Install Bazel from source; the build tool for Tensorflow

Dr. Rahul Remanan,
CEO, Moad Computer

 Bazel is the build and test automation tool from Google. It is touted as a fast, scalable, multi-language and extensible build system. Bazel is needed to create Tensorflow installers from the source-code. Here are the steps to install Bazel in Linux, from the source-code. The technique described here uses the bootstrap installation that does not require a pre-existing Bazel installation in the target system.

Step 1: Install dependencies

$ apt-get install -y g++ unzip zip openjdk-11-jdk

Step 2:  Download and extract Bazel dist (architecture independent) zip file

$ wget https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/download/3.7.2/bazel-3.7.2-dist.zip -O bazel.zip
$ mkdir ./bazel
$ unzip -q ./bazel.zip -d ./bazel

Step 3: Build Bazel (bootstrap installation)

$ cd ./bazel
$ env EXTRA_BAZEL_ARGS="--host_javabase=@local_jdk//:jdk" BAZEL_JAVAC_OPTS="-J-Xmx2g -J-Xms200m" bash ./compile.sh

Step 4: Copy Bazel binary

$ cp output/bazel /usr/local/bin/

 Step 5: Check Bazel version and verify Bazel installation

$ bazel --version
$ bazel

Related materials: Official docs for  compiling Bazel from source.