gRPC builds

This repository provides packages containing binaries and development files for gRPC (an open source and high-performance RPC library and framework) and Protobuf compilers, for Linux x64 (amd64) and ARM (armhf) architectures. These packages are built from the official source of gRPC and its dependencies, using GitHub Actions.

This project was created to compile applications on the Raspberry Pi that need up-to-date versions of gRPC, avoiding preliminary lengthy compilations of gRPC on the Pi.

The x64 builds are a by-product of the overall build process, which involves cross-compiling for ARM, which in turn requires gRPC's protoc and grpc_cpp_plugin binaries to be available on the host (x64) system where the cross-compilation is taking place.

The main assets, which can be found in the Releases section, are:

• grpc_*_amd64.deb — Debian package of gRPC and Protobuf compilers for x64 Linux (), containing binaries and development files, which will be installed in /usr/local.
• grpc-*-amd64.tar.gz — Compressed archive of gRPC for x64 Linux, with the same contents as the previous package, and designed to be installed in /usr/local.
• grpc_*_armhf.deb — Debian package of gRPC for ARM Linux, containing binaries and development files, which will be installed in /usr/local.
• grpc-*-armhf.tar.gz — Compressed archive of gRPC for ARM Linux, with the same contents as the previous package, and designed to be installed in /usr/local.

The following artefacts are also available under Releases:

• grpc_sysroot-*-armhf.tar.gz — Compressed archive of gRPC for ARM Linux containing binaries and development files for cross-compilation purposes. The contents are designed to be installed in /tmp/raspberrypi_root. Cross-compilation will require development files for zlib for ARM (see next point).
• zlib_sysroot-*-armhf.tar.gz — Compressed archive of zlib for ARM Linux containing binaries and development files for cross-compilation purposes. The contents are designed to be installed in /tmp/raspberrypi_root.
• zlib_*_armhf.deb and zlib-*-armhf.tar.gz — Debian package and compressed archive of zlib for ARM Linux, containing binaries and development files, to be installed in /usr/local. These files are generated as part of the build process, but they shouldn't be needed in general as all Linux distributions have official zlib packages.

Build

The assets and artefacts are automatically built by GitHub Actions, but if you want to build them yourself, for instance to tinker with the build scripts, then you can run the build scripts one after the other, as follows:

source ./01_set_env_vars_common_grpc.sh
./02_checkout_grpc.sh
source ./03_set_env_vars_zlib.sh
./04_install_prerequisites.sh
./05_build_grpc_amd64.sh
./06_install_grpc_amd64.sh  # or sudo dpkg -i $GRPC_HOST_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_NAME
./07_build_zlib_armhf.sh
./08_install_zlib_sysroot.sh
./09_build_grpc_armhf.sh

The resulting packages will be created in the current directory.

Use

The shared libraries for ARM Linux have been compiled using Raspberry Pi’s official cross-compiler, which includes GCC version 4.9.3.

Note – Cross-compiling using abhiTronix’s cross-compiler with GCC version 6.3.0 was attempted, and successfully generated static versions of the GRPC libraries, but failed to generate dynamic libraries.

This appears to mean that programs must be compiled against the shared libraries using a similar version of GCC (tested as working with version 4.9.4, tested as failing with version 8.3.0).

To install an additional version of gcc/g++ on your Pi and activate it, follow the instructions below.

$ gcc --version | grep gcc
gcc (Raspbian 8.3.0-6+rpi1) 8.3.0

$ sudo apt-get install gcc-4.9 g++-4.9

$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.9 40 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-4.9
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/gcc-4.9 to provide /usr/bin/gcc (gcc) in auto mode

$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-8 60 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-8

$ sudo update-alternatives --config gcc
There are 2 choices for the alternative gcc (providing /usr/bin/gcc).

  Selection    Path              Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------

* 0            /usr/bin/gcc-8     60        auto mode
  1            /usr/bin/gcc-4.9   40        manual mode
  2            /usr/bin/gcc-8     60        manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:1

$ gcc --version | grep gcc
gcc (Raspbian 4.9.4-2+rpi1+b19) 4.9.4

Once you have finished compiling your program against the GRPC shared libraries, to revert to the default GCC compilers, run sudo update-alternatives --config gcc and select the default version.

Alternatives

Your x64 or ARM Linux distribution may have official packages of gRPC binaries, development files, and dependencies, e.g. for Ubuntu: libgrpc6, libgrpc++1, libgrpc-dev, libgrpc++-dev, protobuf-compiler (provides protoc), protobuf-compiler-grpc (provides grpc_*_plugin).

You may also follow the official build instructions for gRPC C++ to build gRPC yourself.

About

Written by Sébastien Pujadas, released under the Apache 2.0 license.

This repository was originally created to make it easier to build and package the author's departure board virtual and physical (LED matrix) board servers.