Installing Bazel on Ubuntu

Supported Ubuntu Linux platforms:

• 16.04 (LTS)
• 14.04 (LTS)

Install Bazel on Ubuntu using one of the following methods:

• Use our custom APT repository

Bazel comes with two completion scripts. After installing Bazel, you can:

• Access the 
• Install the 

Installing using binary installer

The binary installers are on Bazel's .

The installer contains the Bazel binary1. Some additional libraries must also be installed for Bazel to work.

Step 1: Install required packages

First, install the prerequisites: pkg-config, zip, g++, zlib1g-dev, unzip, and python.

sudo apt-get install pkg-config zip g++ zlib1g-dev unzip python 

Step 2: Download Bazel

Next, download the Bazel binary installer named bazel--installer-linux-x86_64.sh from the .

Step 3: Run the installer

Run the Bazel installer as follows:

chmod +x bazel--installer-linux-x86_64.sh
./bazel--installer-linux-x86_64.sh --user 

The --user flag installs Bazel to the $HOME/bin directory on your system and sets the .bazelrc path to $HOME/.bazelrc. Use the --help command to see additional installation options.

Step 4: Set up your environment

If you ran the Bazel installer with the --user flag as above, the Bazel executable is installed in your $HOME/bin directory. It's a good idea to add this directory to your default paths, as follows:

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin" 

You can also add this command to your ~/.bashrc file.

Using Bazel custom APT repository

Step 1: Install the JDK

Install JDK 8:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk 

On Ubuntu 14.04 LTS you must use a PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer 

Step 2: Add Bazel distribution URI as a package source

Note: This is a one-time setup step.

echo "deb [arch=amd64]  stable jdk1.8" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bazel.list
curl  | sudo apt-key add - 

If you want to install the testing version of Bazel, replace stable with testing.

Step 3: Install and update Bazel

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install bazel 

Once installed, you can upgrade to a newer version of Bazel with the following command:

sudo apt-get upgrade bazel