Table of Contents

Installation Instructions

The page describes per platform how to install and use libnfc. Because some dependencies (e.g. libusb, PCSC-Lite) are used, the requirements per platform can differ.

POSIX systems

Manual installation

First make sure you have required compilation dependencies, ie. you will need headers from:

Download and extract libnfc archive

$ wget http://libnfc.googlecode.com/files/libnfc-x.x.x.tar.gz
$ tar -xvzf libnfc-x.x.x.tar.gz

Configure and compile

$ cd libnfc-x.x.x
$ ./configure
$ make

Make sure you have required run-time dependencies.

Plug in NFC device, place a tag on it and test your compilation

$ src/nfc-list

Install libnfc into your system

$ make install

Note: ./configure have an installation path prefix set as /usr/local as default. Use –prefix option, if you want another setup (see ./configure –help).

Debian / Ubuntu

First make sure you have required compilation dependencies.

$ sudo apt-get install libusb-dev libpcsclite-dev

Download and extract libnfc archive

$ wget http://libnfc.googlecode.com/files/libnfc-x.x.x.tar.gz
$ tar -xvzf libnfc-x.x.x.tar.gz

Build Debian package

$ cd libnfc-x.x.x
$ svn checkout http://libnfc.googlecode.com/svn/tags/libnfc-x.x.x/debian
$ dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc

Make sure you have required run-time dependencies.

$ sudo apt-get install libusb-0.1-4 libpcsclite1 libccid pcscd

Install libnfc into your system

$ sudo dpkg -i ../libnfc*.deb

Plug in NFC device, place a tag on it and test your installation

$ nfc-list

FreeBSD

Romain Tartière contributed a FreeBSD port of libnfc, thanks to him.

cd /usr/ports/devel/libnfc/ && make install clean
pkg_add -r libnfc

Gentoo

Thanks to Mike Auty, libnfc have a ebuild to be easily installed on Gentoo using usual way:

$ emerge libnfc

Fedora 12+

Thanks to François Kooman, libnfc library is now included in Fedora 12+ distribution.

Using command line interface

# yum install libnfc libnfc-devel libnfc-examples

compile your own applications requiring libnfc

Using graphical tools

Mac OS X

For installing dependencies, MacPorts download manager is used (available at: http://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/)

Install MacPorts following instructions from http://www.macports.org/install.php

Install pkg-config:

$ sudo port install pkgconfig

Install glib:

$ sudo port install glib

Install glib:

$ sudo port install libusb

Make sure it's the x86_64 version (when on the latest OS X):

$ lipo -info /usr/local/lib/libusb.dylib

As the libnfc's MacPort is not up-to-date, now follow Manual installation instructions to compile libnfc using usual autotools way.

Warning: We have previously posted a link to darwinports .com, according to MacPorts project: they are an impostor / phishing site designed to get donations from unsuspecting users. Donations made to that site do not benefit MacPorts project and the instructions shown there for installing software are incorrect. To know more about this issue: http://trac.macports.org/wiki/DarwinPorts

Official MacPorts' site: http://www.macports.org/ If you are looking for how to use and install MacPorts, please visit: http://guide.macports.org/

Windows

http://libnfc.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/README-Windows.txt