Quickstart / Installation

The BigchainDB Python Driver depends on:

  1. libffi/ffi.h
  2. libssl-dev
  3. Python 3.5+
  4. A recent Python 3 version of pip
  5. A recent Python 3 version of setuptools

If you’re missing one of those, then see below. Otherwise, you can install the BigchainDB Python Driver (bigchaindb_driver) using:

$ pip3 install bigchaindb_driver

Next: determine the BigchainDB Root URL of the BigchainDB node or cluster you want to connect to.

How to Install the Dependencies

Dependency 1: ffi.h

BigchainDB (server and driver) depends on cryptoconditions, which depends on PyNaCl (Networking and Cryptography library), which depends on ffi.h. Hence, depending on your setup, you may need to install the development files for libffi.

On Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04, this works:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install libffi-dev

On Fedora 23 and 24, this works:

$ sudo dnf update

$ sudo dnf install libffi-devel

For other operating systems, just do some web searches for “ffi.h” with the name of your OS.

Dependency 2: libssl-dev

BigchainDB (server and driver) also depends on cryptography, which in turn depends on libssl AND libcrypto. Hence, depending on your setup you need to install the libssl-dev (Ubuntu) OR openssl-devel (RHEL) package, which installs the development libraries and header files for libssl and libcrypto.

On Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04:

$ sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

On Fedora 23 and 24:

$ sudo dnf install openssl-devel

Dependency 3: Python 3.5+

The BigchainDB Python Driver uses Python 3.5+. You can check your version of Python using:

$ python --version

OR

$ python3 --version

An easy way to install a specific version of Python, and to switch between versions of Python, is to use virtualenv. Another option is conda.

Dependency 4: pip

You also need to get a recent, Python 3 version of pip, the Python package manager.

If you’re using virtualenv or conda, then each virtual environment should include an appropriate version of pip.

You can check your version of pip using:

$ pip --version

OR

$ pip3 --version

pip was at version 9.0.0 as of November 2016. If you need to upgrade your version of pip, then see the pip documentation or our page about that in the BigchainDB Server docs.

Dependency 5: setuptools

Once you have a recent Python 3 version of pip, you should be able to upgrade setuptools using:

$ pip install --upgrade setuptools

OR

$ pip3 install --upgrade setuptools

Installing the Driver

Now you can install the BigchainDB Python Driver (bigchaindb_driver) using:

$ pip install bigchaindb_driver

OR

$ pip3 install bigchaindb_driver

Next: determine the BigchainDB Root URL of the BigchainDB node or cluster you want to connect to.

Advanced Installation Options

See the Advanced Installation Options page.