Installing Protobuf Source Code

In this version, you need to manually install Protobuf. You are advised to install Protobuf by compiling from source. The procedure is as follows:

Download the Protobuf source package and Abseil source package and place them in the same directory.

Decompress the source packages.

tar -zxvf abseil-cpp-20230802.2.tar.gz
tar -xzf protobuf-25.1.tar.gz
mv abseil-cpp-20230802.2/* protobuf-25.1/third_party/abseil-cpp/
cd protobuf-25.1

Set compilation parameters. You can use --prefix to specify the installation path. You are advised to install it in a system directory.

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -Dprotobuf_BUILD_TESTS=OFF -Dprotobuf_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=17

Compile protoc and Protobuf runtime.
```
make -j
```
You can utilize multiple threads to accelerate the compilation. Set a proper value for {n} based on the device performance.
```
make -j {n}
```
Install protoc and Protobuf runtime, and update the dynamic library configuration cache.
```
# For a non-root account, use sudo for the installation.
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
```
- If you specify the installation directory to /usr, protoc is installed in the /usr/bin directory, and libprotobuf.a and *.so are installed in the /usr/lib directory.
- If the installation path is not a system directory, import the bin and lib paths to environment variables. The following is an example:
```
# If --prefix=/path/to/protobuf is specified
export PATH=/path/to/protobuf/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/protobuf/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
```
Check the version.
If the version information is displayed, the installation is successful.
```
protoc --version
# libprotoc 25.1
```

Create a symbolic link.

Check the output. If the output contains keywords "version 'GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found", go to 7.b.

protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libprotoc.so.25.1.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libprotobuf.so.25.1.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_log_internal_message.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_log_internal_log_sink_set.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_flags_marshalling.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_flags_reflection.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_status.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_cord.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_cordz_handle.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_crc_cord_state.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_str_format_internal.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.30' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_synchronization.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_strings.so.2308.0.0)
protoc: /usr/bin/../lib64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/bin/../lib64/libabsl_time_zone.so.2308.0.0)

Create a symbolic link from /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6 to libstdc++.so.6.0.29 or later.
For example, if GCC 12.3.0 has been installed, run the following command to create a symbolic link:
```
sudo ln -sf /usr/local/gcc-12/lib64/libstdc++.so.6.0.30 /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6
```
After a symbolic link is used to replace libstdc++.so, if you run commands such as yum and rpm, the symbolic link may be reset. As a result, an error is reported during firmware compilation. If the error message "version 'GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found" is displayed, perform 7.b.

Parent topic: FAQs