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.

First make sure you have required compilation dependencies: you will need headers of:

• libusb
• pcsc-lite

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.

• libusb
• pcsc-lite (with pcscd), libccid

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).

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 -rfakeroot

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

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

• To install the port:

cd /usr/ports/devel/libnfc/ && make install clean

• To add the package:

pkg_add -r libnfc

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

$ emerge libnfc

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

# yum install libnfc libnfc-devel libnfc-examples

• libnfc-devel contains development headers and libraries, its only necessary if you want to

compile your own applications requiring libnfc

• libnfc-examples contains the example tools like nfc-list.

• System → Administration → Add/Remove Software
• Search for libnfc and select the appropriate packages for installation.

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/

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

Theses instructions are outdated, Mac OS X users should compile libnfc using usual autotools way (similar to actual Manual installation instructions).

Update and install dependencies

$sudo port -v selfupdate
$sudo port install libusb

Download and extract the libnfc library

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

Compile

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

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

$./nfc-list

• Get the source files
  1. Download the Source for Microsoft Windows (libnfc-1.3.3-winsdk.zip)
  2. Extract the files to your computer (e.g. C:\libnfc-1.3.3-winsdk)

• MinGW
  1. Download MinGW from http://www.mingw.org/
  2. Install MinGW Make
  3. Make sure to add the MinGW\bin to the Windows PATH Environment Variable

• Windows SDK
  1. Download Microsoft Windows SDK v7.0 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bb980924.aspx)
  2. Open the Start Menu\All programs\Microsoft Windows SDK v7.0\CMD Shell

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0> WindowsSdkVer.exe -version:v7.0

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0> cd C:\libnfc-1.3.3-winsdk\win32

C:\libnfc-1.3.3-winsdk\win32>mingw32-make