr/local/opt/openssl/include/openssl /usr/local/include/openssl     } @tab{ Apple Silicon | bash     ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/openssl/include/openssl /opt/homebrew/include/openssl     } }

MacPorts
dependencies=(
  "cmake"
  "curl"
  "doxygen"  # Optional, for docs
  "graphviz"  # Optional, for docs
  "libopus"
  "miniupnpc"
  "ninja"
  "npm9"
  "pkgconfig"
)
sudo port install "${dependencies[@]}"

Windows

[!WARNING] Cross-compilation is not supported on Windows. You must build on the target architecture.

First, you need to install MSYS2.

For AMD64 startup “MSYS2 UCRT64” (or for ARM64 startup “MSYS2 CLANGARM64”) then execute the following commands.

Update all packages
pacman -Syu
Set toolchain variable

For UCRT64:

export TOOLCHAIN="ucrt-x86_64"

For CLANGARM64:

export TOOLCHAIN="clang-aarch64"
Install dependencies
dependencies=(
  "git"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-boost"  # Optional
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-cmake"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-cppwinrt"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-curl-winssl"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-doxygen"  # Optional, for docs... better to install official Doxygen
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-graphviz"  # Optional, for docs
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-miniupnpc"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-onevpl"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-openssl"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-opus"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-toolchain"
)
if [[ "${MSYSTEM}" == "UCRT64" ]]; then
  dependencies+=(
    "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-MinHook"
    "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-nodejs"
    "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-nsis"
  )
fi
pacman -S "${dependencies[@]}"
WebRTC (optional, Windows only)

Sunshine can link against the libwebrtc C++ wrapper when SUNSHINE_ENABLE_WEBRTC=ON. The wrapper source is vendored as the third-party/libwebrtc submodule, but you must build WebRTC separately and provide a staging directory that contains include/ and lib/ (e.g., libwebrtc.dll and its import library). We use the third-party/depot_tools submodule for gclient/gn.

Manual build (advanced / first-time porting)

If you cannot use the helper script, the underlying steps are:

  1. Create a checkout directory and add a .gclient that points to https://github.com/webrtc-sdk/webrtc.git@m137_release with target_os = ['win'].

  2. Run gclient sync.

  3. In src, add the libwebrtc sources (you can copy or link third-party/libwebrtc into src/libwebrtc).

  4. Apply the audio patch: git apply libwebrtc/patchs/custom_audio_source_m137.patch

  5. Update src/BUILD.gn to include //libwebrtc in group("default").

  6. Generate and build (adjust GYP_MSVS_OVERRIDE_PATH if Visual Studio is installed elsewhere; our local install is under D:\Software\Visual Studio):

    set PATH=D:\sources\sunshine\third-party\depot_tools;%PATH%
set DEPOT_TOOLS_WIN_TOOLCHAIN=0
set GYP_MSVS_VERSION=2022
set GYP_GENERATORS=ninja,msvs-ninja
set GYP_MSVS_OVERRIDE_PATH=D:\Software\Visual Studio
set vs2022_install=D:\Software\Visual Studio
set WINDOWSSDKDIR=D:\Software\WinSDK
cd src
gn gen out-debug/Windows-x64 --args="target_os=\"win\" target_cpu=\"x64\" is_component_build=false is_clang=true is_debug=true rtc_use_h264=true ffmpeg_branding=\"Chrome\" rtc_include_tests=false rtc_build_examples=false libwebrtc_desktop_capture=true" --ide=vs2022
ninja -C out-debug/Windows-x64 libwebrtc

  7. Stage the artifacts into a directory with include/ and lib/ subfolders. Either place them at the default shared cache location (%LOCALAPPDATA%\LuminalShine\deps\libwebrtc\out) so CMake finds them automatically, or point CMake at your staging directory with -DWEBRTC_ROOT=<path>. Copy libwebrtc.dll and libwebrtc.dll.lib into lib/.

  8. Configure Sunshine with -DSUNSHINE_ENABLE_WEBRTC=ON. If CMake still fails to find libwebrtc, pass WEBRTC_INCLUDE_DIR and WEBRTC_LIBRARY explicitly.

To create a WiX installer, you also need to install .NET.

For ARM64: To build frontend, you also need to install Node.JS

Clone

Ensure git is installed on your system, then clone the repository using the following command:

git clone https://github.com/lizardbyte/sunshine.git --recurse-submodules
cd sunshine
mkdir build

Build

cmake -B build -G Ninja -S .
ninja -C build

[!TIP] Available build options can be found in options.cmake.

Package

@tabs{ @tab{FreeBSD | @tabs{ @tab{pkg | bash       cpack -G FREEBSD --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake       } }} @tab{Linux | @tabs{ @tab{deb | bash       cpack -G DEB --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake       } @tab{rpm | bash       cpack -G RPM --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake       } }} @tab{macOS | @tabs{ @tab{DragNDrop | bash       cpack -G DragNDrop --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake       } }} @tab{Windows | @tabs{ @tab{Installer | bash       ninja -C build luminalshine_msi       # The MSI is hand-authored via the WiX 7 dotnet tool pinned in       # .config/dotnet-tools.json. Run `dotnet tool restore` once after       # cloning; the build invokes `dotnet wix build` directly. WiX 3's       # candle/light and CMake's CPack-WIX generator are no longer used.       } @tab{Portable | bash       cpack -G ZIP --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake       } }} }

Remote Build

It may be beneficial to build remotely in some cases. This will enable easier building on different operating systems.

  1. Fork the project

  2. Activate workflows

  3. Trigger the CI workflow manually

  4. Download the artifacts/binaries from the workflow run summary

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