Build Tools

make: command not found

Covers: bash make command not found · make not found · all Linux distros and macOS — May 2026

🐧 Ubuntu / Debian 🎩 CentOS / RHEL 🏔️ Alpine 🍎 macOS

$ make install
bash: make: command not found

⚡ Quick Fix by OS

# Ubuntu / Debian (installs gcc, g++, make together):
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y build-essential

# Ubuntu / Debian (make only):
sudo apt install -y make

# CentOS 7 / RHEL 7:
sudo yum install -y make

# CentOS 8+ / RHEL 8+ / Fedora:
sudo dnf install -y make

# Alpine Linux:
apk add --no-cache make

# macOS (Xcode Command Line Tools):
xcode-select --install

Why Is make Missing?

make is a build automation tool used to compile source code. It's not installed on minimal Linux images or fresh cloud VPS instances. Common scenarios where it's missing:

Fresh Ubuntu/Debian VPS without build-essential
Minimal Docker image (Alpine, Debian slim)
macOS without Xcode Command Line Tools installed
Compiling software from source (e.g. Redis, Python, nginx from source)

Ubuntu: Install build-essential (Recommended)

On Ubuntu and Debian, the build-essential package installs make, gcc, g++, and other tools needed to compile most software:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential

# Verify:
make --version
gcc --version

Fix in Dockerfile

FROM debian:bookworm-slim

RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
      make gcc g++ && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools

On macOS, make is bundled with the Xcode Command Line Tools. Running the command below will prompt a GUI dialog to install them:

# Trigger Xcode CLT install dialog:
xcode-select --install

# Or install via Homebrew (also installs CLT):
brew install make

# Verify after install:
make --version