xref: /openbmc/u-boot/tools/buildman/README (revision 23ff8633)
1# Copyright (c) 2013 The Chromium OS Authors.
2#
3# SPDX-License-Identifier:	GPL-2.0+
4#
5
6(Please read 'How to change from MAKEALL' if you are used to that tool)
7
8What is this?
9=============
10
11This tool handles building U-Boot to check that you have not broken it
12with your patch series. It can build each individual commit and report
13which boards fail on which commits, and which errors come up. It aims
14to make full use of multi-processor machines.
15
16A key feature of buildman is its output summary, which allows warnings,
17errors or image size increases in a particular commit or board to be
18quickly identified and the offending commit pinpointed. This can be a big
19help for anyone working with >10 patches at a time.
20
21
22Caveats
23=======
24
25Buildman is still in its infancy. It is already a very useful tool, but
26expect to find problems and send patches.
27
28Buildman can be stopped and restarted, in which case it will continue
29where it left off. This should happen cleanly and without side-effects.
30If not, it is a bug, for which a patch would be welcome.
31
32Buildman gets so tied up in its work that it can ignore the outside world.
33You may need to press Ctrl-C several times to quit it. Also it will print
34out various exceptions when stopped.
35
36
37Theory of Operation
38===================
39
40(please read this section in full twice or you will be perpetually confused)
41
42Buildman is a builder. It is not make, although it runs make. It does not
43produce any useful output on the terminal while building, except for
44progress information (except with -v, see below). All the output (errors,
45warnings and binaries if you ask for them) is stored in output
46directories, which you can look at while the build is progressing, or when
47it is finished.
48
49Buildman produces a concise summary of which boards succeeded and failed.
50It shows which commit introduced which board failure using a simple
51red/green colour coding. Full error information can be requested, in which
52case it is de-duped and displayed against the commit that introduced the
53error. An example workflow is below.
54
55Buildman stores image size information and can report changes in image size
56from commit to commit. An example of this is below.
57
58Buildman starts multiple threads, and each thread builds for one board at
59a time. A thread starts at the first commit, configures the source for your
60board and builds it. Then it checks out the next commit and does an
61incremental build. Eventually the thread reaches the last commit and stops.
62If errors or warnings are found along the way, the thread will reconfigure
63after every commit, and your build will be very slow. This is because a
64file that produces just a warning would not normally be rebuilt in an
65incremental build.
66
67Buildman works in an entirely separate place from your U-Boot repository.
68It creates a separate working directory for each thread, and puts the
69output files in the working directory, organised by commit name and board
70name, in a two-level hierarchy.
71
72Buildman is invoked in your U-Boot directory, the one with the .git
73directory. It clones this repository into a copy for each thread, and the
74threads do not affect the state of your git repository. Any checkouts done
75by the thread affect only the working directory for that thread.
76
77Buildman automatically selects the correct tool chain for each board. You
78must supply suitable tool chains, but buildman takes care of selecting the
79right one.
80
81Buildman generally builds a branch (with the -b flag), and in this case
82builds the upstream commit as well, for comparison. It cannot build
83individual commits at present, unless (maybe) you point it at an empty
84branch. Put all your commits in a branch, set the branch's upstream to a
85valid value, and all will be well. Otherwise buildman will perform random
86actions. Use -n to check what the random actions might be.
87
88If you just want to build the current source tree, leave off the -b flag
89and add -e. This will display results and errors as they happen. You can
90still look at them later using -se. Note that buildman will assume that the
91source has changed, and will build all specified boards in this case.
92
93Buildman is optimised for building many commits at once, for many boards.
94On multi-core machines, Buildman is fast because it uses most of the
95available CPU power. When it gets to the end, or if you are building just
96a few commits or boards, it will be pretty slow. As a tip, if you don't
97plan to use your machine for anything else, you can use -T to increase the
98number of threads beyond the default.
99
100Buildman lets you build all boards, or a subset. Specify the subset by passing
101command-line arguments that list the desired board name, architecture name,
102SOC name, or anything else in the boards.cfg file. Multiple arguments are
103allowed. Each argument will be interpreted as a regular expression, so
104behaviour is a superset of exact or substring matching. Examples are:
105
106* 'tegra20'      All boards with a Tegra20 SoC
107* 'tegra'        All boards with any Tegra Soc (Tegra20, Tegra30, Tegra114...)
108* '^tegra[23]0$' All boards with either Tegra20 or Tegra30 SoC
109* 'powerpc'      All PowerPC boards
110
111While the default is to OR the terms together, you can also make use of
112the '&' operator to limit the selection:
113
114* 'freescale & arm sandbox'  All Freescale boards with ARM architecture,
115                             plus sandbox
116
117You can also use -x to specifically exclude some boards. For example:
118
119 buildmand arm -x nvidia,freescale,.*ball$
120
121means to build all arm boards except nvidia, freescale and anything ending
122with 'ball'.
123
124It is convenient to use the -n option to see what will be built based on
125the subset given.
126
127Buildman does not store intermediate object files. It optionally copies
128the binary output into a directory when a build is successful. Size
129information is always recorded. It needs a fair bit of disk space to work,
130typically 250MB per thread.
131
132
133Setting up
134==========
135
1361. Get the U-Boot source. You probably already have it, but if not these
137steps should get you started with a repo and some commits for testing.
138
139$ cd /path/to/u-boot
140$ git clone git://git.denx.de/u-boot.git .
141$ git checkout -b my-branch origin/master
142$ # Add some commits to the branch, reading for testing
143
1442. Create ~/.buildman to tell buildman where to find tool chains (see 'The
145.buildman file' later for details). As an example:
146
147# Buildman settings file
148
149[toolchain]
150root: /
151rest: /toolchains/*
152eldk: /opt/eldk-4.2
153arm: /opt/linaro/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.8-2013.08_linux
154aarch64: /opt/linaro/gcc-linaro-aarch64-none-elf-4.8-2013.10_linux
155
156[toolchain-alias]
157x86: i386
158blackfin: bfin
159nds32: nds32le
160openrisc: or32
161
162
163This selects the available toolchain paths. Add the base directory for
164each of your toolchains here. Buildman will search inside these directories
165and also in any '/usr' and '/usr/bin' subdirectories.
166
167Make sure the tags (here root: rest: and eldk:) are unique.
168
169The toolchain-alias section indicates that the i386 toolchain should be used
170to build x86 commits.
171
172
1733. Make sure you have the require Python pre-requisites
174
175Buildman uses multiprocessing, Queue, shutil, StringIO, ConfigParser and
176urllib2. These should normally be available, but if you get an error like
177this then you will need to obtain those modules:
178
179    ImportError: No module named multiprocessing
180
181
1824. Check the available toolchains
183
184Run this check to make sure that you have a toolchain for every architecture.
185
186$ ./tools/buildman/buildman --list-tool-chains
187Scanning for tool chains
188   - scanning path '/'
189      - looking in '/.'
190      - looking in '/bin'
191      - looking in '/usr/bin'
192         - found '/usr/bin/gcc'
193Tool chain test:  OK
194         - found '/usr/bin/c89-gcc'
195Tool chain test:  OK
196         - found '/usr/bin/c99-gcc'
197Tool chain test:  OK
198         - found '/usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc'
199Tool chain test:  OK
200   - scanning path '/toolchains/powerpc-linux'
201      - looking in '/toolchains/powerpc-linux/.'
202      - looking in '/toolchains/powerpc-linux/bin'
203         - found '/toolchains/powerpc-linux/bin/powerpc-linux-gcc'
204Tool chain test:  OK
205      - looking in '/toolchains/powerpc-linux/usr/bin'
206   - scanning path '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f'
207      - looking in '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/.'
208      - looking in '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/bin'
209         - found '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/bin/nds32le-linux-gcc'
210Tool chain test:  OK
211      - looking in '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/usr/bin'
212   - scanning path '/toolchains/nios2'
213      - looking in '/toolchains/nios2/.'
214      - looking in '/toolchains/nios2/bin'
215         - found '/toolchains/nios2/bin/nios2-linux-gcc'
216Tool chain test:  OK
217         - found '/toolchains/nios2/bin/nios2-linux-uclibc-gcc'
218Tool chain test:  OK
219      - looking in '/toolchains/nios2/usr/bin'
220         - found '/toolchains/nios2/usr/bin/nios2-linux-gcc'
221Tool chain test:  OK
222         - found '/toolchains/nios2/usr/bin/nios2-linux-uclibc-gcc'
223Tool chain test:  OK
224   - scanning path '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu'
225      - looking in '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/.'
226      - looking in '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin'
227         - found '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc'
228Tool chain test:  OK
229         - found '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/mb-linux-gcc'
230Tool chain test:  OK
231      - looking in '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/usr/bin'
232   - scanning path '/toolchains/mips-linux'
233      - looking in '/toolchains/mips-linux/.'
234      - looking in '/toolchains/mips-linux/bin'
235         - found '/toolchains/mips-linux/bin/mips-linux-gcc'
236Tool chain test:  OK
237      - looking in '/toolchains/mips-linux/usr/bin'
238   - scanning path '/toolchains/old'
239      - looking in '/toolchains/old/.'
240      - looking in '/toolchains/old/bin'
241      - looking in '/toolchains/old/usr/bin'
242   - scanning path '/toolchains/i386-linux'
243      - looking in '/toolchains/i386-linux/.'
244      - looking in '/toolchains/i386-linux/bin'
245         - found '/toolchains/i386-linux/bin/i386-linux-gcc'
246Tool chain test:  OK
247      - looking in '/toolchains/i386-linux/usr/bin'
248   - scanning path '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux'
249      - looking in '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux/.'
250      - looking in '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux/bin'
251         - found '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux/bin/bfin-uclinux-gcc'
252Tool chain test:  OK
253      - looking in '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux/usr/bin'
254   - scanning path '/toolchains/sparc-elf'
255      - looking in '/toolchains/sparc-elf/.'
256      - looking in '/toolchains/sparc-elf/bin'
257         - found '/toolchains/sparc-elf/bin/sparc-elf-gcc'
258Tool chain test:  OK
259      - looking in '/toolchains/sparc-elf/usr/bin'
260   - scanning path '/toolchains/arm-2010q1'
261      - looking in '/toolchains/arm-2010q1/.'
262      - looking in '/toolchains/arm-2010q1/bin'
263         - found '/toolchains/arm-2010q1/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc'
264Tool chain test:  OK
265      - looking in '/toolchains/arm-2010q1/usr/bin'
266   - scanning path '/toolchains/from'
267      - looking in '/toolchains/from/.'
268      - looking in '/toolchains/from/bin'
269      - looking in '/toolchains/from/usr/bin'
270   - scanning path '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu'
271      - looking in '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/.'
272      - looking in '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/bin'
273         - found '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/bin/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu-gcc'
274Tool chain test:  OK
275      - looking in '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/usr/bin'
276   - scanning path '/toolchains/avr32-linux'
277      - looking in '/toolchains/avr32-linux/.'
278      - looking in '/toolchains/avr32-linux/bin'
279         - found '/toolchains/avr32-linux/bin/avr32-gcc'
280Tool chain test:  OK
281      - looking in '/toolchains/avr32-linux/usr/bin'
282   - scanning path '/toolchains/m68k-linux'
283      - looking in '/toolchains/m68k-linux/.'
284      - looking in '/toolchains/m68k-linux/bin'
285         - found '/toolchains/m68k-linux/bin/m68k-linux-gcc'
286Tool chain test:  OK
287      - looking in '/toolchains/m68k-linux/usr/bin'
288List of available toolchains (17):
289arm       : /toolchains/arm-2010q1/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc
290avr32     : /toolchains/avr32-linux/bin/avr32-gcc
291bfin      : /toolchains/bfin-uclinux/bin/bfin-uclinux-gcc
292c89       : /usr/bin/c89-gcc
293c99       : /usr/bin/c99-gcc
294i386      : /toolchains/i386-linux/bin/i386-linux-gcc
295m68k      : /toolchains/m68k-linux/bin/m68k-linux-gcc
296mb        : /toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/mb-linux-gcc
297microblaze: /toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc
298mips      : /toolchains/mips-linux/bin/mips-linux-gcc
299nds32le   : /toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/bin/nds32le-linux-gcc
300nios2     : /toolchains/nios2/bin/nios2-linux-gcc
301powerpc   : /toolchains/powerpc-linux/bin/powerpc-linux-gcc
302sandbox   : /usr/bin/gcc
303sh4       : /toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/bin/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu-gcc
304sparc     : /toolchains/sparc-elf/bin/sparc-elf-gcc
305x86_64    : /usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc
306
307
308You can see that everything is covered, even some strange ones that won't
309be used (c88 and c99). This is a feature.
310
311
3125. Install new toolchains if needed
313
314You can download toolchains and update the [toolchain] section of the
315settings file to find them.
316
317To make this easier, buildman can automatically download and install
318toolchains from kernel.org. First list the available architectures:
319
320$ ./tools/buildman/buildman --fetch-arch list
321Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.3/
322Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.2/
323Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.5.1/
324Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.2.4/
325Available architectures: alpha am33_2.0 arm avr32 bfin cris crisv32 frv h8300
326hppa hppa64 i386 ia64 m32r m68k mips mips64 or32 powerpc powerpc64 s390x sh4
327sparc sparc64 tilegx x86_64 xtensa
328
329Then pick one and download it:
330
331$ ./tools/buildman/buildman --fetch-arch or32
332Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.3/
333Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.2/
334Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.5.1/
335Downloading: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.5.1//x86_64-gcc-4.5.1-nolibc_or32-linux.tar.xz
336Unpacking to: /home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains
337Testing
338      - looking in '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/.'
339      - looking in '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/bin'
340         - found '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/bin/or32-linux-gcc'
341Tool chain test:  OK
342
343Or download them all from kernel.org and move them to /toolchains directory,
344
345$ for i in aarch64 arm avr32 i386 m68k microblaze mips or32 powerpc sparc
346  do
347  ./tools/buildman/buildman --fetch-arch $i
348  done
349$ sudo mkdir -p /toolchains
350$ sudo mv ~/.buildman-toolchains/*/* /toolchains/
351
352For those not available from kernel.org, download from the following links.
353
354arc: https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/toolchain/releases/
355    arc_gnu_2015.06_prebuilt_uclibc_le_archs_linux_install.tar.gz
356blackfin: http://sourceforge.net/projects/adi-toolchain/files/
357    blackfin-toolchain-elf-gcc-4.5-2014R1_45-RC2.x86_64.tar.bz2
358nds32: http://osdk.andestech.com/packages/
359    nds32le-linux-glibc-v1.tgz
360nios2: http://sourcery.mentor.com/public/gnu_toolchain/nios2-linux-gnu/
361    sourceryg++-2015.11-27-nios2-linux-gnu-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2
362sh: http://sourcery.mentor.com/public/gnu_toolchain/sh-linux-gnu/
363    renesas-4.4-200-sh-linux-gnu-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2
364
365Buildman should now be set up to use your new toolchain.
366
367At the time of writing, U-Boot has these architectures:
368
369   arc, arm, avr32, blackfin, m68k, microblaze, mips, nds32, nios2, openrisc
370   powerpc, sandbox, sh, sparc, x86
371
372Of these, only arc and nds32 are not available at kernel.org..
373
374
375How to run it
376=============
377
378First do a dry run using the -n flag: (replace <branch> with a real, local
379branch with a valid upstream)
380
381$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch> -n
382
383If it can't detect the upstream branch, try checking out the branch, and
384doing something like 'git branch --set-upstream-to upstream/master'
385or something similar. Buildman will try to guess a suitable upstream branch
386if it can't find one (you will see a message like" Guessing upstream as ...).
387
388As an example:
389
390Dry run, so not doing much. But I would do this:
391
392Building 18 commits for 1059 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
393Build directory: ../lcd9b
394    5bb3505 Merge branch 'master' of git://git.denx.de/u-boot-arm
395    c18f1b4 tegra: Use const for pinmux_config_pingroup/table()
396    2f043ae tegra: Add display support to funcmux
397    e349900 tegra: fdt: Add pwm binding and node
398    424a5f0 tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Tegra
399    0636ccf tegra: Add support for PWM
400    a994fe7 tegra: Add SOC support for display/lcd
401    fcd7350 tegra: Add LCD driver
402    4d46e9d tegra: Add LCD support to Nvidia boards
403    991bd48 arm: Add control over cachability of memory regions
404    54e8019 lcd: Add CONFIG_LCD_ALIGNMENT to select frame buffer alignment
405    d92aff7 lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
406    dbd0677 tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
407    0cff9b8 tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
408    9c56900 tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
409    5cc29db lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
410    cac5a23 tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
411    49ff541 wip
412
413Total boards to build for each commit: 1059
414
415This shows that it will build all 1059 boards, using 4 threads (because
416we have a 4-core CPU). Each thread will run with -j1, meaning that each
417make job will use a single CPU. The list of commits to be built helps you
418confirm that things look about right. Notice that buildman has chosen a
419'base' directory for you, immediately above your source tree.
420
421Buildman works entirely inside the base directory, here ../lcd9b,
422creating a working directory for each thread, and creating output
423directories for each commit and board.
424
425
426Suggested Workflow
427==================
428
429To run the build for real, take off the -n:
430
431$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch>
432
433Buildman will set up some working directories, and get started. After a
434minute or so it will settle down to a steady pace, with a display like this:
435
436Building 18 commits for 1059 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
437  528   36  124 /19062  1:13:30  : SIMPC8313_SP
438
439This means that it is building 19062 board/commit combinations. So far it
440has managed to successfully build 528. Another 36 have built with warnings,
441and 124 more didn't build at all. Buildman expects to complete the process
442in an hour and 15 minutes. Use this time to buy a faster computer.
443
444
445To find out how the build went, ask for a summary with -s. You can do this
446either before the build completes (presumably in another terminal) or
447afterwards. Let's work through an example of how this is used:
448
449$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b lcd9b -s
450...
45101: Merge branch 'master' of git://git.denx.de/u-boot-arm
452   powerpc:   + galaxy5200_LOWBOOT
45302: tegra: Use const for pinmux_config_pingroup/table()
45403: tegra: Add display support to funcmux
45504: tegra: fdt: Add pwm binding and node
45605: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Tegra
45706: tegra: Add support for PWM
45807: tegra: Add SOC support for display/lcd
45908: tegra: Add LCD driver
46009: tegra: Add LCD support to Nvidia boards
46110: arm: Add control over cachability of memory regions
46211: lcd: Add CONFIG_LCD_ALIGNMENT to select frame buffer alignment
46312: lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
464       arm:   + lubbock
46513: tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
46614: tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
46715: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
46816: lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
46917: tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
47018: wip
471
472This shows which commits have succeeded and which have failed. In this case
473the build is still in progress so many boards are not built yet (use -u to
474see which ones). But still we can see a few failures. The galaxy5200_LOWBOOT
475never builds correctly. This could be a problem with our toolchain, or it
476could be a bug in the upstream. The good news is that we probably don't need
477to blame our commits. The bad news is it isn't tested on that board.
478
479Commit 12 broke lubbock. That's what the '+ lubbock' means. The failure
480is never fixed by a later commit, or you would see lubbock again, in green,
481without the +.
482
483To see the actual error:
484
485$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch> -se lubbock
486...
48712: lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
488       arm:   + lubbock
489+common/libcommon.o: In function `lcd_sync':
490+/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:120: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
491+arm-none-linux-gnueabi-ld: BFD (Sourcery G++ Lite 2010q1-202) 2.19.51.20090709 assertion fail /scratch/julian/2010q1-release-linux-lite/obj/binutils-src-2010q1-202-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu/bfd/elf32-arm.c:12572
492+make: *** [/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/build/u-boot] Error 139
49313: tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
49414: tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
49515: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
49616: lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
497-/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:120: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
498+/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:125: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
49917: tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
50018: wip
501
502So the problem is in lcd.c, due to missing cache operations. This information
503should be enough to work out what that commit is doing to break these
504boards. (In this case pxa did not have cache operations defined).
505
506If you see error lines marked with - that means that the errors were fixed
507by that commit. Sometimes commits can be in the wrong order, so that a
508breakage is introduced for a few commits and fixed by later commits. This
509shows up clearly with buildman. You can then reorder the commits and try
510again.
511
512At commit 16, the error moves - you can see that the old error at line 120
513is fixed, but there is a new one at line 126. This is probably only because
514we added some code and moved the broken line further down the file.
515
516If many boards have the same error, then -e will display the error only
517once. This makes the output as concise as possible. To see which boards have
518each error, use -l.
519
520Buildman tries to distinguish warnings from errors, and shows warning lines
521separately with a 'w' prefix.
522
523The full build output in this case is available in:
524
525../lcd9b/12_of_18_gd92aff7_lcd--Add-support-for/lubbock/
526
527   done: Indicates the build was done, and holds the return code from make.
528         This is 0 for a good build, typically 2 for a failure.
529
530   err:  Output from stderr, if any. Errors and warnings appear here.
531
532   log:  Output from stdout. Normally there isn't any since buildman runs
533         in silent mode for now.
534
535   toolchain: Shows information about the toolchain used for the build.
536
537   sizes: Shows image size information.
538
539It is possible to get the build output there also. Use the -k option for
540this. In that case you will also see some output files, like:
541
542   System.map  toolchain  u-boot  u-boot.bin  u-boot.map  autoconf.mk
543   (also SPL versions u-boot-spl and u-boot-spl.bin if available)
544
545
546Checking Image Sizes
547====================
548
549A key requirement for U-Boot is that you keep code/data size to a minimum.
550Where a new feature increases this noticeably it should normally be put
551behind a CONFIG flag so that boards can leave it off and keep the image
552size more or less the same with each new release.
553
554To check the impact of your commits on image size, use -S. For example:
555
556$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b us-x86 -sS
557Summary of 10 commits for 1066 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
55801: MAKEALL: add support for per architecture toolchains
55902: x86: Add function to get top of usable ram
560       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  text -272.0  rodata +41.0
56103: x86: Add basic cache operations
56204: x86: Permit bootstage and timer data to be used prior to relocation
563       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  data +16.0
56405: x86: Add an __end symbol to signal the end of the U-Boot binary
565       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  text +76.0
56606: x86: Rearrange the output input to remove BSS
567       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  bss -2140.0
56807: x86: Support relocation of FDT on start-up
569       x86: +   coreboot-x86
57008: x86: Add error checking to x86 relocation code
57109: x86: Adjust link device tree include file
57210: x86: Enable CONFIG_OF_CONTROL on coreboot
573
574
575You can see that image size only changed on x86, which is good because this
576series is not supposed to change any other board. From commit 7 onwards the
577build fails so we don't get code size numbers. The numbers are fractional
578because they are an average of all boards for that architecture. The
579intention is to allow you to quickly find image size problems introduced by
580your commits.
581
582Note that the 'text' region and 'rodata' are split out. You should add the
583two together to get the total read-only size (reported as the first column
584in the output from binutil's 'size' utility).
585
586A useful option is --step which lets you skip some commits. For example
587--step 2 will show the image sizes for only every 2nd commit (so it will
588compare the image sizes of the 1st, 3rd, 5th... commits). You can also use
589--step 0 which will compare only the first and last commits. This is useful
590for an overview of how your entire series affects code size.
591
592You can also use -d to see a detailed size breakdown for each board. This
593list is sorted in order from largest growth to largest reduction.
594
595It is possible to go a little further with the -B option (--bloat). This
596shows where U-Boot has bloated, breaking the size change down to the function
597level. Example output is below:
598
599$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b us-mem4 -sSdB
600...
60119: Roll crc32 into hash infrastructure
602       arm: (for 10/10 boards)  all -143.4  bss +1.2  data -4.8  rodata -48.2 text -91.6
603            paz00          :  all +23  bss -4  rodata -29  text +56
604               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 3/-2 bytes: 168/-104 (64)
605                 function                                   old     new   delta
606                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
607                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
608                 ext4fs_read_file                           540     568     +28
609                 insert_var_value_sub                       688     692      +4
610                 run_list_real                             1996    1992      -4
611                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
612            trimslice      :  all -9  bss +16  rodata -29  text +4
613               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
614                 function                                   old     new   delta
615                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
616                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
617                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
618                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
619                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
620            whistler       :  all -9  bss +16  rodata -29  text +4
621               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
622                 function                                   old     new   delta
623                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
624                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
625                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
626                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
627                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
628            seaboard       :  all -9  bss -28  rodata -29  text +48
629               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 3/-2 bytes: 160/-104 (56)
630                 function                                   old     new   delta
631                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
632                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
633                 ext4fs_read_file                           548     568     +20
634                 run_list_real                             1996    2000      +4
635                 do_nandboot                                760     756      -4
636                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
637            colibri_t20    :  all -9  rodata -29  text +20
638               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 2/-3 bytes: 140/-112 (28)
639                 function                                   old     new   delta
640                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
641                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
642                 read_abs_bbt                               204     208      +4
643                 do_nandboot                                760     756      -4
644                 ext4fs_read_file                           576     568      -8
645                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
646            ventana        :  all -37  bss -12  rodata -29  text +4
647               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
648                 function                                   old     new   delta
649                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
650                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
651                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
652                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
653                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
654            harmony        :  all -37  bss -16  rodata -29  text +8
655               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 2/-3 bytes: 140/-124 (16)
656                 function                                   old     new   delta
657                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
658                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
659                 nand_write_oob_syndrome                    428     432      +4
660                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
661                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
662                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
663            medcom-wide    :  all -417  bss +28  data -16  rodata -93  text -336
664               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-2 bytes: 88/-376 (-288)
665                 function                                   old     new   delta
666                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
667                 do_fat_read_at                            2872    2904     +32
668                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
669                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
670                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
671            tec            :  all -449  bss -4  data -16  rodata -93  text -336
672               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-2 bytes: 88/-376 (-288)
673                 function                                   old     new   delta
674                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
675                 do_fat_read_at                            2872    2904     +32
676                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
677                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
678                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
679            plutux         :  all -481  bss +16  data -16  rodata -93  text -388
680               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 68/-408 (-340)
681                 function                                   old     new   delta
682                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
683                 do_load_serial_bin                        1688    1700     +12
684                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
685                 do_fat_read_at                            2904    2872     -32
686                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
687                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
688   powerpc: (for 5/5 boards)  all +37.4  data -3.2  rodata -41.8  text +82.4
689            MPC8610HPCD    :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
690               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
691                 function                                   old     new   delta
692                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
693                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
694            MPC8641HPCN    :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
695               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
696                 function                                   old     new   delta
697                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
698                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
699            MPC8641HPCN_36BIT:  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
700               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
701                 function                                   old     new   delta
702                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
703                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
704            sbc8641d       :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
705               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
706                 function                                   old     new   delta
707                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
708                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
709            xpedite517x    :  all -33  data -16  rodata -93  text +76
710               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-112 (64)
711                 function                                   old     new   delta
712                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
713                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
714                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
715...
716
717
718This shows that commit 19 has increased text size for arm (although only one
719board was built) and by 96 bytes for powerpc. This increase was offset in both
720cases by reductions in rodata and data/bss.
721
722Shown below the summary lines are the sizes for each board. Below each board
723are the sizes for each function. This information starts with:
724
725   add - number of functions added / removed
726   grow - number of functions which grew / shrunk
727   bytes - number of bytes of code added to / removed from all functions,
728            plus the total byte change in brackets
729
730The change seems to be that hash_command() has increased by more than the
731do_mem_crc() function has decreased. The function sizes typically add up to
732roughly the text area size, but note that every read-only section except
733rodata is included in 'text', so the function total does not exactly
734correspond.
735
736It is common when refactoring code for the rodata to decrease as the text size
737increases, and vice versa.
738
739
740The .buildman file
741==================
742
743The .buildman file provides information about the available toolchains and
744also allows build flags to be passed to 'make'. It consists of several
745sections, with the section name in square brackets. Within each section are
746a set of (tag, value) pairs.
747
748'[toolchain]' section
749
750    This lists the available toolchains. The tag here doesn't matter, but
751    make sure it is unique. The value is the path to the toolchain. Buildman
752    will look in that path for a file ending in 'gcc'. It will then execute
753    it to check that it is a C compiler, passing only the --version flag to
754    it. If the return code is 0, buildman assumes that it is a valid C
755    compiler. It uses the first part of the name as the architecture and
756    strips off the last part when setting the CROSS_COMPILE environment
757    variable (parts are delimited with a hyphen).
758
759    For example powerpc-linux-gcc will be noted as a toolchain for 'powerpc'
760    and CROSS_COMPILE will be set to powerpc-linux- when using it.
761
762'[toolchain-alias]' section
763
764    This converts toolchain architecture names to U-Boot names. For example,
765    if an x86 toolchains is called i386-linux-gcc it will not normally be
766    used for architecture 'x86'. Adding 'x86: i386 x86_64' to this section
767    will tell buildman that the i386 and x86_64 toolchains can be used for
768    the x86 architecture.
769
770'[make-flags]' section
771
772    U-Boot's build system supports a few flags (such as BUILD_TAG) which
773    affect the build product. These flags can be specified in the buildman
774    settings file. They can also be useful when building U-Boot against other
775    open source software.
776
777    [make-flags]
778    at91-boards=ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1
779    snapper9260=${at91-boards} BUILD_TAG=442
780    snapper9g45=${at91-boards} BUILD_TAG=443
781
782    This will use 'make ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1 BUILD_TAG=442' for snapper9260
783    and 'make ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1 BUILD_TAG=443' for snapper9g45. A special
784    variable ${target} is available to access the target name (snapper9260
785    and snapper9g20 in this case). Variables are resolved recursively. Note
786    that variables can only contain the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, hyphen (-)
787    and underscore (_).
788
789    It is expected that any variables added are dealt with in U-Boot's
790    config.mk file and documented in the README.
791
792    Note that you can pass ad-hoc options to the build using environment
793    variables, for example:
794
795       SOME_OPTION=1234 ./tools/buildman/buildman my_board
796
797
798Quick Sanity Check
799==================
800
801If you have made changes and want to do a quick sanity check of the
802currently checked-out source, run buildman without the -b flag. This will
803build the selected boards and display build status as it runs (i.e. -v is
804enabled automatically). Use -e to see errors/warnings as well.
805
806
807Building Ranges
808===============
809
810You can build a range of commits by specifying a range instead of a branch
811when using the -b flag. For example:
812
813    upstream/master..us-buildman
814
815will build commits in us-buildman that are not in upstream/master.
816
817
818Other options
819=============
820
821Buildman has various other command line options. Try --help to see them.
822
823When doing builds, Buildman's return code will reflect the overall result:
824
825    0 (success)     No errors or warnings found
826    128             Errors found
827    129             Warnings found
828
829
830How to change from MAKEALL
831==========================
832
833Buildman includes most of the features of MAKEALL and is generally faster
834and easier to use. In particular it builds entire branches: if a particular
835commit introduces an error in a particular board, buildman can easily show
836you this, even if a later commit fixes that error.
837
838The reasons to deprecate MAKEALL are:
839- We don't want to maintain two build systems
840- Buildman is typically faster
841- Buildman has a lot more features
842
843But still, many people will be sad to lose MAKEALL. If you are used to
844MAKEALL, here are a few pointers.
845
846First you need to set up your tool chains - see the 'Setting up' section
847for details. Once you have your required toolchain(s) detected then you are
848ready to go.
849
850To build the current source tree, run buildman without a -b flag:
851
852   ./tools/buildman/buildman <list of things to build>
853
854This will build the current source tree for the given boards and display
855the results and errors.
856
857However buildman usually works on entire branches, and for that you must
858specify a board flag:
859
860   ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch_name> <list of things to build>
861
862followed by (afterwards, or perhaps concurrently in another terminal):
863
864   ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch_name> -s <list of things to build>
865
866to see the results of the build. Rather than showing you all the output,
867buildman just shows a summary, with red indicating that a commit introduced
868an error and green indicating that a commit fixed an error. Use the -e
869flag to see the full errors and -l to see which boards caused which errors.
870
871If you really want to see build results as they happen, use -v when doing a
872build (and -e to see the errors/warnings too).
873
874You don't need to stick around on that branch while buildman is running. It
875checks out its own copy of the source code, so you can change branches,
876add commits, etc. without affecting the build in progress.
877
878The <list of things to build> can include board names, architectures or the
879like. There are no flags to disambiguate since ambiguities are rare. Using
880the examples from MAKEALL:
881
882Examples:
883  - build all Power Architecture boards:
884      MAKEALL -a powerpc
885      MAKEALL --arch powerpc
886      MAKEALL powerpc
887          ** buildman -b <branch> powerpc
888  - build all PowerPC boards manufactured by vendor "esd":
889      MAKEALL -a powerpc -v esd
890          ** buildman -b <branch> esd
891  - build all PowerPC boards manufactured either by "keymile" or "siemens":
892      MAKEALL -a powerpc -v keymile -v siemens
893          ** buildman -b <branch> keymile siemens
894  - build all Freescale boards with MPC83xx CPUs, plus all 4xx boards:
895      MAKEALL -c mpc83xx -v freescale 4xx
896          ** buildman -b <branch> mpc83xx freescale 4xx
897
898Buildman automatically tries to use all the CPUs in your machine. If you
899are building a lot of boards it will use one thread for every CPU core
900it detects in your machine. This is like MAKEALL's BUILD_NBUILDS option.
901You can use the -T flag to change the number of threads. If you are only
902building a few boards, buildman will automatically run make with the -j
903flag to increase the number of concurrent make tasks. It isn't normally
904that helpful to fiddle with this option, but if you use the BUILD_NCPUS
905option in MAKEALL then -j is the equivalent in buildman.
906
907Buildman puts its output in ../<branch_name> by default but you can change
908this with the -o option. Buildman normally does out-of-tree builds: use -i
909to disable that if you really want to. But be careful that once you have
910used -i you pollute buildman's copies of the source tree, and you will need
911to remove the build directory (normally ../<branch_name>) to run buildman
912in normal mode (without -i).
913
914Buildman doesn't keep the output result normally, but use the -k option to
915do this.
916
917Please read 'Theory of Operation' a few times as it will make a lot of
918things clearer.
919
920Some options you might like are:
921
922   -B shows which functions are growing/shrinking in which commit - great
923        for finding code bloat.
924   -S shows image sizes for each commit (just an overall summary)
925   -u shows boards that you haven't built yet
926   --step 0 will build just the upstream commit and the last commit of your
927        branch. This is often a quick sanity check that your branch doesn't
928        break anything. But note this does not check bisectability!
929
930
931TODO
932====
933
934This has mostly be written in my spare time as a response to my difficulties
935in testing large series of patches. Apart from tidying up there is quite a
936bit of scope for improvement. Things like better error diffs and easier
937access to log files. Also it would be nice if buildman could 'hunt' for
938problems, perhaps by building a few boards for each arch, or checking
939commits for changed files and building only boards which use those files.
940
941
942Credits
943=======
944
945Thanks to Grant Grundler <grundler@chromium.org> for his ideas for improving
946the build speed by building all commits for a board instead of the other
947way around.
948
949
950Simon Glass
951sjg@chromium.org
952Halloween 2012
953Updated 12-12-12
954Updated 23-02-13
955