Install RethinkDB on Arch Linux

Looking for another platform? See the complete list of platforms RethinkDB supports.

This platform is community supported. These instructions were provided by the community, and have not been thoroughly tested. If you run into problems let us know and we’ll improve the documentation.

Install binary packages

RethinkDB is in the community repository. To install the server, run:

# pacman -S rethinkdb

See the ArchWiki article on RethinkDB for more information.

Install with the Arch Build System

RethinkDB can be compiled automatically by the Arch Build System, the ports-like system for building and packaging software from source code in Arch Linux. Note that ABS may lag slightly behind the Arch binary repositories.

According to the PKGBUILD some tests may be “flaky” on Btrfs. If you use Btrfs and you are unable to build RethinkDB due to failed tests, you should not edit the PKGBUILD to skip the test suite; this might expose you to security problems in production. We suggest using binary packages, or editing the specific failing test.

`yaourt` shortcut

If you have yaourt installed, simply run:

$ yaourt -Sb rethinkdb

This will automatically download the PKGBUILD script provided by ABS, download and extract the RethinkDB source, compile and test RethinkDB, create a pacman-compatible package, and install the package on the local system. Full customization is possible by editing the PKGBUILD when prompted.

Semi-manual build

Ensure you have the abs package installed, /etc/abs.conf configured for the community repository (see the ArchWiki article on ABS), and /etc/makepkg.conf configured to your liking (see the ArchWiki article on makepkg).

Copy the PKGBUILD and related files to a working directory:

$ sudo abs community/rethinkdb
$ cp -r /var/abs/community/rethinkdb/ ~

Edit PKGBUILD to customize the build at this point.

Install the dependencies, build and install the package (the -s flag causes makepkg to attempt to install explicit build dependencies):

# pacman -S base-devel
$ cd ~/rethinkdb
$ makepkg -s
# pacman -U rethinkdb-1.15.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

Build from official source

Install build dependencies

You will need to install the base-devel group and several additional build dependencies:

# pacman -S gcc protobuf git python3 make

Get the source code

Download and extract the archive:

$ wget https://download.rethinkdb.com/repository/raw/dist/rethinkdb-2.4.4.tgz
$ tar xf rethinkdb-2.4.4.tgz

Build RethinkDB

RethinkDB’s configure script assumes the python executable exists on the PATH. It may be a symlink to python3 or python2. (Python 3 has been tested.) For example,

$ export PATH="$PATH":~/bin
$ ln -s /usr/bin/python3 ~/bin/python

To run the build:

$ cd ~/rethinkdb-2.4.4
$ ./configure --dynamic jemalloc
$ make

Once successfully built, the rethinkdb binary may be found in the build/release/ subdirectory.

To install RethinkDB globally:

$ cd ~/rethinkdb
# make install

Next steps: Now that you’ve installed RethinkDB, it’s time to install client drivers for your language.