Installing Go from source
This topic describes how to build and run Go from source code. To install with an installer, see Download and install.
Introduction
Go is an open source project, distributed under a BSD-style license. This document explains how to check out the sources, build them on your own machine, and run them.
Most users don't need to do this, and will instead install from precompiled binary packages as described in Download and install, a much simpler process. If you want to help develop what goes into those precompiled packages, though, read on.
There are two official Go compiler toolchains.
This document focuses on the gc
Go
compiler and tools.
For information on how to work on gccgo
, a more traditional
compiler using the GCC back end, see
Setting up and using gccgo.
The Go compilers support the following instruction sets:
-
amd64
,386
-
The
x86
instruction set, 64- and 32-bit. -
arm64
,arm
-
The
ARM
instruction set, 64-bit (AArch64
) and 32-bit. -
loong64
- The 64-bit LoongArch instruction set.
-
mips64
,mips64le
,mips
,mipsle
-
The
MIPS
instruction set, big- and little-endian, 64- and 32-bit. -
ppc64
,ppc64le
- The 64-bit PowerPC instruction set, big- and little-endian.
-
riscv64
- The 64-bit RISC-V instruction set.
-
s390x
- The IBM z/Architecture.
-
wasm
- WebAssembly.
The compilers can target the AIX, Android, DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, Illumos, Linux, macOS/iOS (Darwin), NetBSD, OpenBSD, Plan 9, Solaris, and Windows operating systems (although not all operating systems support all architectures).
A list of ports which are considered "first class" is available at the first class ports wiki page.
The full set of supported combinations is listed in the discussion of environment variables below.
See the Go Wiki MinimumRequirements page for the overall system requirements.
Install Go compiler binaries for bootstrap
The Go toolchain is written in Go. To build it, you need a Go compiler installed.
The scripts that do the initial build of the tools look for a "go" command
in $PATH
, so as long as you have Go installed in your
system and configured in your $PATH
, you are ready to build Go
from source.
Or if you prefer you can set $GOROOT_BOOTSTRAP
to the
root of a Go installation to use to build the new Go toolchain;
$GOROOT_BOOTSTRAP/bin/go
should be the go command to use.
The minimum version of Go required depends on the target version of Go:
- Go <= 1.4: a C toolchain.
- 1.5 <= Go <= 1.19: a Go 1.4 compiler.
- 1.20 <= Go <= 1.21: a Go 1.17 compiler.
- 1.22 <= Go <= 1.23: a Go 1.20 compiler.
- Going forward, Go version 1.N will require a Go 1.M compiler, where M is N-2 rounded down to an even number. Example: Go 1.24 and 1.25 require Go 1.22.
There are four possible ways to obtain a bootstrap toolchain:
- Download a recent binary release of Go.
- Cross-compile a toolchain using a system with a working Go installation.
- Use gccgo.
- Compile a toolchain from Go 1.4, the last Go release with a compiler written in C.
These approaches are detailed below.
Bootstrap toolchain from binary release
To use a binary release as a bootstrap toolchain, see the downloads page or use any other packaged Go distribution meeting the minimum version requirements.
Bootstrap toolchain from cross-compiled source
To cross-compile a bootstrap toolchain from source, which is
necessary on systems Go 1.4 did not target (for
example, linux/ppc64le
), install Go on a different system
and run bootstrap.bash.
When run as (for example)
$ GOOS=linux GOARCH=ppc64 ./bootstrap.bash
bootstrap.bash
cross-compiles a toolchain for that GOOS/GOARCH
combination, leaving the resulting tree in ../../go-${GOOS}-${GOARCH}-bootstrap
.
That tree can be copied to a machine of the given target type
and used as GOROOT_BOOTSTRAP
to bootstrap a local build.
Bootstrap toolchain using gccgo
To use gccgo as the bootstrap toolchain, you need to arrange
for $GOROOT_BOOTSTRAP/bin/go
to be the go tool that comes
as part of gccgo 5. For example on Ubuntu Vivid:
$ sudo apt-get install gccgo-5 $ sudo update-alternatives --set go /usr/bin/go-5 $ GOROOT_BOOTSTRAP=/usr ./make.bash
Bootstrap toolchain from C source code
To build a bootstrap toolchain from C source code, use
either the git branch release-branch.go1.4
or
go1.4-bootstrap-20171003.tar.gz,
which contains the Go 1.4 source code plus accumulated fixes
to keep the tools running on newer operating systems.
(Go 1.4 was the last distribution in which the toolchain was written in C.)
After unpacking the Go 1.4 source, cd
to
the src
subdirectory, set CGO_ENABLED=0
in
the environment, and run make.bash
(or,
on Windows, make.bat
).
Once the Go 1.4 source has been unpacked into your GOROOT_BOOTSTRAP directory,
you must keep this git clone instance checked out to branch
release-branch.go1.4
. Specifically, do not attempt to reuse
this git clone in the later step named "Fetch the repository." The go1.4
bootstrap toolchain must be able to properly traverse the go1.4 sources
that it assumes are present under this repository root.
Note that Go 1.4 does not run on all systems that later versions of Go do. In particular, Go 1.4 does not support current versions of macOS. On such systems, the bootstrap toolchain must be obtained using one of the other methods.
Install Git, if needed
To perform the next step you must have Git installed. (Check that you
have a git
command before proceeding.)
If you do not have a working Git installation, follow the instructions on the Git downloads page.
(Optional) Install a C compiler
To build a Go installation
with cgo
support, which permits Go
programs to import C libraries, a C compiler such as gcc
or clang
must be installed first. Do this using whatever
installation method is standard on the system.
To build without cgo
, set the environment variable
CGO_ENABLED=0
before running all.bash
or
make.bash
.
Fetch the repository
Change to the directory where you intend to install Go, and make sure
the goroot
directory does not exist. Then clone the repository
and check out the latest release tag or release branch (go1.22.0
, or release-branch.go1.22
,
for example):
$ git clone https://go.googlesource.com/go goroot
$ cd goroot
$ git checkout <tag>
Where <tag>
is the version string of the release.
Go will be installed in the directory where it is checked out. For example,
if Go is checked out in $HOME/goroot
, executables will be installed
in $HOME/goroot/bin
. The directory may have any name, but note
that if Go is checked out in $HOME/go
, it will conflict with
the default location of $GOPATH
.
See GOPATH
below.
Reminder: If you opted to also compile the bootstrap binaries from source (in an
earlier section), you still need to git clone
again at this point
(to checkout the latest <tag>
), because you must keep your
go1.4 repository distinct.
(Optional) Switch to the master branch
If you intend to modify the go source code, and contribute your changes to the project, then move your repository off the release tag, and onto the master (development) branch. Otherwise, skip this step.
$ git checkout master
Install Go
To build the Go distribution, run
$ cd src $ ./all.bash
(To build under Windows use all.bat
.)
If all goes well, it will finish by printing output like:
ALL TESTS PASSED --- Installed Go for linux/amd64 in /home/you/go. Installed commands in /home/you/go/bin. *** You need to add /home/you/go/bin to your $PATH. ***
where the details on the last few lines reflect the operating system, architecture, and root directory used during the install.
For more information about ways to control the build, see the discussion of
environment variables below.
all.bash
(or all.bat
) runs important tests for Go,
which can take more time than simply building Go. If you do not want to run
the test suite use make.bash
(or make.bat
)
instead.
Testing your installation
Check that Go is installed correctly by building a simple program.
Create a file named hello.go
and put the following program in it:
package main import "fmt" func main() { fmt.Printf("hello, world\n") }
Then run it with the go
tool:
$ go run hello.go hello, world
If you see the "hello, world" message then Go is installed correctly.
Set up your work environment
You're almost done. You just need to do a little more setup.
How to Write Go Code Learn how to set up and use the Go tools
The How to Write Go Code document provides essential setup instructions for using the Go tools.
Install additional tools
The source code for several Go tools (including gopls)
is kept in the golang.org/x/tools repository.
To install one of the tools (gopls
in this case):
$ go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest
Community resources
The usual community resources listed on the help page have active developers that can help you with problems with your installation or your development work. For those who wish to keep up to date, there is another mailing list, golang-checkins, that receives a message summarizing each checkin to the Go repository.
Bugs can be reported using the Go issue tracker.
Keeping up with releases
New releases are announced on the
golang-announce
mailing list.
Each announcement mentions the latest release tag, for instance,
go1.9
.
To update an existing tree to the latest release, you can run:
$ cd go/src
$ git fetch
$ git checkout <tag>
$ ./all.bash
Where <tag>
is the version string of the release.
Optional environment variables
The Go compilation environment can be customized by environment variables. None is required by the build, but you may wish to set some to override the defaults.
$GOROOT
The root of the Go tree, often
$HOME/go1.X
. Its value is built into the tree when it is compiled, and defaults to the parent of the directory whereall.bash
was run. There is no need to set this unless you want to switch between multiple local copies of the repository.$GOROOT_FINAL
The value assumed by installed binaries and scripts when
$GOROOT
is not set explicitly. It defaults to the value of$GOROOT
. If you want to build the Go tree in one location but move it elsewhere after the build, set$GOROOT_FINAL
to the eventual location.$GOPATH
The directory where Go projects outside the Go distribution are typically checked out. For example,
golang.org/x/tools
might be checked out to$GOPATH/src/golang.org/x/tools
. Executables outside the Go distribution are installed in$GOPATH/bin
(or$GOBIN
, if set). Modules are downloaded and cached in$GOPATH/pkg/mod
.The default location of
$GOPATH
is$HOME/go
, and it's not usually necessary to setGOPATH
explicitly. However, if you have checked out the Go distribution to$HOME/go
, you must setGOPATH
to another location to avoid conflicts.$GOBIN
The directory where executables outside the Go distribution are installed using the go command. For example,
go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest
downloads, builds, and installs$GOBIN/gopls
. By default,$GOBIN
is$GOPATH/bin
(or$HOME/go/bin
ifGOPATH
is not set). After installing, you will want to add this directory to your$PATH
so you can use installed tools.Note that the Go distribution's executables are installed in
$GOROOT/bin
(for executables invoked by people) or$GOTOOLDIR
(for executables invoked by the go command; defaults to$GOROOT/pkg/$GOOS_$GOARCH
) instead of$GOBIN
.$GOOS
and$GOARCH
The name of the target operating system and compilation architecture. These default to the values of
$GOHOSTOS
and$GOHOSTARCH
respectively (described below).Choices for
$GOOS
areandroid
,darwin
,dragonfly
,freebsd
,illumos
,ios
,js
,linux
,netbsd
,openbsd
,plan9
,solaris
,wasip1
, andwindows
.Choices for
$GOARCH
areamd64
(64-bit x86, the most mature port),386
(32-bit x86),arm
(32-bit ARM),arm64
(64-bit ARM),ppc64le
(PowerPC 64-bit, little-endian),ppc64
(PowerPC 64-bit, big-endian),mips64le
(MIPS 64-bit, little-endian),mips64
(MIPS 64-bit, big-endian),mipsle
(MIPS 32-bit, little-endian),mips
(MIPS 32-bit, big-endian),s390x
(IBM System z 64-bit, big-endian), andwasm
(WebAssembly 32-bit).The valid combinations of
$GOOS
and$GOARCH
are:$GOOS
$GOARCH
aix
ppc64
android
386
android
amd64
android
arm
android
arm64
darwin
amd64
darwin
arm64
dragonfly
amd64
freebsd
386
freebsd
amd64
freebsd
arm
illumos
amd64
ios
arm64
js
wasm
linux
386
linux
amd64
linux
arm
linux
arm64
linux
loong64
linux
mips
linux
mipsle
linux
mips64
linux
mips64le
linux
ppc64
linux
ppc64le
linux
riscv64
linux
s390x
netbsd
386
netbsd
amd64
netbsd
arm
openbsd
386
openbsd
amd64
openbsd
arm
openbsd
arm64
plan9
386
plan9
amd64
plan9
arm
solaris
amd64
wasip1
wasm
windows
386
windows
amd64
windows
arm
windows
arm64
$GOHOSTOS
and$GOHOSTARCH
The name of the host operating system and compilation architecture. These default to the local system's operating system and architecture.
Valid choices are the same as for
$GOOS
and$GOARCH
, listed above. The specified values must be compatible with the local system. For example, you should not set$GOHOSTARCH
toarm
on an x86 system.$GO386
(for386
only, defaults tosse2
)This variable controls how gc implements floating point computations.
GO386=softfloat
: use software floating point operations; should support all x86 chips (Pentium MMX or later).GO386=sse2
: use SSE2 for floating point operations; has better performance but only available on Pentium 4/Opteron/Athlon 64 or later.
$GOARM
(forarm
only; default is auto-detected if building on the target processor, 7 if not)This sets the ARM floating point co-processor architecture version the run-time should target. If you are compiling on the target system, its value will be auto-detected.
GOARM=5
: use software floating point; when CPU doesn't have VFP co-processorGOARM=6
: use VFPv1 only; default if cross compiling; usually ARM11 or better cores (VFPv2 or better is also supported)GOARM=7
: use VFPv3; usually Cortex-A cores
If in doubt, leave this variable unset, and adjust it if required when you first run the Go executable. The GoARM page on the Go community wiki contains further details regarding Go's ARM support.
$GOAMD64
(foramd64
only; default isv1
)This sets the microarchitecture level for which to compile. Valid values are
v1
(default),v2
,v3
,v4
. See the Go wiki MinimumRequirements page for more information.$GOMIPS
(formips
andmipsle
only)
$GOMIPS64
(formips64
andmips64le
only)These variables set whether to use floating point instructions. Set to "
hardfloat
" to use floating point instructions; this is the default. Set to "softfloat
" to use soft floating point.$GOPPC64
(forppc64
andppc64le
only)This variable sets the processor level (i.e. Instruction Set Architecture version) for which the compiler will target. The default is
power8
.GOPPC64=power8
: generate ISA v2.07 instructionsGOPPC64=power9
: generate ISA v3.00 instructions
$GOWASM
(forwasm
only)This variable is a comma separated list of experimental WebAssembly features that the compiled WebAssembly binary is allowed to use. The default is to use no experimental features.
GOWASM=satconv
: generate saturating (non-trapping) float-to-int conversionsGOWASM=signext
: generate sign-extension operators
Note that $GOARCH
and $GOOS
identify the
target environment, not the environment you are running on.
In effect, you are always cross-compiling.
By architecture, we mean the kind of binaries
that the target environment can run:
an x86-64 system running a 32-bit-only operating system
must set GOARCH
to 386
,
not amd64
.
If you choose to override the defaults,
set these variables in your shell profile ($HOME/.bashrc
,
$HOME/.profile
, or equivalent). The settings might look
something like this:
export GOARCH=amd64 export GOOS=linux
although, to reiterate, none of these variables needs to be set to build, install, and develop the Go tree.