How To Install Go on CentOS 8 / RHEL 8

Are you looking for an easy way to install Go (Golang) on CentOS 8 / RHEL 8?. Go or Golang is an open source programming language designed to ease the Development of reliable, simple, and efficient applications.

RHEL 8 doesn’t come with Go pre-installed but you’ll have to download and install the package from RHEL 8 upstream repositories. The process is simple enough that it doesn’t require good understanding of Linux and Red Hat system.

Linux Mint 19: How to Install Go (Golang) on Linux Mint 19

For Ubuntu 18.04/ CentOS 7, refer to: How to Install latest Go on CentOS 7 / Ubuntu 18.04

Install Go on CentOS 8 / RHEL 8

You can confirm the availability of Go on RHEL 8 by running the command below.

sudo yum module list go-toolset

The package has the name “go-toolset“. Install Go on RHEL 8 using:

sudo yum module -y install go-toolset

Confirm the RPM package details:

$ rpm -qi go-toolset
 Name        : go-toolset
 Version     : 1.10.3
 Release     : 10.module+el8+2175+e66141eb
 Architecture: x86_64
 Install Date: Wed 16 Jan 2019 11:27:49 PM EAT
 Group       : Unspecified
 Size        : 0
 License     : GPLv2+
 Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Tue 06 Nov 2018 12:09:01 AM EAT, Key ID 938a80caf21541eb
 Source RPM  : go-toolset-1.10.3-10.module+el8+2175+e66141eb.src.rpm
 Build Date  : Mon 05 Nov 2018 09:24:07 PM EAT
 Build Host  : x86-vm-07.build.eng.bos.redhat.com
 Relocations : (not relocatable)
 Packager    : Red Hat, Inc. http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla
 Vendor      : Red Hat, Inc.
 Summary     : Package that installs go-toolset
 Description :
 This is the main package for go-toolset.

Test Go installation on CentOS 8 / RHEL 8

Now that we have Go installed on RHEL 8, let’s test to ensure it is working.

Start by creating your workspace directory.

mkdir $HOME/go

Create a directory inside it to host a test Go application.

cd $HOME/go
mkdir -p src/helloworld

Create a file named helloworld.go that looks like:

package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
	fmt.Printf("hello, world\n")
}

Build the application with go tool

cd $HOME/go/src/helloworld
go build

This will generate a new file called helloworld .

$ ls
helloworld  helloworld.go

Execute the file by running.

$ ./helloworld 
hello, world

To install the binary into your workspace’s bin directory, use:

$ go install
$ ls ~/go/bin/
helloworld

To remove it use:

go clean -i

You can add your Go binary directory to $PATH.

$ vim ~/.bashrc 
export PATH="$PATH:~/go/bin/"

You have installed Go on RHEL 8. Enjoy developing Go applications on your RHEL workstation.

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