Build Guide

Prerequisites

Absolute DB has zero external library dependencies — only the system C runtime is required. The build toolchain itself needs:

Tool	Minimum Version	Notes
GCC or Clang	GCC 9+ / Clang 11+	C11 standard required
GNU Make	4.0+	BSD Make not supported
git	2.20+	For cloning and versioning
build-essential	Any recent	Linux: apt/dnf/pacman

Install on Ubuntu/Debian:

bash — install build tools (Ubuntu/Debian)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential git

Install on Fedora/RHEL:

bash — install build tools (Fedora/RHEL)

sudo dnf groupinstall -y "Development Tools"
sudo dnf install -y git

Install on macOS (via Xcode Command Line Tools):

bash — install build tools (macOS)

xcode-select --install

Optional: For WebAssembly builds, install Emscripten (emcc). For AFL++ fuzzing, install afl-fuzz. For Debian packaging, install dpkg-deb. None of these affect the main build.

Clone the Repository

bash — clone and enter directory

git clone git@github.com:supportcall/AbsoluteDB.git
cd AbsoluteDB

The repository contains all source, tests, documentation, deployment configs, and client libraries. There are no submodules or external dependencies to fetch.

Core Build Targets

All builds are driven by a single top-level Makefile. Run make help at any time to list all available targets.

bash — core build targets

# Debug build + compile all 2,737 tests
# (no stripping, assertions enabled, fast compile)
make all

# Optimised release build with size verification
# Produces: bin/absdb (~154 KB), bin/absdb-server (~230 KB), bin/absdb-lite (~154 KB)
# Flags: -Os + LTO + strip; 0 compiler warnings enforced
make release

# Remove all build artefacts
make clean

# List all available make targets with descriptions
make help

Target	Description
`make all`	Debug build + all 3,292 test binaries; `-Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -Werror`
`make release`	Stripped, optimised binaries (`-Os -flto -s`); enforces binary size gates
`make clean`	Remove `build/`, `bin/`, and all generated artefacts
`make bench`	Run the full benchmark suite; outputs P50/P99/P999 latencies + throughput
`make wasm`	Build WebAssembly target (requires `emcc`); output: WASM ≤ 5 MB gzip
`make deb`	Build a Debian `.deb` package (requires `dpkg-deb`)
`make dist`	Create a source tarball for distribution
`make collect-env`	Emit a JSON report of hardware and environment details

Test Targets

The full test matrix comprises 2,737 tests across 26+ suites. Run individual suites during development or the full matrix before merging.

bash — run tests

# Core suite: 98 tests
make test

# Full matrix (all 2,737 tests)
make test && make test-advanced && make test-critical && \
  make test-enterprise && make test-v6 && make test-storage && \
  make test-security && make test-distributed && make test-lsm && \
  make test-ops && make test-tiers && make test-workload && \
  make test-perf && make test-main && make test-cluster-core && \
  make test-cluster-raid && make conformance

Target	Suite	Tests
`make test`	Core	98
`make test-advanced`	Advanced features	471
`make test-critical`	Critical paths	98
`make test-enterprise`	Enterprise features	188
`make test-v6`	v6+ features	283
`make test-storage`	LIRS, compression, B+Tree	55
`make test-security`	Crypto, TLS, PQC, auth	136
`make test-distributed`	Raft, CRDT, multi-region	168
`make test-lsm`	LSM-Tree backend	49
`make test-ops`	Backup, PITR, restore	55
`make test-tiers`	4-tier licensing matrix	257
`make test-tier-all`	All 4 tier shell scripts	257
`make test-workload`	Workload management	165
`make test-perf`	SIMD, JIT, parallel	81
`make test-main`	DM Data Vault	25
`make test-cluster-core`	Cluster core	62
`make test-cluster-raid`	C-RAID (RAID-0/1/5)	56
`make conformance`	SQL:2023 conformance	150

Client compatibility tests require psycopg2, Node.js, and a JDK:

bash — client compatibility

# Requires: pip install psycopg2-binary; npm install pg; java installed
make test-clients

Quality Gates

All quality gates must be green before any merge to main. These run with sanitisers enabled and compile with -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -Werror — zero warnings are tolerated.

bash — quality gate targets

# AddressSanitizer: detects buffer overflows, use-after-free, heap corruption
# Must pass: 87/87 — zero ASan errors
make test-asan

# UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer: signed overflow, null deref, invalid casts
# Must pass: 87/87 — zero UBSan violations
make test-ubsan

# ThreadSanitizer: data races in concurrent code
# Must pass: 87/87 — zero data races
make test-tsan

# FIPS 203/204/205 Known Answer Tests for post-quantum cryptography
# Must show: ML-KEM-768 PASS, ML-DSA-65 PASS, SLH-DSA PASS
make pqc-kat

# SQL:2023 conformance: 150/150 = 100%
make conformance

# Combined hardening run (fuzz + asan + ubsan + conformance)
make test-hardening

# AFL++ corpus replay (requires afl-fuzz installed)
make test-fuzz

Gate	Requirement	Current
`make test-asan`	0 memory errors	87/87 PASS ✓
`make test-ubsan`	0 UB violations	87/87 PASS ✓
`make test-tsan`	0 data races	87/87 PASS ✓
`make pqc-kat`	ALL PASS (3 algorithms)	ALL PASS ✓
`make conformance`	150/150 (100%)	150/150 ✓
`make release`	CLI ≤ 12 MB, server ≤ 30 MB, lite ≤ 3 MB, 0 warnings	~154 KB / ~230 KB / ~154 KB ✓

Output Binaries

After make release, the following binaries are produced in the bin/ directory. All are statically linked against the Absolute DB library and stripped of debug symbols.

Binary	Path	Size (stripped)	Purpose
`absdb`	`bin/absdb`	~154 KB	Full CLI: interactive SQL, admin, migration, bench
`absdb-server`	`bin/absdb-server`	~230 KB	Full server: all protocols, TLS, cluster, REST, gRPC
`absdb-lite`	`bin/absdb-lite`	~154 KB	Embedded SQL-only; no network; for IoT/edge/WASM
`libabsdb.a`	`build/libabsdb.a`	~50 MB	Static link library (all features, all platforms)

Size context: absdb-lite (~154 KB) beats DuckDB embedded (~12 MB) and is feature-superior to SQLite (~600 KB). absdb-server (~230 KB) is comparable to PostgreSQL (~18 MB) while including TLS 1.3, post-quantum crypto, HNSW, BM25, Raft, and C-RAID in the same binary.

Platform Notes

Linux x86-64

Primary development and CI platform. Full feature set including io_uring, AVX-512/AVX2/SSE4.2 SIMD, and AFL++ fuzzing. Tested on Ubuntu 22.04/24.04, Fedora 39, Debian 12, Amazon Linux 2023.

bash — Linux x86-64 build

make release
# Verifies: CLI ≤ 12 MB, server ≤ 30 MB, lite ≤ 3 MB

Linux ARM64 (AArch64)

Full support including NEON and SVE2 SIMD. Tested on AWS Graviton 3, Raspberry Pi 5 (Cortex-A76), and NVIDIA Orin. SVE2 is auto-detected at runtime — no build flag needed.

bash — ARM64 build

# Cross-compile on x86-64 host
make release CC=aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc

# Or build natively on ARM64 host
make release

macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)

Supported on macOS 12 Monterey and later. Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3) uses NEON SIMD via the ARM64 kernel path. io_uring is not available on macOS; the POSIX I/O fallback is used automatically. Install via Homebrew for the easiest experience.

bash — macOS build

# Universal binary (Intel + Apple Silicon)
make release ARCH=universal

# Apple Silicon only
make release

WebAssembly (Browser / Cloudflare Workers)

The absdb-lite profile compiles to WebAssembly for browser embedding and Cloudflare Workers. Requires Emscripten. Output is ≤ 5 MB gzip. Persistence uses IndexedDB on browser and KV Namespace on Cloudflare Workers.

bash — WASM build

# Requires: emcc (Emscripten SDK)
make wasm

# Output: build/absdb.wasm + build/absdb.js (~3 MB, ≤ 5 MB gzip)

Raspberry Pi (Embedded / IoT)

The absdb-lite binary runs on Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (ARMv8 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM) and Pi 5. Idle RAM usage is ~4 MB at minimal configuration.

bash — minimal embedded build

# Build lite binary optimised for embedded targets
make lite

# Run with minimal RAM (64 KB buffer pool)
./bin/absdb-lite --buffer-pool-mb 1 sensor.absdb

Install & Uninstall

bash — install and uninstall

# Install to /usr/local (default prefix)
sudo make install

# Install to a custom prefix
sudo make install PREFIX=/opt/absdb

# Files installed:
#   $PREFIX/bin/absdb
#   $PREFIX/bin/absdb-server
#   $PREFIX/bin/absdb-lite
#   $PREFIX/include/absdb/
#   $PREFIX/share/doc/absdb/

# Uninstall
sudo make uninstall
sudo make uninstall PREFIX=/opt/absdb

Packaging

bash — package targets

# Debian .deb package (requires dpkg-deb)
make deb
# Output: build/absdb_<VERSION>_amd64.deb

# Source tarball
make dist
# Output: build/absdb-latest.tar.gz

# Docker image
docker build -f deploy/docker/Dockerfile -t absolutedb/absdb:latest .

# Homebrew (macOS)
brew install --formula deploy/homebrew/absdb.rb

For Kubernetes deployment, see the Helm chart in deploy/kubernetes/ and the Terraform modules in deploy/terraform/.

Contents

Prerequisites

Clone the Repository

Core Build Targets

Test Targets

Quality Gates

Output Binaries

Platform Notes

Linux x86-64

Linux ARM64 (AArch64)

macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)

WebAssembly (Browser / Cloudflare Workers)

Raspberry Pi (Embedded / IoT)

Install & Uninstall

Packaging

Continue Reading

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