Compile from Source

You'll want to compile Sliver from a MacOS or Linux machine. Compiling from native Windows is possible in theory, but none of the scripts are designed to run on Windows. You can cross-compile the Windows server/client binaries from a better operating system like Linux or MacOS. If you only have a Windows machine, you should be able to use the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

To compile from source you'll need:

Go v1.25 or later
make (on MacOS you may need to install XCode and accompanying cli tools)

{"src": "/asciinema/compile-from-source.cast", "cols": "132"}

Compiling

$ git clone https://github.com/BishopFox/sliver.git
$ cd sliver

IMPORTANT: The Sliver Makefile requires version information from the git repository, so you must git clone the repository. Using GitHub's "download zip" feature may omit the .git directory and result in broken builds.

By default make will build whatever platform you're currently running on:

$ make

This will create sliver-server and sliver-client binaries.

Sliver embeds its own copy of the Go compiler and a few internal tools. The first time you run make, a bash script will download these assets to your local system. This means the first build will take longer than subsequent builds, especially if your internet connection is slow.

Cross-compile to Specific Platforms

You can also specify a target platform for the make file:

$ GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 make

Docker Build

There are a few Docker targets available depending on your needs:

test - Runs the unit tests
production - Builds the production Docker image, including optional dependencies like Metasploit
production-slim - Builds the production Docker image, but without Metasploit and other optional dependencies

From the project root directory run:

docker build --target production -t sliver .

Compiling Sliver on Kali Linux

{"src": "/asciinema/sliver-docker-production.cast", "cols": "132"}

The Docker build includes mingw and Metasploit, so it can take a while to build from scratch but Docker should cache the layers effectively. Sliver will also run its unit tests as part of the build, and that takes a few minutes too.

Windows Builds

If all you have is a Windows machine, the easiest way to build Sliver is using WSL and following the Linux/cross-compile instructions above. To cross-compile a Windows binary use make windows-amd64 and copy it to your Windows file system (i.e. /mnt/c/Users/foo/Desktop) and, you will need to run it using a terminal that supports ANSI sequences such as the Windows Terminal.

Developers

If you want to modify any of the .proto files you'll need to set up a few additional tools to regenerate the .pb.go files.

Protoc libprotoc v26.1 or later
Protoc-gen-go v1.27.1
Protoc-gen-go-grpc v1.2.0

`protoc`

First install your platform's version of protoc v3.19.4 or later:

https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases/latest

Ensure that the correct protoc version is on your $PATH, you can check with a simple protoc --version

`protoc-gen-go` `protoc-gen-go-grpc`

Assuming $GOPATH/bin is on your $PATH simply run the following commands to install the appropriate versions of protoc-gen-go and protoc-gen-go-grpc:

go install google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go@v1.27.1
go install google.golang.org/grpc/cmd/protoc-gen-go-grpc@v1.2.0

Ensure that these are both on your $PATH after running the commands; if not, you probably need to add $GOPATH/bin to your $PATH. To regenerate the Protobuf and gRPC files run:

$ make pb