Install on Linux

Linux gets the whole product as native binaries. Expect ten minutes for the headless set and a first backtest; add the desktop app if the box has a display.

Requirements

x86-64 with glibc 2.39 or newer — the assets are dynamically linked against the release runner's Ubuntu 24.04, and an older host fails at exec, not at install. The desktop build additionally wants a Vulkan-capable GPU, an X11 or Wayland session and a font from the candidate set. Requirements has the measured numbers.

Steps

1. Choose a project root

One directory on a disk with room, owned by the user that will run the binaries, holding bin/, settings/ (with state/ and state/logs/), user_data/ and market_data/. The root is a parameter, not a convention.

R=/srv/vike-trader
mkdir -p "$R/bin" "$R/settings/state/logs" "$R/market_data"

2. Download and verify

From the release: vike-cli, vike-tradehub, backtest, vike-datahub, vike-recorder, vike-study, tearsheet, the desktop vike-desktop, and SHA256SUMS. The manifest is the upload list — an asset cannot be published without a checksum — so verify the lines for what you took:

cd "$R/bin"
grep -E ' (vike-cli|vike-tradehub|backtest|vike-datahub)$' SHA256SUMS | sha256sum -c
chmod +x vike-cli vike-tradehub backtest vike-datahub

Every Linux binary embeds its dependency SBOM (cargo auditable), and --version prints the commit it was built from through vike_buildinfo::version_line.

3. First commands

cd "$R"
bin/vike-cli --version
bin/vike-cli config check      # the verdict on settings/ and the credential store: exit 0 = nothing broken
bin/vike-cli init              # scaffold user_data/ with runnable examples, and print the map
bin/backtest --seed-demo       # the synthetic demo tape, under venue `demo`, into market_data/hist

vike-cli init writes only what is absent and never touches a file you edited. config check judges the four settings files and the store; an absent credential store is fine, because absent credentials are the live gate. Every binary resolves the project by walking up from the working directory, so run them from $R, or set VIKE_SETTINGS_DIR=$R/settings to name it outright.

4. The desktop app, if you want it

bin/vike-desktop

The binary carries no hard dependency on libX11 or libwayland-client; winit loads them at window creation, so a missing library surfaces as XNotSupported(LibraryOpenError) after the version line. Install a font it can find — /usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf is the floor vike_app_core::fonts names — or the window controls render as empty boxes.

5. The daemon under systemd, when you want it unattended

The shipped unit deploy/vike-tradehub.service carries the placeholder root /srv/vike-tradehub; substitute yours, check nothing was missed, install it as a system unit with a User= line, and create settings/state first — under ProtectSystem=strict a missing ReadWritePaths= target fails the unit with status=226.

cp settings/tradehub.example.toml "$R/settings/tradehub.toml"   # the source tree's template; the image prints the same bytes with --template
sed "s,/srv/vike-tradehub,$R,g" deploy/vike-tradehub.service > /tmp/vike-tradehub.service
grep -n /srv/vike-tradehub /tmp/vike-tradehub.service            # must print NOTHING
sudo install -Dm644 /tmp/vike-tradehub.service /etc/systemd/system/vike-tradehub.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl enable --now vike-tradehub

The unit runs ExecStartPre=<root>/bin/vike-cli config check, so vike-cli must sit beside the daemon or the unit fails with status=203/EXEC; it sets VIKE_LOG_FILE_LEVEL=warn and no VIKE_LOG_DIR, so the log lands inside the one write grant; and it points EnvironmentFile= at <root>/.env, never at the credential store. sudo systemctl stop is a graceful stop: SIGTERM raises the same flag the interactive shutdown word raises and the ordinary teardown runs, as long as TimeoutStopSec= stays above the profile's shutdown_deadline_ms.

Verify

bin/backtest --list                                  # the compiled strategy names
journalctl -u vike-tradehub | grep '"kind":"ready"'  # the daemon's ready banner, with its mode

The daemon logs the identity line first and its settings dir: line after it; with recording on, its store open logs tick store root resolved … rung=project — read rung=, because exe-dir means no project was found above the working directory.

Next steps

• Quickstart: first backtest — the demo tape you just seeded, through the standalone runner or the data service.
• Quickstart: first paper mount.
• Dukascopy needs the release's jforex-bridge.jar at bin/jforex/jforex-bridge.jar and a JRE under bin/jre/; LightGBM needs both bin/lightgbm/lightgbm and its PROVENANCE file. Both are Release assets, published beside the binaries and covered by the same SHA256SUMS; a source checkout also ships a helper that stages and verifies them into exactly that layout. See Updating.

Troubleshooting

• version 'GLIBC_2.39' not found at exec. The host's glibc is older than the runner's.
• status=226 or 203/EXEC from systemd. settings/state is missing, or bin/vike-cli is.
• Empty boxes instead of window controls. No font from the candidate set is installed.
• rung=exe-dir in the daemon's store line. No project above the working directory; run from the root or set VIKE_SETTINGS_DIR. More under Troubleshooting.