Skip to main content
Skip to main content
Edit this page

How to Build ClickHouse on macOS

You don't have to build ClickHouse yourself!

You can install pre-built ClickHouse as described in Quick Start.

ClickHouse can be compiled on macOS x86_64 (Intel) and arm64 (Apple Silicon) using on macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or higher.

As compiler, only Clang from homebrew is supported.

Note

Building with Apple's XCode apple-clang is not recommended, it may or may not work.

Install Homebrew​

First install Homebrew

Install Prerequisites​

brew update
brew install ccache cmake ninja libtool gettext llvm gcc binutils grep findutils nasm

For Apple XCode Clang (discouraged), install the latest XCode the from App Store. Open it at least once to accept the end-user license agreement and automatically install the required components. Then, make sure that the latest Command Line Tools are installed and selected in the system:

sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
sudo xcode-select --install
Note

Apple uses a case-insensitive file system by default. While this usually does not affect compilation (especially scratch makes will work), it can confuse file operations like git mv. For serious development on macOS, make sure that the source code is stored on a case-sensitive disk volume, e.g. see these instructions.

Build ClickHouse​

To build using Homebrew's Clang compiler:

cd ClickHouse
mkdir build
export PATH=$(brew --prefix llvm)/bin:$PATH
cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=$(brew --prefix llvm)/bin/clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=$(brew --prefix llvm)/bin/clang++ -S . -B build
cmake --build build
# The resulting binary will be created at: build/programs/clickhouse

To build using XCode native AppleClang compiler in XCode IDE (not recommended):

cd ClickHouse
rm -rf build
mkdir build
cd build
XCODE_IDE=1 ALLOW_APPLECLANG=1 cmake -G Xcode -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DENABLE_JEMALLOC=OFF ..
cmake --open .
# ...then, in XCode IDE select ALL_BUILD scheme and start the building process.
# The resulting binary will be created at: ./programs/Debug/clickhouse

Caveats​

If you intend to run clickhouse-server, make sure to increase the system’s maxfiles variable.

Note

You’ll need to use sudo.

To do so, create the /Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxfiles.plist file with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
        "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>limit.maxfiles</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>launchctl</string>
      <string>limit</string>
      <string>maxfiles</string>
      <string>524288</string>
      <string>524288</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>ServiceIPC</key>
    <false/>
  </dict>
</plist>

Give the file correct permissions:

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxfiles.plist

Validate that the file is correct:

plutil /Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxfiles.plist

Load the file (or reboot):

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/limit.maxfiles.plist

To check if it’s working, use the ulimit -n or launchctl limit maxfiles commands.