Installation

Debian packages (from releases)

Every release ships per-architecture .deb packages (x86_64, arm64, armv7), statically linked — no runtime dependencies:

The web admin panel (can-hub-web) is built from source for now — see web admin.

Hub

sudo dpkg -i can-hub_*.deb        # service starts immediately

The packaged hub does not use the bare-binary defaults: hub.conf ships --listen quic://0.0.0.0:7227 --listen unix:///run/can-hub/hub.sock — QUIC plus the local unix socket only. To also accept TLS-over-TCP or plaintext TCP, add listeners in /etc/can-hub/hub.conf and systemctl restart can-hub:

HUB_LISTEN_ARGS=--listen quic://0.0.0.0:7227 --listen tls://0.0.0.0:7227 --listen unix:///run/can-hub/hub.sock

Agent

sudo dpkg -i can-hub-agent_*.deb
sudo editor /etc/can-hub/agent.conf      # HUB_URL, INTERFACES; AGENT_NAME defaults to the hostname
sudo systemctl enable --now can-hub-agent

The unit runs as the can-hub user with CAP_NET_RAW only. Remote interface reconfiguration (can-hub-cli interface set ...) additionally needs CAP_NET_ADMIN — see agent.

socketcand bridge (optional)

The client package includes a service that exposes the hub's interfaces as a local socketcand server (for python-can, Kayak, SavvyCAN):

sudo editor /etc/can-hub/socketcand.conf   # defaults: 127.0.0.1:29536, beacon on
sudo systemctl enable --now can-hub-socketcand

Static binaries (from releases)

can-hub-<tag>-linux-<arch>-static.tar.gz contains all four binaries, fully static (musl) — drop them on any Linux, including distros the debs do not target:

tar xzf can-hub-v*-linux-x86_64-static.tar.gz
./can-hub-agent --connect quic://hub.example.com:7227 --name edge can0

Python

pip install python-can-hub

Manylinux wheels for x86_64, aarch64 and armv7l; the wheel bundles libcanhub with the TLS/QUIC stack statically linked. See python/README.md.

From source

Requirements: cmake >= 3.16, ninja, gcc, perl. The first configure needs network access — a pinned OpenSSL 3.5 is built from source once per build tree, and ngtcp2 plus the SQLite amalgamation are fetched and built statically.

make release                  # build/x86_64/release
make install [PREFIX=/usr/local]
make test                     # unit tests (CEST)

make install installs the four binaries, libcanhub (static + shared) and include/canhub.h — no systemd units; use the debs for service deployment.

Other targets:

make release ARCH=arm64|armhf   # cross builds (toolchain files in cmake/)
make deb                        # glibc .debs into build/<arch>/package
make static ARCH=x86_64|arm64|armv7   # fully static binaries via docker, into dist/
make windows                    # libcanhub + canhub-dump for Windows (llvm-mingw / mingw-w64)

Shell completion

The Debian packages ship bash and zsh completions for every binary, so tab completion works out of the box after apt install (bash-completion loads them on demand; zsh reads /usr/share/zsh/vendor-completions). Beyond subcommands and flags they complete the painful dynamic values — namespaced interface names (agent/iface), agent names and peer ids — by querying the hub, and fall back to static completion when it is unreachable.

Building from source instead of installing a deb? Drop the scripts in by hand:

sudo cp packaging/completions/bash/* /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/
sudo cp packaging/completions/zsh/_*  /usr/share/zsh/vendor-completions/

State directories

--state-dir overrides the location on hub, agent and client.