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Matthew Barker edited this page Jul 24, 2026 · 8 revisions

Building

A3DB has two build steps: the Rust extension (native DLL/SO) and the Arma 3 addon (PBO files via HEMTT).

Prerequisites

  • Rust 1.80+ (stable)
  • HEMTT 1.20+ — Arma addon build tool
  • CBA_A3 — for addon compilation (HEMTT dev dependencies)

Quick Build

# 1. Build the Rust extension
cargo build --release -p a3db

# 2. Copy to Arma 3 directory
cp target/release/liba3db.so "/path/to/Arma 3/@a3db/a3db_x64.so"
# or for Windows cross-compile:
cp target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/release/a3db.dll "/path/to/Arma 3/@a3db/a3db_x64.dll"

# 3. Build addon PBOs
hemtt build

# 4. Result in .hemttout/build/

Cross-compilation

The extension targets 4 architectures via rust-toolchain.toml:

# Linux x86_64 (native)
cargo build --release --target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu -p a3db

# Linux 32-bit
cargo build --release --target i686-unknown-linux-gnu -p a3db

# Windows x86_64 (MinGW cross)
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu -p a3db

# Windows 32-bit
cargo build --release --target i686-pc-windows-gnu -p a3db

Testing

cargo test -p a3db            # 118+ tests
cargo clippy -p a3db          # lint
cargo fmt --check             # formatting
hemtt check                   # SQF + config validation

CI/CD

GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/ci.yml) runs on push/PR to main:

  1. test — cargo test + clippy + rustfmt on ubuntu-latest
  2. build-linux — cross-compile for x86_64 and i686 Linux
  3. build-windows — cross-compile for x86_64 and i686 Windows (MinGW)
  4. build-addon — downloads all artifacts, runs hemtt build, outputs PBOs

On a release publish, it creates a3db-release.zip with the full addon.

Standalone Server

The a3db-server binary is part of the same workspace:

cargo run --bin a3db-server -- --port 33307
cargo build --release --bin a3db-server

Arma 3 Installation

Deploy the addon to your Arma 3 directory:

# Linux (native)
cp extension/target/release/a3db_x64.so ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Arma\ 3/@a3db/

# Windows (cross-compiled via MinGW)
cp target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/release/a3db.dll "/path/to/Arma 3/@a3db/a3db_x64.dll"

The HEMTT-built PBOs go in the same @a3db directory alongside the DLLs.

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