xref: /openbmc/u-boot/tools/buildman/README (revision 58d423b8)
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
159sh: sh4
160nds32: nds32le
161openrisc: or32
162
163
164This selects the available toolchain paths. Add the base directory for
165each of your toolchains here. Buildman will search inside these directories
166and also in any '/usr' and '/usr/bin' subdirectories.
167
168Make sure the tags (here root: rest: and eldk:) are unique.
169
170The toolchain-alias section indicates that the i386 toolchain should be used
171to build x86 commits.
172
173
1743. Make sure you have the require Python pre-requisites
175
176Buildman uses multiprocessing, Queue, shutil, StringIO, ConfigParser and
177urllib2. These should normally be available, but if you get an error like
178this then you will need to obtain those modules:
179
180    ImportError: No module named multiprocessing
181
182
1834. Check the available toolchains
184
185Run this check to make sure that you have a toolchain for every architecture.
186
187$ ./tools/buildman/buildman --list-tool-chains
188Scanning for tool chains
189   - scanning path '/'
190      - looking in '/.'
191      - looking in '/bin'
192      - looking in '/usr/bin'
193         - found '/usr/bin/gcc'
194Tool chain test:  OK
195         - found '/usr/bin/c89-gcc'
196Tool chain test:  OK
197         - found '/usr/bin/c99-gcc'
198Tool chain test:  OK
199         - found '/usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc'
200Tool chain test:  OK
201   - scanning path '/toolchains/powerpc-linux'
202      - looking in '/toolchains/powerpc-linux/.'
203      - looking in '/toolchains/powerpc-linux/bin'
204         - found '/toolchains/powerpc-linux/bin/powerpc-linux-gcc'
205Tool chain test:  OK
206      - looking in '/toolchains/powerpc-linux/usr/bin'
207   - scanning path '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f'
208      - looking in '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/.'
209      - looking in '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/bin'
210         - found '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/bin/nds32le-linux-gcc'
211Tool chain test:  OK
212      - looking in '/toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/usr/bin'
213   - scanning path '/toolchains/nios2'
214      - looking in '/toolchains/nios2/.'
215      - looking in '/toolchains/nios2/bin'
216         - found '/toolchains/nios2/bin/nios2-linux-gcc'
217Tool chain test:  OK
218         - found '/toolchains/nios2/bin/nios2-linux-uclibc-gcc'
219Tool chain test:  OK
220      - looking in '/toolchains/nios2/usr/bin'
221         - found '/toolchains/nios2/usr/bin/nios2-linux-gcc'
222Tool chain test:  OK
223         - found '/toolchains/nios2/usr/bin/nios2-linux-uclibc-gcc'
224Tool chain test:  OK
225   - scanning path '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu'
226      - looking in '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/.'
227      - looking in '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin'
228         - found '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc'
229Tool chain test:  OK
230         - found '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/mb-linux-gcc'
231Tool chain test:  OK
232      - looking in '/toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/usr/bin'
233   - scanning path '/toolchains/mips-linux'
234      - looking in '/toolchains/mips-linux/.'
235      - looking in '/toolchains/mips-linux/bin'
236         - found '/toolchains/mips-linux/bin/mips-linux-gcc'
237Tool chain test:  OK
238      - looking in '/toolchains/mips-linux/usr/bin'
239   - scanning path '/toolchains/old'
240      - looking in '/toolchains/old/.'
241      - looking in '/toolchains/old/bin'
242      - looking in '/toolchains/old/usr/bin'
243   - scanning path '/toolchains/i386-linux'
244      - looking in '/toolchains/i386-linux/.'
245      - looking in '/toolchains/i386-linux/bin'
246         - found '/toolchains/i386-linux/bin/i386-linux-gcc'
247Tool chain test:  OK
248      - looking in '/toolchains/i386-linux/usr/bin'
249   - scanning path '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux'
250      - looking in '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux/.'
251      - looking in '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux/bin'
252         - found '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux/bin/bfin-uclinux-gcc'
253Tool chain test:  OK
254      - looking in '/toolchains/bfin-uclinux/usr/bin'
255   - scanning path '/toolchains/sparc-elf'
256      - looking in '/toolchains/sparc-elf/.'
257      - looking in '/toolchains/sparc-elf/bin'
258         - found '/toolchains/sparc-elf/bin/sparc-elf-gcc'
259Tool chain test:  OK
260      - looking in '/toolchains/sparc-elf/usr/bin'
261   - scanning path '/toolchains/arm-2010q1'
262      - looking in '/toolchains/arm-2010q1/.'
263      - looking in '/toolchains/arm-2010q1/bin'
264         - found '/toolchains/arm-2010q1/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc'
265Tool chain test:  OK
266      - looking in '/toolchains/arm-2010q1/usr/bin'
267   - scanning path '/toolchains/from'
268      - looking in '/toolchains/from/.'
269      - looking in '/toolchains/from/bin'
270      - looking in '/toolchains/from/usr/bin'
271   - scanning path '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu'
272      - looking in '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/.'
273      - looking in '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/bin'
274         - found '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/bin/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu-gcc'
275Tool chain test:  OK
276      - looking in '/toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/usr/bin'
277   - scanning path '/toolchains/avr32-linux'
278      - looking in '/toolchains/avr32-linux/.'
279      - looking in '/toolchains/avr32-linux/bin'
280         - found '/toolchains/avr32-linux/bin/avr32-gcc'
281Tool chain test:  OK
282      - looking in '/toolchains/avr32-linux/usr/bin'
283   - scanning path '/toolchains/m68k-linux'
284      - looking in '/toolchains/m68k-linux/.'
285      - looking in '/toolchains/m68k-linux/bin'
286         - found '/toolchains/m68k-linux/bin/m68k-linux-gcc'
287Tool chain test:  OK
288      - looking in '/toolchains/m68k-linux/usr/bin'
289List of available toolchains (17):
290arm       : /toolchains/arm-2010q1/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc
291avr32     : /toolchains/avr32-linux/bin/avr32-gcc
292bfin      : /toolchains/bfin-uclinux/bin/bfin-uclinux-gcc
293c89       : /usr/bin/c89-gcc
294c99       : /usr/bin/c99-gcc
295i386      : /toolchains/i386-linux/bin/i386-linux-gcc
296m68k      : /toolchains/m68k-linux/bin/m68k-linux-gcc
297mb        : /toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/mb-linux-gcc
298microblaze: /toolchains/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/microblaze-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc
299mips      : /toolchains/mips-linux/bin/mips-linux-gcc
300nds32le   : /toolchains/nds32le-linux-glibc-v1f/bin/nds32le-linux-gcc
301nios2     : /toolchains/nios2/bin/nios2-linux-gcc
302powerpc   : /toolchains/powerpc-linux/bin/powerpc-linux-gcc
303sandbox   : /usr/bin/gcc
304sh4       : /toolchains/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu/bin/sh4-gentoo-linux-gnu-gcc
305sparc     : /toolchains/sparc-elf/bin/sparc-elf-gcc
306x86_64    : /usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc
307
308
309You can see that everything is covered, even some strange ones that won't
310be used (c88 and c99). This is a feature.
311
312
3135. Install new toolchains if needed
314
315You can download toolchains and update the [toolchain] section of the
316settings file to find them.
317
318To make this easier, buildman can automatically download and install
319toolchains from kernel.org. First list the available architectures:
320
321$ ./tools/buildman/buildman sandbox --fetch-arch list
322Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.3/
323Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.2/
324Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.5.1/
325Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.2.4/
326Available architectures: alpha am33_2.0 arm avr32 bfin cris crisv32 frv h8300
327hppa hppa64 i386 ia64 m32r m68k mips mips64 or32 powerpc powerpc64 s390x sh4
328sparc sparc64 tilegx x86_64 xtensa
329
330Then pick one and download it:
331
332$ ./tools/buildman/buildman sandbox --fetch-arch or32
333Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.3/
334Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.2/
335Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.5.1/
336Downloading: 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
337Unpacking to: /home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains
338Testing
339      - looking in '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/.'
340      - looking in '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/bin'
341         - found '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/bin/or32-linux-gcc'
342Tool chain test:  OK
343
344Buildman should now be set up to use your new toolchain.
345
346At the time of writing, U-Boot has these architectures:
347
348   arc, arm, avr32, blackfin, m68k, microblaze, mips, nds32, nios2, openrisc
349   powerpc, sandbox, sh, sparc, x86
350
351Of these, only arc, microblaze and nds32 are not available at kernel.org..
352
353
354How to run it
355=============
356
357First do a dry run using the -n flag: (replace <branch> with a real, local
358branch with a valid upstream)
359
360$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch> -n
361
362If it can't detect the upstream branch, try checking out the branch, and
363doing something like 'git branch --set-upstream-to upstream/master'
364or something similar. Buildman will try to guess a suitable upstream branch
365if it can't find one (you will see a message like" Guessing upstream as ...).
366
367As an example:
368
369Dry run, so not doing much. But I would do this:
370
371Building 18 commits for 1059 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
372Build directory: ../lcd9b
373    5bb3505 Merge branch 'master' of git://git.denx.de/u-boot-arm
374    c18f1b4 tegra: Use const for pinmux_config_pingroup/table()
375    2f043ae tegra: Add display support to funcmux
376    e349900 tegra: fdt: Add pwm binding and node
377    424a5f0 tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Tegra
378    0636ccf tegra: Add support for PWM
379    a994fe7 tegra: Add SOC support for display/lcd
380    fcd7350 tegra: Add LCD driver
381    4d46e9d tegra: Add LCD support to Nvidia boards
382    991bd48 arm: Add control over cachability of memory regions
383    54e8019 lcd: Add CONFIG_LCD_ALIGNMENT to select frame buffer alignment
384    d92aff7 lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
385    dbd0677 tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
386    0cff9b8 tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
387    9c56900 tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
388    5cc29db lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
389    cac5a23 tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
390    49ff541 wip
391
392Total boards to build for each commit: 1059
393
394This shows that it will build all 1059 boards, using 4 threads (because
395we have a 4-core CPU). Each thread will run with -j1, meaning that each
396make job will use a single CPU. The list of commits to be built helps you
397confirm that things look about right. Notice that buildman has chosen a
398'base' directory for you, immediately above your source tree.
399
400Buildman works entirely inside the base directory, here ../lcd9b,
401creating a working directory for each thread, and creating output
402directories for each commit and board.
403
404
405Suggested Workflow
406==================
407
408To run the build for real, take off the -n:
409
410$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch>
411
412Buildman will set up some working directories, and get started. After a
413minute or so it will settle down to a steady pace, with a display like this:
414
415Building 18 commits for 1059 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
416  528   36  124 /19062  1:13:30  : SIMPC8313_SP
417
418This means that it is building 19062 board/commit combinations. So far it
419has managed to successfully build 528. Another 36 have built with warnings,
420and 124 more didn't build at all. Buildman expects to complete the process
421in an hour and 15 minutes. Use this time to buy a faster computer.
422
423
424To find out how the build went, ask for a summary with -s. You can do this
425either before the build completes (presumably in another terminal) or
426afterwards. Let's work through an example of how this is used:
427
428$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b lcd9b -s
429...
43001: Merge branch 'master' of git://git.denx.de/u-boot-arm
431   powerpc:   + galaxy5200_LOWBOOT
43202: tegra: Use const for pinmux_config_pingroup/table()
43303: tegra: Add display support to funcmux
43404: tegra: fdt: Add pwm binding and node
43505: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Tegra
43606: tegra: Add support for PWM
43707: tegra: Add SOC support for display/lcd
43808: tegra: Add LCD driver
43909: tegra: Add LCD support to Nvidia boards
44010: arm: Add control over cachability of memory regions
44111: lcd: Add CONFIG_LCD_ALIGNMENT to select frame buffer alignment
44212: lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
443       arm:   + lubbock
44413: tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
44514: tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
44615: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
44716: lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
44817: tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
44918: wip
450
451This shows which commits have succeeded and which have failed. In this case
452the build is still in progress so many boards are not built yet (use -u to
453see which ones). But still we can see a few failures. The galaxy5200_LOWBOOT
454never builds correctly. This could be a problem with our toolchain, or it
455could be a bug in the upstream. The good news is that we probably don't need
456to blame our commits. The bad news is it isn't tested on that board.
457
458Commit 12 broke lubbock. That's what the '+ lubbock' means. The failure
459is never fixed by a later commit, or you would see lubbock again, in green,
460without the +.
461
462To see the actual error:
463
464$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch> -se lubbock
465...
46612: lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
467       arm:   + lubbock
468+common/libcommon.o: In function `lcd_sync':
469+/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:120: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
470+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
471+make: *** [/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/build/u-boot] Error 139
47213: tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
47314: tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
47415: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
47516: lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
476-/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:120: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
477+/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:125: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
47817: tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
47918: wip
480
481So the problem is in lcd.c, due to missing cache operations. This information
482should be enough to work out what that commit is doing to break these
483boards. (In this case pxa did not have cache operations defined).
484
485If you see error lines marked with - that means that the errors were fixed
486by that commit. Sometimes commits can be in the wrong order, so that a
487breakage is introduced for a few commits and fixed by later commits. This
488shows up clearly with buildman. You can then reorder the commits and try
489again.
490
491At commit 16, the error moves - you can see that the old error at line 120
492is fixed, but there is a new one at line 126. This is probably only because
493we added some code and moved the broken line further down the file.
494
495If many boards have the same error, then -e will display the error only
496once. This makes the output as concise as possible. To see which boards have
497each error, use -l.
498
499Buildman tries to distinguish warnings from errors, and shows warning lines
500separately with a 'w' prefix.
501
502The full build output in this case is available in:
503
504../lcd9b/12_of_18_gd92aff7_lcd--Add-support-for/lubbock/
505
506   done: Indicates the build was done, and holds the return code from make.
507         This is 0 for a good build, typically 2 for a failure.
508
509   err:  Output from stderr, if any. Errors and warnings appear here.
510
511   log:  Output from stdout. Normally there isn't any since buildman runs
512         in silent mode for now.
513
514   toolchain: Shows information about the toolchain used for the build.
515
516   sizes: Shows image size information.
517
518It is possible to get the build output there also. Use the -k option for
519this. In that case you will also see some output files, like:
520
521   System.map  toolchain  u-boot  u-boot.bin  u-boot.map  autoconf.mk
522   (also SPL versions u-boot-spl and u-boot-spl.bin if available)
523
524
525Checking Image Sizes
526====================
527
528A key requirement for U-Boot is that you keep code/data size to a minimum.
529Where a new feature increases this noticeably it should normally be put
530behind a CONFIG flag so that boards can leave it off and keep the image
531size more or less the same with each new release.
532
533To check the impact of your commits on image size, use -S. For example:
534
535$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b us-x86 -sS
536Summary of 10 commits for 1066 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
53701: MAKEALL: add support for per architecture toolchains
53802: x86: Add function to get top of usable ram
539       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  text -272.0  rodata +41.0
54003: x86: Add basic cache operations
54104: x86: Permit bootstage and timer data to be used prior to relocation
542       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  data +16.0
54305: x86: Add an __end symbol to signal the end of the U-Boot binary
544       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  text +76.0
54506: x86: Rearrange the output input to remove BSS
546       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  bss -2140.0
54707: x86: Support relocation of FDT on start-up
548       x86: +   coreboot-x86
54908: x86: Add error checking to x86 relocation code
55009: x86: Adjust link device tree include file
55110: x86: Enable CONFIG_OF_CONTROL on coreboot
552
553
554You can see that image size only changed on x86, which is good because this
555series is not supposed to change any other board. From commit 7 onwards the
556build fails so we don't get code size numbers. The numbers are fractional
557because they are an average of all boards for that architecture. The
558intention is to allow you to quickly find image size problems introduced by
559your commits.
560
561Note that the 'text' region and 'rodata' are split out. You should add the
562two together to get the total read-only size (reported as the first column
563in the output from binutil's 'size' utility).
564
565A useful option is --step which lets you skip some commits. For example
566--step 2 will show the image sizes for only every 2nd commit (so it will
567compare the image sizes of the 1st, 3rd, 5th... commits). You can also use
568--step 0 which will compare only the first and last commits. This is useful
569for an overview of how your entire series affects code size.
570
571You can also use -d to see a detailed size breakdown for each board. This
572list is sorted in order from largest growth to largest reduction.
573
574It is possible to go a little further with the -B option (--bloat). This
575shows where U-Boot has bloated, breaking the size change down to the function
576level. Example output is below:
577
578$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b us-mem4 -sSdB
579...
58019: Roll crc32 into hash infrastructure
581       arm: (for 10/10 boards)  all -143.4  bss +1.2  data -4.8  rodata -48.2 text -91.6
582            paz00          :  all +23  bss -4  rodata -29  text +56
583               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 3/-2 bytes: 168/-104 (64)
584                 function                                   old     new   delta
585                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
586                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
587                 ext4fs_read_file                           540     568     +28
588                 insert_var_value_sub                       688     692      +4
589                 run_list_real                             1996    1992      -4
590                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
591            trimslice      :  all -9  bss +16  rodata -29  text +4
592               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
593                 function                                   old     new   delta
594                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
595                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
596                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
597                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
598                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
599            whistler       :  all -9  bss +16  rodata -29  text +4
600               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
601                 function                                   old     new   delta
602                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
603                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
604                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
605                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
606                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
607            seaboard       :  all -9  bss -28  rodata -29  text +48
608               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 3/-2 bytes: 160/-104 (56)
609                 function                                   old     new   delta
610                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
611                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
612                 ext4fs_read_file                           548     568     +20
613                 run_list_real                             1996    2000      +4
614                 do_nandboot                                760     756      -4
615                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
616            colibri_t20    :  all -9  rodata -29  text +20
617               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 2/-3 bytes: 140/-112 (28)
618                 function                                   old     new   delta
619                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
620                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
621                 read_abs_bbt                               204     208      +4
622                 do_nandboot                                760     756      -4
623                 ext4fs_read_file                           576     568      -8
624                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
625            ventana        :  all -37  bss -12  rodata -29  text +4
626               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
627                 function                                   old     new   delta
628                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
629                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
630                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
631                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
632                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
633            harmony        :  all -37  bss -16  rodata -29  text +8
634               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 2/-3 bytes: 140/-124 (16)
635                 function                                   old     new   delta
636                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
637                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
638                 nand_write_oob_syndrome                    428     432      +4
639                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
640                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
641                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
642            medcom-wide    :  all -417  bss +28  data -16  rodata -93  text -336
643               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-2 bytes: 88/-376 (-288)
644                 function                                   old     new   delta
645                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
646                 do_fat_read_at                            2872    2904     +32
647                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
648                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
649                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
650            tec            :  all -449  bss -4  data -16  rodata -93  text -336
651               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-2 bytes: 88/-376 (-288)
652                 function                                   old     new   delta
653                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
654                 do_fat_read_at                            2872    2904     +32
655                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
656                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
657                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
658            plutux         :  all -481  bss +16  data -16  rodata -93  text -388
659               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 68/-408 (-340)
660                 function                                   old     new   delta
661                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
662                 do_load_serial_bin                        1688    1700     +12
663                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
664                 do_fat_read_at                            2904    2872     -32
665                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
666                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
667   powerpc: (for 5/5 boards)  all +37.4  data -3.2  rodata -41.8  text +82.4
668            MPC8610HPCD    :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
669               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
670                 function                                   old     new   delta
671                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
672                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
673            MPC8641HPCN    :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
674               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
675                 function                                   old     new   delta
676                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
677                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
678            MPC8641HPCN_36BIT:  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
679               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
680                 function                                   old     new   delta
681                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
682                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
683            sbc8641d       :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
684               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
685                 function                                   old     new   delta
686                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
687                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
688            xpedite517x    :  all -33  data -16  rodata -93  text +76
689               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-112 (64)
690                 function                                   old     new   delta
691                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
692                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
693                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
694...
695
696
697This shows that commit 19 has increased text size for arm (although only one
698board was built) and by 96 bytes for powerpc. This increase was offset in both
699cases by reductions in rodata and data/bss.
700
701Shown below the summary lines are the sizes for each board. Below each board
702are the sizes for each function. This information starts with:
703
704   add - number of functions added / removed
705   grow - number of functions which grew / shrunk
706   bytes - number of bytes of code added to / removed from all functions,
707            plus the total byte change in brackets
708
709The change seems to be that hash_command() has increased by more than the
710do_mem_crc() function has decreased. The function sizes typically add up to
711roughly the text area size, but note that every read-only section except
712rodata is included in 'text', so the function total does not exactly
713correspond.
714
715It is common when refactoring code for the rodata to decrease as the text size
716increases, and vice versa.
717
718
719The .buildman file
720==================
721
722The .buildman file provides information about the available toolchains and
723also allows build flags to be passed to 'make'. It consists of several
724sections, with the section name in square brackets. Within each section are
725a set of (tag, value) pairs.
726
727'[toolchain]' section
728
729    This lists the available toolchains. The tag here doesn't matter, but
730    make sure it is unique. The value is the path to the toolchain. Buildman
731    will look in that path for a file ending in 'gcc'. It will then execute
732    it to check that it is a C compiler, passing only the --version flag to
733    it. If the return code is 0, buildman assumes that it is a valid C
734    compiler. It uses the first part of the name as the architecture and
735    strips off the last part when setting the CROSS_COMPILE environment
736    variable (parts are delimited with a hyphen).
737
738    For example powerpc-linux-gcc will be noted as a toolchain for 'powerpc'
739    and CROSS_COMPILE will be set to powerpc-linux- when using it.
740
741'[toolchain-alias]' section
742
743    This converts toolchain architecture names to U-Boot names. For example,
744    if an x86 toolchains is called i386-linux-gcc it will not normally be
745    used for architecture 'x86'. Adding 'x86: i386 x86_64' to this section
746    will tell buildman that the i386 and x86_64 toolchains can be used for
747    the x86 architecture.
748
749'[make-flags]' section
750
751    U-Boot's build system supports a few flags (such as BUILD_TAG) which
752    affect the build product. These flags can be specified in the buildman
753    settings file. They can also be useful when building U-Boot against other
754    open source software.
755
756    [make-flags]
757    at91-boards=ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1
758    snapper9260=${at91-boards} BUILD_TAG=442
759    snapper9g45=${at91-boards} BUILD_TAG=443
760
761    This will use 'make ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1 BUILD_TAG=442' for snapper9260
762    and 'make ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1 BUILD_TAG=443' for snapper9g45. A special
763    variable ${target} is available to access the target name (snapper9260
764    and snapper9g20 in this case). Variables are resolved recursively. Note
765    that variables can only contain the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, hyphen (-)
766    and underscore (_).
767
768    It is expected that any variables added are dealt with in U-Boot's
769    config.mk file and documented in the README.
770
771    Note that you can pass ad-hoc options to the build using environment
772    variables, for example:
773
774       SOME_OPTION=1234 ./tools/buildman/buildman my_board
775
776
777Quick Sanity Check
778==================
779
780If you have made changes and want to do a quick sanity check of the
781currently checked-out source, run buildman without the -b flag. This will
782build the selected boards and display build status as it runs (i.e. -v is
783enabled automatically). Use -e to see errors/warnings as well.
784
785
786Building Ranges
787===============
788
789You can build a range of commits by specifying a range instead of a branch
790when using the -b flag. For example:
791
792    upstream/master..us-buildman
793
794will build commits in us-buildman that are not in upstream/master.
795
796
797Other options
798=============
799
800Buildman has various other command line options. Try --help to see them.
801
802When doing builds, Buildman's return code will reflect the overall result:
803
804    0 (success)     No errors or warnings found
805    128             Errors found
806    129             Warnings found
807
808
809How to change from MAKEALL
810==========================
811
812Buildman includes most of the features of MAKEALL and is generally faster
813and easier to use. In particular it builds entire branches: if a particular
814commit introduces an error in a particular board, buildman can easily show
815you this, even if a later commit fixes that error.
816
817The reasons to deprecate MAKEALL are:
818- We don't want to maintain two build systems
819- Buildman is typically faster
820- Buildman has a lot more features
821
822But still, many people will be sad to lose MAKEALL. If you are used to
823MAKEALL, here are a few pointers.
824
825First you need to set up your tool chains - see the 'Setting up' section
826for details. Once you have your required toolchain(s) detected then you are
827ready to go.
828
829To build the current source tree, run buildman without a -b flag:
830
831   ./tools/buildman/buildman <list of things to build>
832
833This will build the current source tree for the given boards and display
834the results and errors.
835
836However buildman usually works on entire branches, and for that you must
837specify a board flag:
838
839   ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch_name> <list of things to build>
840
841followed by (afterwards, or perhaps concurrently in another terminal):
842
843   ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch_name> -s <list of things to build>
844
845to see the results of the build. Rather than showing you all the output,
846buildman just shows a summary, with red indicating that a commit introduced
847an error and green indicating that a commit fixed an error. Use the -e
848flag to see the full errors and -l to see which boards caused which errors.
849
850If you really want to see build results as they happen, use -v when doing a
851build (and -e to see the errors/warnings too).
852
853You don't need to stick around on that branch while buildman is running. It
854checks out its own copy of the source code, so you can change branches,
855add commits, etc. without affecting the build in progress.
856
857The <list of things to build> can include board names, architectures or the
858like. There are no flags to disambiguate since ambiguities are rare. Using
859the examples from MAKEALL:
860
861Examples:
862  - build all Power Architecture boards:
863      MAKEALL -a powerpc
864      MAKEALL --arch powerpc
865      MAKEALL powerpc
866          ** buildman -b <branch> powerpc
867  - build all PowerPC boards manufactured by vendor "esd":
868      MAKEALL -a powerpc -v esd
869          ** buildman -b <branch> esd
870  - build all PowerPC boards manufactured either by "keymile" or "siemens":
871      MAKEALL -a powerpc -v keymile -v siemens
872          ** buildman -b <branch> keymile siemens
873  - build all Freescale boards with MPC83xx CPUs, plus all 4xx boards:
874      MAKEALL -c mpc83xx -v freescale 4xx
875          ** buildman -b <branch> mpc83xx freescale 4xx
876
877Buildman automatically tries to use all the CPUs in your machine. If you
878are building a lot of boards it will use one thread for every CPU core
879it detects in your machine. This is like MAKEALL's BUILD_NBUILDS option.
880You can use the -T flag to change the number of threads. If you are only
881building a few boards, buildman will automatically run make with the -j
882flag to increase the number of concurrent make tasks. It isn't normally
883that helpful to fiddle with this option, but if you use the BUILD_NCPUS
884option in MAKEALL then -j is the equivalent in buildman.
885
886Buildman puts its output in ../<branch_name> by default but you can change
887this with the -o option. Buildman normally does out-of-tree builds: use -i
888to disable that if you really want to. But be careful that once you have
889used -i you pollute buildman's copies of the source tree, and you will need
890to remove the build directory (normally ../<branch_name>) to run buildman
891in normal mode (without -i).
892
893Buildman doesn't keep the output result normally, but use the -k option to
894do this.
895
896Please read 'Theory of Operation' a few times as it will make a lot of
897things clearer.
898
899Some options you might like are:
900
901   -B shows which functions are growing/shrinking in which commit - great
902        for finding code bloat.
903   -S shows image sizes for each commit (just an overall summary)
904   -u shows boards that you haven't built yet
905   --step 0 will build just the upstream commit and the last commit of your
906        branch. This is often a quick sanity check that your branch doesn't
907        break anything. But note this does not check bisectability!
908
909
910TODO
911====
912
913This has mostly be written in my spare time as a response to my difficulties
914in testing large series of patches. Apart from tidying up there is quite a
915bit of scope for improvement. Things like better error diffs and easier
916access to log files. Also it would be nice if buildman could 'hunt' for
917problems, perhaps by building a few boards for each arch, or checking
918commits for changed files and building only boards which use those files.
919
920
921Credits
922=======
923
924Thanks to Grant Grundler <grundler@chromium.org> for his ideas for improving
925the build speed by building all commits for a board instead of the other
926way around.
927
928
929Simon Glass
930sjg@chromium.org
931Halloween 2012
932Updated 12-12-12
933Updated 23-02-13
934