Setting Up a BE Development Environment with CLion

This document covers two typical CLion development modes for BE (Backend):

• Option 1: Remote development (recommended). Local CLion connects to a remote Linux server through SSH/SFTP, with code synchronized to the remote machine for compilation and execution. This is the most common Doris BE development setup, because BE depends on a complete Linux toolchain.
• Option 2: macOS local development. Compile and debug BE directly on macOS, with no remote server required.

Option 1: Remote Development (Linux)

1. Download and compile the code on the remote server

On the remote Linux server, download and compile Doris:

git clone https://github.com/apache/doris.git
cd doris

Edit env.sh and add a DORIS_HOME configuration at the top, for example:

DORIS_HOME=/mnt/datadisk0/chenqi/doris

Run the build (for the detailed process, see LDB Toolchain compilation):

./build.sh

2. Configure the remote development environment in local CLion

1. Download and install CLion locally, then import the Doris BE code.

2. In CLion, open Preferences → Build, Execution, Deployment → Deployment and use SFTP to add the login information for the remote development server. Set the Mappings paths, for example:

   • Local Path: /User/kaka/Programs/doris/be
   • Deployment Path: /mnt/datadisk0/chenqi/clion/doris/be

   

   

3. Copy the gensrc directory that was generated on the remote server during compilation to the parent directory of the Deployment Path:

   cp -R /mnt/datadisk0/chenqi/doris/gensrc /mnt/datadisk0/chenqi/clion/doris/gensrc

4. Open Preferences → Build, Execution, Deployment → Toolchains and add the toolchain for the remote environment (CMake, GCC, G++, GDB, and so on).

   Important

   In the Environment file field, fill in the path to the env.sh file in the Doris code on the remote server.

   

5. Open Preferences → Build, Execution, Deployment → CMake and add the following to CMake options:

   -DDORIS_JAVA_HOME=/path/to/remote/JAVA_HOME

   Set this to the JAVA_HOME path on the remote server. Otherwise, jni.h cannot be found.

6. In CLion, right-click and select Load CMake Project. This action synchronizes the code to the remote server and generates the CMake build files.

3. Run and debug remote BE from local CLion

1. In Preferences → Build, Execution, Deployment → CMake, configure CMake. You can configure different targets such as Debug or Release, and set ToolChain to the remote toolchain you configured earlier.

   To run and debug unit tests, add -DMAKE_TEST=ON to CMake options (it is off by default).

2. On the remote server, copy the output directory to a separate path:

   cp -R /mnt/datadisk0/chenqi/doris/output /mnt/datadisk0/chenqi/clion/doris/doris_be

   

3. In CLion, select the doris_be target (Debug or Release) and configure it. Use the environment variables exported in be/bin/start_be.sh as a reference, and point each variable to the corresponding path on the remote server:

   

4. Click Run to compile and start BE, or click Debug to compile and debug BE.

Option 2: macOS Local Development

On macOS, you can compile and debug BE entirely locally, with no remote server required. Before you start, complete the dependency installation and code checkout described in macOS compilation.

1. Open the Doris source root directory

2. Configure CLion

Configure the toolchain: configure according to the figure below. All detections should pass.

Configure CMake: configure according to the figure below.

After confirming the configuration, CLion automatically loads the CMake file the first time. If it does not load automatically, right-click $DORIS_HOME/be/CMakeLists.txt and select Load.

3. Configure Debug BE

Select Edit Configurations:

Add environment variables for doris_be. Use the environment variables exported in be/bin/start_be.sh as a reference. The Doris directory values in the environment variables should point to the runtime directory you copied out. Reference environment variables:

Environment variable	Example value	Description
JAVA_OPTS	-Xmx1024m -DlogPath=$DORIS_HOME/log/jni.log -Dsun.java.command=DorisBE -XX:-CriticalJNINatives -DJDBC_MIN_POOL=1 -DJDBC_MAX_POOL=100 -DJDBC_MAX_IDLE_TIME=300000	JVM startup arguments
LOG_DIR	~/DorisDev/doris-run/be/log	BE log directory
NLS_LANG	AMERICAN_AMERICA.AL32UTF8	Oracle JDBC encoding
ODBCSYSINI	~/DorisDev/doris-run/be/conf	ODBC config directory
PID_DIR	~/DorisDev/doris-run/be/log	PID file directory
UDF_RUNTIME_DIR	~/DorisDev/doris-run/be/lib/udf-runtime	UDF runtime directory
DORIS_HOME	~/DorisDev/doris-run/be	BE runtime directory

JAVA_OPTS=-Xmx1024m -DlogPath=$DORIS_HOME/log/jni.log -Dsun.java.command=DorisBE -XX:-CriticalJNINatives -DJDBC_MIN_POOL=1 -DJDBC_MAX_POOL=100 -DJDBC_MAX_IDLE_TIME=300000
LOG_DIR=~/DorisDev/doris-run/be/log
NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.AL32UTF8
ODBCSYSINI=~/DorisDev/doris-run/be/conf
PID_DIR=~/DorisDev/doris-run/be/log
UDF_RUNTIME_DIR=~/DorisDev/doris-run/be/lib/udf-runtime
DORIS_HOME=~/DorisDev/doris-run/be

4. Start debugging

Click Run or Debug. CLion starts compiling, and BE starts after compilation completes.

FAQ

Q1: Remote compilation reports jni.h not found

The -DDORIS_JAVA_HOME option in CMake options is not correctly set to the remote JAVA_HOME. See step 5 under Option 1, section 2.

Q2: CLion cannot find symbols or shows a lot of red underlines

The gensrc directory was not copied to the parent directory of the Deployment Path, or Load CMake Project was not clicked to reload.

Q3: BE exits immediately after startup

The environment variables DORIS_HOME, PID_DIR, or LOG_DIR are not configured, or the paths do not exist. Check the environment variable table above; all paths must be created in advance.