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Building MAVSDK on Linux ​

This guide explains how to build MAVSDK from source on Linux systems.

Requirements ​

The build requirements are git, cmake, and a C++ compiler (GCC or Clang), and python.

Ubuntu ​

bash
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake git python3 python3-pip

Fedora ​

bash
sudo dnf update
sudo dnf groupinstall "Development Tools" "Development Libraries"
sudo dnf install cmake git

Getting the Source ​

Download the source using git:

bash
git clone https://github.com/mavlink/MAVSDK.git
cd MAVSDK
git submodule update --init --recursive

Building the MAVSDK library on Linux ​

Debug Build ​

For development, use the debug build:

bash
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -Bbuild -S.
cmake --build build -j8

Release Build ​

For production use, build with optimizations enabled:

bash
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -Bbuild -S.
cmake --build build -j8

Installation ​

System-wide Installation ​

To install system-wide in /usr/local:

bash
sudo cmake --build build --target install
sudo ldconfig  # Update linker cache

Local Installation ​

To install to a custom location, e.g. install

bash
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install -Bbuild -S.
cmake --build build --target install

Build mavsdk_server binary on Linux ​

Language wrappers for MAVSDK other than C++ connect to the MAVSDK C++ core using gRPC. This gRPC server around the MAVSDK C++ library is called mavsdk_server (in the past it was referred to as the backend).

For more information about the architecture, also see how the auto-generation works.

In order to include the mavsdk_server in the build, add -DBUILD_MAVSDK_SERVER=ON:

bash
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_MAVSDK_SERVER=ON -Bbuild -S.
cmake --build build -j8

Build Options ​

During the configure step you can set various flags using -DFLAG=Value:

  • CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE: Choose between Debug, Release, or RelWithDebInfo (optimizations and debug symbols)
  • CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX: Specify directory to install library artifacts
  • BUILD_SHARED_LIBS: Set to ON for dynamic libraries (.so), OFF for static libraries (.a)
  • SUPERBUILD: Set to OFF to use system dependencies instead of third party dependencies (see Building without Superbuild)
  • CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH: Set path where dependencies can be found if SUPERBUILD is OFF
  • BUILD_MAVSDK_SERVER: Set to ON to build mavsdk_server
  • BUILD_WITHOUT_CURL: Set to ON to build without CURL support
  • ASAN: Set to ON to enable address sanitizer
  • UBSAN: Set to ON to enable undefined behavior sanitizer
  • LSAN: Set to ON to enable leak sanitizer
  • WERROR: Set to ON to treat warnings as errors

MAVSDK supports configuring the MAVLink dialect and repository:

  • MAVLINK_DIALECT: MAVLink dialect to use (default: ardupilotmega)
  • MAVLINK_XML_PATH: Path to local MAVLink XML definition files. If not set, definitions are fetched automatically.
  • MAVLINK_URL: URL for the MAVLink repository (default: https://github.com/mavlink/mavlink)
  • MAVLINK_HASH: Git commit hash to use from the MAVLink repository

Note: You can also load custom MAVLink message definitions at runtime using the MavlinkDirect plugin, without needing to rebuild MAVSDK.

Examples:

bash
# Build with development dialect
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DMAVLINK_DIALECT=development -Bbuild -S.

# Use a custom MAVLink repository fork
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
    -DMAVLINK_URL=https://github.com/yourfork/mavlink \
    -DMAVLINK_HASH=abc123def456 \
    -Bbuild -S.

# Use local MAVLink XML files
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
    -DMAVLINK_XML_PATH=/path/to/mavlink/message_definitions/v1.0 \
    -Bbuild -S.

Building without Superbuild ​

By default, MAVSDK uses a "superbuild" that automatically downloads and builds all required dependencies. If you prefer to provide dependencies yourself (e.g., from system packages or custom builds), you can disable this with SUPERBUILD=OFF.

A script is provided that demonstrates how to build all dependencies and MAVSDK:

bash
./tools/build-with-system-deps.sh

This script:

  1. Clones and builds the required dependencies (MAVLink, libevents, PicoSHA2, libmav) into a local deps/ directory
  2. Installs them to deps-install/
  3. Builds MAVSDK with SUPERBUILD=OFF using these dependencies

Prerequisites (install before running the script):

bash
sudo apt install build-essential cmake git python3 python3-pip \
                 liblzma-dev libtinyxml2-dev libjsoncpp-dev \
                 libcurl4-openssl-dev libssl-dev

Troubleshooting ​

Git Submodules Out of Date ​

If you encounter build issues, try updating the submodules:

bash
git submodule update --recursive

Undefined References ​

If you get undefined reference errors after installation, update the linker cache:

bash
sudo ldconfig

And try a clean build by wiping the build directory:

bash
rm -r build