---
title: Installation
---

This page will guide you through the steps needed to prepare a computer for development with the
Substrate Node Template. Since Substrate is built with
[the Rust programming language](https://www.rust-lang.org/), the first thing you will need to do is
prepare the computer for Rust development - these steps will vary based on the computer's operating
system. Once Rust is configured, you will use its toolchains to interact with Rust projects; the
commands for Rust's toolchains will be the same for all supported, Unix-based operating systems.

## Unix-Based Operating Systems

Substrate development is easiest on Unix-based operating systems like macOS or Linux. The examples
in the Substrate [Tutorials](https://substrate.dev/tutorials) and [Recipes](https://substrate.dev/recipes/)
use Unix-style terminals to demonstrate how to interact with Substrate from the command line.

### macOS

Open the Terminal application and execute the following commands:

```bash
# Install Homebrew if necessary https://brew.sh/
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

# Make sure Homebrew is up-to-date, install openssl and cmake
brew update
brew install openssl cmake
```

### Ubuntu/Debian

Use a terminal shell to execute the following commands:

```bash
sudo apt update
# May prompt for location information
sudo apt install -y cmake pkg-config libssl-dev git build-essential clang libclang-dev curl
```

### Arch Linux

Run these commands from a terminal:

```bash
pacman -Syu --needed --noconfirm cmake gcc openssl-1.0 pkgconf git clang
export OPENSSL_LIB_DIR="/usr/lib/openssl-1.0"
export OPENSSL_INCLUDE_DIR="/usr/include/openssl-1.0"
```

## Rust Developer Environment

This project uses [`rustup`](https://rustup.rs/) to help manage the Rust toolchain. First install
and configure `rustup`:

```bash
# Install
curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
# Configure
source ~/.cargo/env
```

Finally, configure the Rust toolchain to default to the latest stable version:

```bash
rustup default stable
```

## Build the Project

Now that the standard Rust environment is configured, use the
[included Makefile](../README.md#makefile) to install the project-specific toolchains and build the
project.