Netdata Windows Driver

Used for collecting hardware metrics that aren’t accessible through the regular Windows APIs, such as per-core CPU temperatures.

This is kept as a separate repository as it is versioned independently from the main Netdata Agent code due to code signing complexities for drivers.

Building

This repository builds the Windows kernel driver as netdata_driver.sys, stages netdata_driver.inf, and generates netdata_driver.cat for the driver package.

Prerequisites

• Build on Windows using either:
  • an MSYS2 MinGW shell, or
  • a Microsoft Visual C++ compiler environment with the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) available.
• Install CMake and a build tool such as Ninja or GNU Make.
• For MSYS2 MinGW builds, install a MinGW toolchain capable of linking kernel32 and ntoskrnl.
• For GNU-style Windows toolchains, ensure the Windows DDK headers are installed in a directory containing ntddk.h. Common MSYS2 layouts include /mingw64/include/ddk, /clang64/include/ddk, /ucrt64/include/ddk, and /usr/include/w32api/ddk.
• If the headers live elsewhere, pass -DNETDATA_DRIVER_GNU_DDK_INCLUDE_DIR=<path> pointing to the directory that contains ntddk.h.
• Install the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) so Inf2Cat is available during the Windows build.

Inf2Cat is mandatory for the Windows build. The repository root CMakeLists.txt now selects compiler-specific include paths and flags for GNU-style Windows toolchains and MSVC separately, and still generates netdata_driver.cat during the normal Windows build.

Configure

Preferred helper script:

./packaging/compile-on-msys.sh

MSVC helper script:

.\packaging\compile-on-msvc.ps1

Manual configure command:

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja

If Ninja is not available, use:

cmake -S . -B build -G "Unix Makefiles"

For MSVC/WDK environments, use .\packaging\compile-on-msvc.ps1, or run CMake manually with a Visual Studio generator or Ninja from a developer prompt where the WDK include and library paths are already configured. For example:

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja

Build

If you used the helper script, it already performs this step.

Manual build command:

cmake --build build

Install

To install the generated files using CMake's install rules:

cmake --install build

By default, installation uses CMAKE_INSTALL_BINDIR. If BINDIR is provided by a parent CMake project, that value is used instead.

To stage the installed files into /opt/netdata and build the MSI using the repository helper:

./packaging/package-windows.sh

Set BUILD_DIR, PACKAGE_ROOT, WIX_BIN, WIX_ARCH, WIX_SOURCE, or WIX_OUTPUT if you need to override the default build directory, staging root, WiX executable, or WiX output settings. WIX_SOURCE and WIX_OUTPUT are evaluated from inside the build directory by default.

Build Outputs

After a successful build, the main artifacts are:

• build/netdata_driver.sys
• build/netdata_driver.inf
• build/netdata_driver.cat

Notes

• packaging/compile-on-msys.sh checks the required binaries before building, auto-detects a supported MSYS2 DDK include directory, and uses build/ as the output directory.
• packaging/compile-on-msys.sh auto-detects Inf2Cat.exe from the default Windows Kits 10 installation directory when it is not already on PATH.
• packaging/compile-on-msvc.ps1 defaults to build-msvc/ and selects Ninja when both ninja and cl are already available; otherwise it falls back to Visual Studio 17 2022.
• packaging/compile-on-msvc.ps1 uses CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE as the configuration name for multi-config generators. The default is RelWithDebInfo.
• packaging/compile-on-msvc.sh is retained only as a compatibility wrapper that forwards to the PowerShell script.
• NETDATA_DRIVER_GNU_DDK_INCLUDE_DIR controls where GNU-style Windows builds look for ntddk.h. The configure step auto-detects a supported MSYS2 DDK include directory when possible.
• packaging/package-windows.sh installs the generated driver package artifacts from build/ into /opt/netdata by default, then changes into build/ and runs wix build there so the packaged assets resolve correctly.
• cmake -S . -B build now also stages Windows installer assets into build/, including build/netdata_driver.wxs.
• Override the Inf2Cat OS target list with -DNETDATA_DRIVER_INF2CAT_OS=<comma-separated-identifiers> if you need a different Windows support matrix.
• packaging/package-windows.sh uses wix from PATH when available, otherwise it probes common WiX installation directories and builds build/netdata-driver-x64.msi by default.
• This repository currently documents the build flow, but the commands have not been validated in this repository yet.
• Driver signing is not handled by this repository CMake file.