xref: /openbmc/u-boot/tools/buildman/README (revision fa87abb6)
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
8Quick-start
9===========
10
11If you just want to quickly set up buildman so you can build something (for
12example Raspberry Pi 2):
13
14   cd /path/to/u-boot
15   PATH=$PATH:`pwd`/tools/buildman
16   buildman --fetch-arch arm
17   buildman -k rpi_2
18   ls ../current/rpi_2
19   # u-boot.bin is the output image
20
21
22What is this?
23=============
24
25This tool handles building U-Boot to check that you have not broken it
26with your patch series. It can build each individual commit and report
27which boards fail on which commits, and which errors come up. It aims
28to make full use of multi-processor machines.
29
30A key feature of buildman is its output summary, which allows warnings,
31errors or image size increases in a particular commit or board to be
32quickly identified and the offending commit pinpointed. This can be a big
33help for anyone working with >10 patches at a time.
34
35
36Caveats
37=======
38
39Buildman can be stopped and restarted, in which case it will continue
40where it left off. This should happen cleanly and without side-effects.
41If not, it is a bug, for which a patch would be welcome.
42
43Buildman gets so tied up in its work that it can ignore the outside world.
44You may need to press Ctrl-C several times to quit it. Also it will print
45out various exceptions when stopped. You may have to kill it since the
46Ctrl-C handling is somewhat broken.
47
48
49Theory of Operation
50===================
51
52(please read this section in full twice or you will be perpetually confused)
53
54Buildman is a builder. It is not make, although it runs make. It does not
55produce any useful output on the terminal while building, except for
56progress information (except with -v, see below). All the output (errors,
57warnings and binaries if you ask for them) is stored in output
58directories, which you can look at while the build is progressing, or when
59it is finished.
60
61Buildman is designed to build entire git branches, i.e. muliple commits. It
62can be run repeatedly on the same branch. In this case it will automatically
63rebuild commits which have changed (and remove its old results for that
64commit). It is possible to build a branch for one board, then later build it
65for another board. If you want buildman to re-build a commit it has already
66built (e.g. because of a toolchain update), use the -f flag.
67
68Buildman produces a concise summary of which boards succeeded and failed.
69It shows which commit introduced which board failure using a simple
70red/green colour coding. Full error information can be requested, in which
71case it is de-duped and displayed against the commit that introduced the
72error. An example workflow is below.
73
74Buildman stores image size information and can report changes in image size
75from commit to commit. An example of this is below.
76
77Buildman starts multiple threads, and each thread builds for one board at
78a time. A thread starts at the first commit, configures the source for your
79board and builds it. Then it checks out the next commit and does an
80incremental build. Eventually the thread reaches the last commit and stops.
81If errors or warnings are found along the way, the thread will reconfigure
82after every commit, and your build will be very slow. This is because a
83file that produces just a warning would not normally be rebuilt in an
84incremental build.
85
86Buildman works in an entirely separate place from your U-Boot repository.
87It creates a separate working directory for each thread, and puts the
88output files in the working directory, organised by commit name and board
89name, in a two-level hierarchy.
90
91Buildman is invoked in your U-Boot directory, the one with the .git
92directory. It clones this repository into a copy for each thread, and the
93threads do not affect the state of your git repository. Any checkouts done
94by the thread affect only the working directory for that thread.
95
96Buildman automatically selects the correct tool chain for each board. You
97must supply suitable tool chains, but buildman takes care of selecting the
98right one.
99
100Buildman generally builds a branch (with the -b flag), and in this case
101builds the upstream commit as well, for comparison. It cannot build
102individual commits at present, unless (maybe) you point it at an empty
103branch. Put all your commits in a branch, set the branch's upstream to a
104valid value, and all will be well. Otherwise buildman will perform random
105actions. Use -n to check what the random actions might be.
106
107If you just want to build the current source tree, leave off the -b flag
108and add -e. This will display results and errors as they happen. You can
109still look at them later using -se. Note that buildman will assume that the
110source has changed, and will build all specified boards in this case.
111
112Buildman is optimised for building many commits at once, for many boards.
113On multi-core machines, Buildman is fast because it uses most of the
114available CPU power. When it gets to the end, or if you are building just
115a few commits or boards, it will be pretty slow. As a tip, if you don't
116plan to use your machine for anything else, you can use -T to increase the
117number of threads beyond the default.
118
119Buildman lets you build all boards, or a subset. Specify the subset by passing
120command-line arguments that list the desired board name, architecture name,
121SOC name, or anything else in the boards.cfg file. Multiple arguments are
122allowed. Each argument will be interpreted as a regular expression, so
123behaviour is a superset of exact or substring matching. Examples are:
124
125* 'tegra20'      All boards with a Tegra20 SoC
126* 'tegra'        All boards with any Tegra Soc (Tegra20, Tegra30, Tegra114...)
127* '^tegra[23]0$' All boards with either Tegra20 or Tegra30 SoC
128* 'powerpc'      All PowerPC boards
129
130While the default is to OR the terms together, you can also make use of
131the '&' operator to limit the selection:
132
133* 'freescale & arm sandbox'  All Freescale boards with ARM architecture,
134                             plus sandbox
135
136You can also use -x to specifically exclude some boards. For example:
137
138 buildmand arm -x nvidia,freescale,.*ball$
139
140means to build all arm boards except nvidia, freescale and anything ending
141with 'ball'.
142
143It is convenient to use the -n option to see what will be built based on
144the subset given. Use -v as well to get an actual list of boards.
145
146Buildman does not store intermediate object files. It optionally copies
147the binary output into a directory when a build is successful. Size
148information is always recorded. It needs a fair bit of disk space to work,
149typically 250MB per thread.
150
151
152Setting up
153==========
154
1551. Get the U-Boot source. You probably already have it, but if not these
156steps should get you started with a repo and some commits for testing.
157
158$ cd /path/to/u-boot
159$ git clone git://git.denx.de/u-boot.git .
160$ git checkout -b my-branch origin/master
161$ # Add some commits to the branch, reading for testing
162
1632. Create ~/.buildman to tell buildman where to find tool chains (see 'The
164.buildman file' later for details). As an example:
165
166# Buildman settings file
167
168[toolchain]
169root: /
170rest: /toolchains/*
171eldk: /opt/eldk-4.2
172arm: /opt/linaro/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.8-2013.08_linux
173aarch64: /opt/linaro/gcc-linaro-aarch64-none-elf-4.8-2013.10_linux
174
175[toolchain-alias]
176x86: i386
177blackfin: bfin
178nds32: nds32le
179openrisc: or1k
180
181
182This selects the available toolchain paths. Add the base directory for
183each of your toolchains here. Buildman will search inside these directories
184and also in any '/usr' and '/usr/bin' subdirectories.
185
186Make sure the tags (here root: rest: and eldk:) are unique.
187
188The toolchain-alias section indicates that the i386 toolchain should be used
189to build x86 commits.
190
191Note that you can also specific exactly toolchain prefixes if you like:
192
193[toolchain-prefix]
194arm: /opt/arm-eabi-4.6/bin/arm-eabi-
195
196or even:
197
198[toolchain-prefix]
199arm: /opt/arm-eabi-4.6/bin/arm-eabi-gcc
200
201This tells buildman that you want to use this exact toolchain for the arm
202architecture. This will override any toolchains found by searching using the
203[toolchain] settings.
204
205Since the toolchain prefix is an explicit request, buildman will report an
206error if a toolchain is not found with that prefix. The current PATH will be
207searched, so it is possible to use:
208
209[toolchain-prefix]
210arm: arm-none-eabi-
211
212and buildman will find arm-none-eabi-gcc in /usr/bin if you have it installed.
213
214[toolchain-wrapper]
215wrapper: ccache
216
217This tells buildman to use a compiler wrapper in front of CROSS_COMPILE. In
218this example, ccache. It doesn't affect the toolchain scan. The wrapper is
219added when CROSS_COMPILE environtal variable is set. The name in this
220section is ignored. If more than one line is provided, only the last one
221is taken.
222
2233. Make sure you have the require Python pre-requisites
224
225Buildman uses multiprocessing, Queue, shutil, StringIO, ConfigParser and
226urllib2. These should normally be available, but if you get an error like
227this then you will need to obtain those modules:
228
229    ImportError: No module named multiprocessing
230
231
2324. Check the available toolchains
233
234Run this check to make sure that you have a toolchain for every architecture.
235
236$ ./tools/buildman/buildman --list-tool-chains
237Scanning for tool chains
238   - scanning prefix '/opt/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/x86_64-linux/bin/x86_64-linux-'
239Tool chain test:  OK, arch='x86', priority 1
240   - scanning prefix '/opt/arm-eabi-4.6/bin/arm-eabi-'
241Tool chain test:  OK, arch='arm', priority 1
242   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/i386-linux'
243      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/i386-linux/.'
244      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/i386-linux/bin'
245         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/i386-linux/bin/i386-linux-gcc'
246      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/i386-linux/usr/bin'
247Tool chain test:  OK, arch='i386', priority 4
248   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/aarch64-linux'
249      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/aarch64-linux/.'
250      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/aarch64-linux/bin'
251         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/aarch64-linux/bin/aarch64-linux-gcc'
252      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/aarch64-linux/usr/bin'
253Tool chain test:  OK, arch='aarch64', priority 4
254   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/microblaze-linux'
255      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/microblaze-linux/.'
256      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/microblaze-linux/bin'
257         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/microblaze-linux/bin/microblaze-linux-gcc'
258      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/microblaze-linux/usr/bin'
259Tool chain test:  OK, arch='microblaze', priority 4
260   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips64-linux'
261      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips64-linux/.'
262      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips64-linux/bin'
263         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips64-linux/bin/mips64-linux-gcc'
264      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips64-linux/usr/bin'
265Tool chain test:  OK, arch='mips64', priority 4
266   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc64-linux'
267      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc64-linux/.'
268      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc64-linux/bin'
269         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc64-linux/bin/sparc64-linux-gcc'
270      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc64-linux/usr/bin'
271Tool chain test:  OK, arch='sparc64', priority 4
272   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi'
273      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi/.'
274      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi/bin'
275         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi/bin/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi-gcc'
276      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi/usr/bin'
277Tool chain test:  OK, arch='arm', priority 3
278Toolchain '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi/bin/arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi-gcc' at priority 3 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'arm' has priority 1
279   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc-linux'
280      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc-linux/.'
281      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc-linux/bin'
282         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc-linux/bin/sparc-linux-gcc'
283      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc-linux/usr/bin'
284Tool chain test:  OK, arch='sparc', priority 4
285   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips-linux'
286      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips-linux/.'
287      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips-linux/bin'
288         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips-linux/bin/mips-linux-gcc'
289      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips-linux/usr/bin'
290Tool chain test:  OK, arch='mips', priority 4
291   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/x86_64-linux'
292      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/x86_64-linux/.'
293      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/x86_64-linux/bin'
294         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/x86_64-linux/bin/x86_64-linux-gcc'
295         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/x86_64-linux/bin/x86_64-linux-x86_64-linux-gcc'
296      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/x86_64-linux/usr/bin'
297Tool chain test:  OK, arch='x86_64', priority 4
298Tool chain test:  OK, arch='x86_64', priority 4
299Toolchain '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/x86_64-linux/bin/x86_64-linux-x86_64-linux-gcc' at priority 4 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'x86_64' has priority 4
300   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/m68k-linux'
301      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/m68k-linux/.'
302      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/m68k-linux/bin'
303         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/m68k-linux/bin/m68k-linux-gcc'
304      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/m68k-linux/usr/bin'
305Tool chain test:  OK, arch='m68k', priority 4
306   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/powerpc-linux'
307      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/powerpc-linux/.'
308      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/powerpc-linux/bin'
309         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/powerpc-linux/bin/powerpc-linux-gcc'
310      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/powerpc-linux/usr/bin'
311Tool chain test:  OK, arch='powerpc', priority 4
312   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/bfin-uclinux'
313      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/bfin-uclinux/.'
314      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/bfin-uclinux/bin'
315         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/bfin-uclinux/bin/bfin-uclinux-gcc'
316      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/bfin-uclinux/usr/bin'
317Tool chain test:  OK, arch='bfin', priority 6
318   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/sparc-linux'
319      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/sparc-linux/.'
320      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/sparc-linux/bin'
321         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/sparc-linux/bin/sparc-linux-gcc'
322      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/sparc-linux/usr/bin'
323Tool chain test:  OK, arch='sparc', priority 4
324Toolchain '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/sparc-linux/bin/sparc-linux-gcc' at priority 4 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'sparc' has priority 4
325   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/mips-linux'
326      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/mips-linux/.'
327      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/mips-linux/bin'
328         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/mips-linux/bin/mips-linux-gcc'
329      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/mips-linux/usr/bin'
330Tool chain test:  OK, arch='mips', priority 4
331Toolchain '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/mips-linux/bin/mips-linux-gcc' at priority 4 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'mips' has priority 4
332   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/m68k-linux'
333      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/m68k-linux/.'
334      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/m68k-linux/bin'
335         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/m68k-linux/bin/m68k-linux-gcc'
336      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/m68k-linux/usr/bin'
337Tool chain test:  OK, arch='m68k', priority 4
338Toolchain '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/m68k-linux/bin/m68k-linux-gcc' at priority 4 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'm68k' has priority 4
339   - scanning path '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/powerpc-linux'
340      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/powerpc-linux/.'
341      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/powerpc-linux/bin'
342         - found '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/powerpc-linux/bin/powerpc-linux-gcc'
343      - looking in '/toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/powerpc-linux/usr/bin'
344Tool chain test:  OK, arch='powerpc', priority 4
345Tool chain test:  OK, arch='or32', priority 4
346   - scanning path '/'
347      - looking in '/.'
348      - looking in '/bin'
349      - looking in '/usr/bin'
350         - found '/usr/bin/i586-mingw32msvc-gcc'
351         - found '/usr/bin/c89-gcc'
352         - found '/usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc'
353         - found '/usr/bin/gcc'
354         - found '/usr/bin/c99-gcc'
355         - found '/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc'
356         - found '/usr/bin/aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc'
357         - found '/usr/bin/winegcc'
358         - found '/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc'
359Tool chain test:  OK, arch='i586', priority 11
360Tool chain test:  OK, arch='c89', priority 11
361Tool chain test:  OK, arch='x86_64', priority 4
362Toolchain '/usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc' at priority 4 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'x86_64' has priority 4
363Tool chain test:  OK, arch='sandbox', priority 11
364Tool chain test:  OK, arch='c99', priority 11
365Tool chain test:  OK, arch='arm', priority 4
366Toolchain '/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc' at priority 4 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'arm' has priority 1
367Tool chain test:  OK, arch='aarch64', priority 4
368Toolchain '/usr/bin/aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc' at priority 4 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'aarch64' has priority 4
369Tool chain test:  OK, arch='sandbox', priority 11
370Toolchain '/usr/bin/winegcc' at priority 11 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'sandbox' has priority 11
371Tool chain test:  OK, arch='arm', priority 4
372Toolchain '/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc' at priority 4 will be ignored because another toolchain for arch 'arm' has priority 1
373List of available toolchains (34):
374aarch64   : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/aarch64-linux/bin/aarch64-linux-gcc
375alpha     : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/alpha-linux/bin/alpha-linux-gcc
376am33_2.0  : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/am33_2.0-linux/bin/am33_2.0-linux-gcc
377arm       : /opt/arm-eabi-4.6/bin/arm-eabi-gcc
378bfin      : /toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/bfin-uclinux/bin/bfin-uclinux-gcc
379c89       : /usr/bin/c89-gcc
380c99       : /usr/bin/c99-gcc
381frv       : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/frv-linux/bin/frv-linux-gcc
382h8300     : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/h8300-elf/bin/h8300-elf-gcc
383hppa      : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/hppa-linux/bin/hppa-linux-gcc
384hppa64    : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/hppa64-linux/bin/hppa64-linux-gcc
385i386      : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/i386-linux/bin/i386-linux-gcc
386i586      : /usr/bin/i586-mingw32msvc-gcc
387ia64      : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/ia64-linux/bin/ia64-linux-gcc
388m32r      : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/m32r-linux/bin/m32r-linux-gcc
389m68k      : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/m68k-linux/bin/m68k-linux-gcc
390microblaze: /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/microblaze-linux/bin/microblaze-linux-gcc
391mips      : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips-linux/bin/mips-linux-gcc
392mips64    : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/mips64-linux/bin/mips64-linux-gcc
393or32      : /toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/bin/or32-linux-gcc
394powerpc   : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/powerpc-linux/bin/powerpc-linux-gcc
395powerpc64 : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/powerpc64-linux/bin/powerpc64-linux-gcc
396ppc64le   : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/ppc64le-linux/bin/ppc64le-linux-gcc
397s390x     : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/s390x-linux/bin/s390x-linux-gcc
398sandbox   : /usr/bin/gcc
399sh4       : /toolchains/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/sh4-linux/bin/sh4-linux-gcc
400sparc     : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc-linux/bin/sparc-linux-gcc
401sparc64   : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/sparc64-linux/bin/sparc64-linux-gcc
402tilegx    : /toolchains/gcc-4.6.2-nolibc/tilegx-linux/bin/tilegx-linux-gcc
403x86       : /opt/gcc-4.6.3-nolibc/x86_64-linux/bin/x86_64-linux-gcc
404x86_64    : /toolchains/gcc-4.9.0-nolibc/x86_64-linux/bin/x86_64-linux-gcc
405
406
407You can see that everything is covered, even some strange ones that won't
408be used (c88 and c99). This is a feature.
409
410
4115. Install new toolchains if needed
412
413You can download toolchains and update the [toolchain] section of the
414settings file to find them.
415
416To make this easier, buildman can automatically download and install
417toolchains from kernel.org. First list the available architectures:
418
419$ ./tools/buildman/buildman --fetch-arch list
420Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.3/
421Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.2/
422Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.5.1/
423Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.2.4/
424Available architectures: alpha am33_2.0 arm bfin cris crisv32 frv h8300
425hppa hppa64 i386 ia64 m32r m68k mips mips64 or32 powerpc powerpc64 s390x sh4
426sparc sparc64 tilegx x86_64 xtensa
427
428Then pick one and download it:
429
430$ ./tools/buildman/buildman --fetch-arch or32
431Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.3/
432Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.6.2/
433Checking: https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/4.5.1/
434Downloading: 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
435Unpacking to: /home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains
436Testing
437      - looking in '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/.'
438      - looking in '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/bin'
439         - found '/home/sjg/.buildman-toolchains/gcc-4.5.1-nolibc/or32-linux/bin/or32-linux-gcc'
440Tool chain test:  OK
441
442Or download them all from kernel.org and move them to /toolchains directory,
443
444$ ./tools/buildman/buildman --fetch-arch all
445$ sudo mkdir -p /toolchains
446$ sudo mv ~/.buildman-toolchains/*/* /toolchains/
447
448For those not available from kernel.org, download from the following links.
449
450arc: https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/toolchain/releases/
451    download/arc-2016.09-release/arc_gnu_2016.09_prebuilt_uclibc_le_archs_linux_install.tar.gz
452blackfin: http://sourceforge.net/projects/adi-toolchain/files/
453    blackfin-toolchain-elf-gcc-4.5-2014R1_45-RC2.x86_64.tar.bz2
454nds32: http://osdk.andestech.com/packages/
455    nds32le-linux-glibc-v1.tgz
456nios2: http://sourcery.mentor.com/public/gnu_toolchain/nios2-linux-gnu/
457    sourceryg++-2015.11-27-nios2-linux-gnu-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2
458sh: http://sourcery.mentor.com/public/gnu_toolchain/sh-linux-gnu/
459    renesas-4.4-200-sh-linux-gnu-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2
460
461Note openrisc kernel.org toolchain is out of date. Download the latest one from
462http://opencores.org/or1k/OpenRISC_GNU_tool_chain#Prebuilt_versions - eg:
463ftp://ocuser:ocuser@openrisc.opencores.org/toolchain/gcc-or1k-elf-4.8.1-x86.tar.bz2.
464
465Buildman should now be set up to use your new toolchain.
466
467At the time of writing, U-Boot has these architectures:
468
469   arc, arm, blackfin, m68k, microblaze, mips, nds32, nios2, openrisc
470   powerpc, sandbox, sh, sparc, x86
471
472Of these, only arc and nds32 are not available at kernel.org..
473
474
475How to run it
476=============
477
478First do a dry run using the -n flag: (replace <branch> with a real, local
479branch with a valid upstream)
480
481$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch> -n
482
483If it can't detect the upstream branch, try checking out the branch, and
484doing something like 'git branch --set-upstream-to upstream/master'
485or something similar. Buildman will try to guess a suitable upstream branch
486if it can't find one (you will see a message like" Guessing upstream as ...).
487
488As an example:
489
490Dry run, so not doing much. But I would do this:
491
492Building 18 commits for 1059 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
493Build directory: ../lcd9b
494    5bb3505 Merge branch 'master' of git://git.denx.de/u-boot-arm
495    c18f1b4 tegra: Use const for pinmux_config_pingroup/table()
496    2f043ae tegra: Add display support to funcmux
497    e349900 tegra: fdt: Add pwm binding and node
498    424a5f0 tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Tegra
499    0636ccf tegra: Add support for PWM
500    a994fe7 tegra: Add SOC support for display/lcd
501    fcd7350 tegra: Add LCD driver
502    4d46e9d tegra: Add LCD support to Nvidia boards
503    991bd48 arm: Add control over cachability of memory regions
504    54e8019 lcd: Add CONFIG_LCD_ALIGNMENT to select frame buffer alignment
505    d92aff7 lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
506    dbd0677 tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
507    0cff9b8 tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
508    9c56900 tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
509    5cc29db lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
510    cac5a23 tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
511    49ff541 wip
512
513Total boards to build for each commit: 1059
514
515This shows that it will build all 1059 boards, using 4 threads (because
516we have a 4-core CPU). Each thread will run with -j1, meaning that each
517make job will use a single CPU. The list of commits to be built helps you
518confirm that things look about right. Notice that buildman has chosen a
519'base' directory for you, immediately above your source tree.
520
521Buildman works entirely inside the base directory, here ../lcd9b,
522creating a working directory for each thread, and creating output
523directories for each commit and board.
524
525
526Suggested Workflow
527==================
528
529To run the build for real, take off the -n:
530
531$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch>
532
533Buildman will set up some working directories, and get started. After a
534minute or so it will settle down to a steady pace, with a display like this:
535
536Building 18 commits for 1059 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
537  528   36  124 /19062  1:13:30  : SIMPC8313_SP
538
539This means that it is building 19062 board/commit combinations. So far it
540has managed to successfully build 528. Another 36 have built with warnings,
541and 124 more didn't build at all. Buildman expects to complete the process
542in around an hour and a quarter. Use this time to buy a faster computer.
543
544
545To find out how the build went, ask for a summary with -s. You can do this
546either before the build completes (presumably in another terminal) or
547afterwards. Let's work through an example of how this is used:
548
549$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b lcd9b -s
550...
55101: Merge branch 'master' of git://git.denx.de/u-boot-arm
552   powerpc:   + galaxy5200_LOWBOOT
55302: tegra: Use const for pinmux_config_pingroup/table()
55403: tegra: Add display support to funcmux
55504: tegra: fdt: Add pwm binding and node
55605: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Tegra
55706: tegra: Add support for PWM
55807: tegra: Add SOC support for display/lcd
55908: tegra: Add LCD driver
56009: tegra: Add LCD support to Nvidia boards
56110: arm: Add control over cachability of memory regions
56211: lcd: Add CONFIG_LCD_ALIGNMENT to select frame buffer alignment
56312: lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
564       arm:   + lubbock
56513: tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
56614: tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
56715: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
56816: lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
56917: tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
57018: wip
571
572This shows which commits have succeeded and which have failed. In this case
573the build is still in progress so many boards are not built yet (use -u to
574see which ones). But still we can see a few failures. The galaxy5200_LOWBOOT
575never builds correctly. This could be a problem with our toolchain, or it
576could be a bug in the upstream. The good news is that we probably don't need
577to blame our commits. The bad news is that our commits are not tested on that
578board.
579
580Commit 12 broke lubbock. That's what the '+ lubbock' means. The failure
581is never fixed by a later commit, or you would see lubbock again, in green,
582without the +.
583
584To see the actual error:
585
586$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch> -se lubbock
587...
58812: lcd: Add support for flushing LCD fb from dcache after update
589       arm:   + lubbock
590+common/libcommon.o: In function `lcd_sync':
591+/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:120: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
592+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
593+make: *** [/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/build/u-boot] Error 139
59413: tegra: Align LCD frame buffer to section boundary
59514: tegra: Support control of cache settings for LCD
59615: tegra: fdt: Add LCD definitions for Seaboard
59716: lcd: Add CONFIG_CONSOLE_SCROLL_LINES option to speed console
598-/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:120: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
599+/u-boot/lcd9b/.bm-work/00/common/lcd.c:125: undefined reference to `flush_dcache_range'
60017: tegra: Enable display/lcd support on Seaboard
60118: wip
602
603So the problem is in lcd.c, due to missing cache operations. This information
604should be enough to work out what that commit is doing to break these
605boards. (In this case pxa did not have cache operations defined).
606
607If you see error lines marked with '-', that means that the errors were fixed
608by that commit. Sometimes commits can be in the wrong order, so that a
609breakage is introduced for a few commits and fixed by later commits. This
610shows up clearly with buildman. You can then reorder the commits and try
611again.
612
613At commit 16, the error moves: you can see that the old error at line 120
614is fixed, but there is a new one at line 126. This is probably only because
615we added some code and moved the broken line further down the file.
616
617If many boards have the same error, then -e will display the error only
618once. This makes the output as concise as possible. To see which boards have
619each error, use -l. So it is safe to omit the board name - you will not get
620lots of repeated output for every board.
621
622Buildman tries to distinguish warnings from errors, and shows warning lines
623separately with a 'w' prefix.
624
625The full build output in this case is available in:
626
627../lcd9b/12_of_18_gd92aff7_lcd--Add-support-for/lubbock/
628
629   done: Indicates the build was done, and holds the return code from make.
630         This is 0 for a good build, typically 2 for a failure.
631
632   err:  Output from stderr, if any. Errors and warnings appear here.
633
634   log:  Output from stdout. Normally there isn't any since buildman runs
635         in silent mode. Use -V to force a verbose build (this passes V=1
636         to 'make')
637
638   toolchain: Shows information about the toolchain used for the build.
639
640   sizes: Shows image size information.
641
642It is possible to get the build binary output there also. Use the -k option
643for this. In that case you will also see some output files, like:
644
645   System.map  toolchain  u-boot  u-boot.bin  u-boot.map  autoconf.mk
646   (also SPL versions u-boot-spl and u-boot-spl.bin if available)
647
648
649Checking Image Sizes
650====================
651
652A key requirement for U-Boot is that you keep code/data size to a minimum.
653Where a new feature increases this noticeably it should normally be put
654behind a CONFIG flag so that boards can leave it disabled and keep the image
655size more or less the same with each new release.
656
657To check the impact of your commits on image size, use -S. For example:
658
659$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b us-x86 -sS
660Summary of 10 commits for 1066 boards (4 threads, 1 job per thread)
66101: MAKEALL: add support for per architecture toolchains
66202: x86: Add function to get top of usable ram
663       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  text -272.0  rodata +41.0
66403: x86: Add basic cache operations
66504: x86: Permit bootstage and timer data to be used prior to relocation
666       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  data +16.0
66705: x86: Add an __end symbol to signal the end of the U-Boot binary
668       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  text +76.0
66906: x86: Rearrange the output input to remove BSS
670       x86: (for 1/3 boards)  bss -2140.0
67107: x86: Support relocation of FDT on start-up
672       x86: +   coreboot-x86
67308: x86: Add error checking to x86 relocation code
67409: x86: Adjust link device tree include file
67510: x86: Enable CONFIG_OF_CONTROL on coreboot
676
677
678You can see that image size only changed on x86, which is good because this
679series is not supposed to change any other board. From commit 7 onwards the
680build fails so we don't get code size numbers. The numbers are fractional
681because they are an average of all boards for that architecture. The
682intention is to allow you to quickly find image size problems introduced by
683your commits.
684
685Note that the 'text' region and 'rodata' are split out. You should add the
686two together to get the total read-only size (reported as the first column
687in the output from binutil's 'size' utility).
688
689A useful option is --step which lets you skip some commits. For example
690--step 2 will show the image sizes for only every 2nd commit (so it will
691compare the image sizes of the 1st, 3rd, 5th... commits). You can also use
692--step 0 which will compare only the first and last commits. This is useful
693for an overview of how your entire series affects code size. It will build
694only the upstream commit and your final branch commit.
695
696You can also use -d to see a detailed size breakdown for each board. This
697list is sorted in order from largest growth to largest reduction.
698
699It is even possible to go a little further with the -B option (--bloat). This
700shows where U-Boot has bloated, breaking the size change down to the function
701level. Example output is below:
702
703$ ./tools/buildman/buildman -b us-mem4 -sSdB
704...
70519: Roll crc32 into hash infrastructure
706       arm: (for 10/10 boards)  all -143.4  bss +1.2  data -4.8  rodata -48.2 text -91.6
707            paz00          :  all +23  bss -4  rodata -29  text +56
708               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 3/-2 bytes: 168/-104 (64)
709                 function                                   old     new   delta
710                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
711                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
712                 ext4fs_read_file                           540     568     +28
713                 insert_var_value_sub                       688     692      +4
714                 run_list_real                             1996    1992      -4
715                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
716            trimslice      :  all -9  bss +16  rodata -29  text +4
717               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
718                 function                                   old     new   delta
719                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
720                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
721                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
722                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
723                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
724            whistler       :  all -9  bss +16  rodata -29  text +4
725               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
726                 function                                   old     new   delta
727                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
728                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
729                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
730                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
731                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
732            seaboard       :  all -9  bss -28  rodata -29  text +48
733               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 3/-2 bytes: 160/-104 (56)
734                 function                                   old     new   delta
735                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
736                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
737                 ext4fs_read_file                           548     568     +20
738                 run_list_real                             1996    2000      +4
739                 do_nandboot                                760     756      -4
740                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
741            colibri_t20    :  all -9  rodata -29  text +20
742               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 2/-3 bytes: 140/-112 (28)
743                 function                                   old     new   delta
744                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
745                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
746                 read_abs_bbt                               204     208      +4
747                 do_nandboot                                760     756      -4
748                 ext4fs_read_file                           576     568      -8
749                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
750            ventana        :  all -37  bss -12  rodata -29  text +4
751               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 136/-124 (12)
752                 function                                   old     new   delta
753                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
754                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
755                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
756                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
757                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
758            harmony        :  all -37  bss -16  rodata -29  text +8
759               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 2/-3 bytes: 140/-124 (16)
760                 function                                   old     new   delta
761                 hash_command                                80     160     +80
762                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
763                 nand_write_oob_syndrome                    428     432      +4
764                 ext4fs_iterate_dir                         672     668      -4
765                 ext4fs_read_file                           568     548     -20
766                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
767            medcom-wide    :  all -417  bss +28  data -16  rodata -93  text -336
768               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-2 bytes: 88/-376 (-288)
769                 function                                   old     new   delta
770                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
771                 do_fat_read_at                            2872    2904     +32
772                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
773                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
774                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
775            tec            :  all -449  bss -4  data -16  rodata -93  text -336
776               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-2 bytes: 88/-376 (-288)
777                 function                                   old     new   delta
778                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
779                 do_fat_read_at                            2872    2904     +32
780                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
781                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
782                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
783            plutux         :  all -481  bss +16  data -16  rodata -93  text -388
784               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 1/-3 bytes: 68/-408 (-340)
785                 function                                   old     new   delta
786                 crc32_wd_buf                                 -      56     +56
787                 do_load_serial_bin                        1688    1700     +12
788                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
789                 do_fat_read_at                            2904    2872     -32
790                 do_mem_crc                                 168      68    -100
791                 hash_command                               420     160    -260
792   powerpc: (for 5/5 boards)  all +37.4  data -3.2  rodata -41.8  text +82.4
793            MPC8610HPCD    :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
794               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
795                 function                                   old     new   delta
796                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
797                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
798            MPC8641HPCN    :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
799               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
800                 function                                   old     new   delta
801                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
802                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
803            MPC8641HPCN_36BIT:  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
804               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
805                 function                                   old     new   delta
806                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
807                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
808            sbc8641d       :  all +55  rodata -29  text +84
809               u-boot: add: 1/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-96 (80)
810                 function                                   old     new   delta
811                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
812                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
813            xpedite517x    :  all -33  data -16  rodata -93  text +76
814               u-boot: add: 1/-1, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 176/-112 (64)
815                 function                                   old     new   delta
816                 hash_command                                 -     176    +176
817                 hash_algo                                   16       -     -16
818                 do_mem_crc                                 184      88     -96
819...
820
821
822This shows that commit 19 has reduced codesize for arm slightly and increased
823it for powerpc. This increase was offset in by reductions in rodata and
824data/bss.
825
826Shown below the summary lines are the sizes for each board. Below each board
827are the sizes for each function. This information starts with:
828
829   add - number of functions added / removed
830   grow - number of functions which grew / shrunk
831   bytes - number of bytes of code added to / removed from all functions,
832            plus the total byte change in brackets
833
834The change seems to be that hash_command() has increased by more than the
835do_mem_crc() function has decreased. The function sizes typically add up to
836roughly the text area size, but note that every read-only section except
837rodata is included in 'text', so the function total does not exactly
838correspond.
839
840It is common when refactoring code for the rodata to decrease as the text size
841increases, and vice versa.
842
843
844The .buildman file
845==================
846
847The .buildman file provides information about the available toolchains and
848also allows build flags to be passed to 'make'. It consists of several
849sections, with the section name in square brackets. Within each section are
850a set of (tag, value) pairs.
851
852'[toolchain]' section
853
854    This lists the available toolchains. The tag here doesn't matter, but
855    make sure it is unique. The value is the path to the toolchain. Buildman
856    will look in that path for a file ending in 'gcc'. It will then execute
857    it to check that it is a C compiler, passing only the --version flag to
858    it. If the return code is 0, buildman assumes that it is a valid C
859    compiler. It uses the first part of the name as the architecture and
860    strips off the last part when setting the CROSS_COMPILE environment
861    variable (parts are delimited with a hyphen).
862
863    For example powerpc-linux-gcc will be noted as a toolchain for 'powerpc'
864    and CROSS_COMPILE will be set to powerpc-linux- when using it.
865
866'[toolchain-alias]' section
867
868    This converts toolchain architecture names to U-Boot names. For example,
869    if an x86 toolchains is called i386-linux-gcc it will not normally be
870    used for architecture 'x86'. Adding 'x86: i386 x86_64' to this section
871    will tell buildman that the i386 and x86_64 toolchains can be used for
872    the x86 architecture.
873
874'[make-flags]' section
875
876    U-Boot's build system supports a few flags (such as BUILD_TAG) which
877    affect the build product. These flags can be specified in the buildman
878    settings file. They can also be useful when building U-Boot against other
879    open source software.
880
881    [make-flags]
882    at91-boards=ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1
883    snapper9260=${at91-boards} BUILD_TAG=442
884    snapper9g45=${at91-boards} BUILD_TAG=443
885
886    This will use 'make ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1 BUILD_TAG=442' for snapper9260
887    and 'make ENABLE_AT91_TEST=1 BUILD_TAG=443' for snapper9g45. A special
888    variable ${target} is available to access the target name (snapper9260
889    and snapper9g20 in this case). Variables are resolved recursively. Note
890    that variables can only contain the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, hyphen (-)
891    and underscore (_).
892
893    It is expected that any variables added are dealt with in U-Boot's
894    config.mk file and documented in the README.
895
896    Note that you can pass ad-hoc options to the build using environment
897    variables, for example:
898
899       SOME_OPTION=1234 ./tools/buildman/buildman my_board
900
901
902Quick Sanity Check
903==================
904
905If you have made changes and want to do a quick sanity check of the
906currently checked-out source, run buildman without the -b flag. This will
907build the selected boards and display build status as it runs (i.e. -v is
908enabled automatically). Use -e to see errors/warnings as well.
909
910
911Building Ranges
912===============
913
914You can build a range of commits by specifying a range instead of a branch
915when using the -b flag. For example:
916
917    upstream/master..us-buildman
918
919will build commits in us-buildman that are not in upstream/master.
920
921
922Building Faster
923===============
924
925By default, buildman executes 'make mrproper' prior to building the first
926commit for each board. This causes everything to be built from scratch. If you
927trust the build system's incremental build capabilities, you can pass the -I
928flag to skip the 'make mproper' invocation, which will reduce the amount of
929work 'make' does, and hence speed up the build. This flag will speed up any
930buildman invocation, since it reduces the amount of work done on any build.
931
932One possible application of buildman is as part of a continual edit, build,
933edit, build, ... cycle; repeatedly applying buildman to the same change or
934series of changes while making small incremental modifications to the source
935each time. This provides quick feedback regarding the correctness of recent
936modifications. In this scenario, buildman's default choice of build directory
937causes more build work to be performed than strictly necessary.
938
939By default, each buildman thread uses a single directory for all builds. When a
940thread builds multiple boards, the configuration built in this directory will
941cycle through various different configurations, one per board built by the
942thread. Variations in the configuration will force a rebuild of affected source
943files when a thread switches between boards. Ideally, such buildman-induced
944rebuilds would not happen, thus allowing the build to operate as efficiently as
945the build system and source changes allow. buildman's -P flag may be used to
946enable this; -P causes each board to be built in a separate (board-specific)
947directory, thus avoiding any buildman-induced configuration changes in any
948build directory.
949
950U-Boot's build system embeds information such as a build timestamp into the
951final binary. This information varies each time U-Boot is built. This causes
952various files to be rebuilt even if no source changes are made, which in turn
953requires that the final U-Boot binary be re-linked. This unnecessary work can
954be avoided by turning off the timestamp feature. This can be achieved by
955setting the SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH environment variable to 0.
956
957Combining all of these options together yields the command-line shown below.
958This will provide the quickest possible feedback regarding the current content
959of the source tree, thus allowing rapid tested evolution of the code.
960
961    SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=0 ./tools/buildman/buildman -I -P tegra
962
963
964Checking configuration
965======================
966
967A common requirement when converting CONFIG options to Kconfig is to check
968that the effective configuration has not changed due to the conversion.
969Buildman supports this with the -K option, used after a build. This shows
970differences in effective configuration between one commit and the next.
971
972For example:
973
974    $ buildman -b kc4 -sK
975    ...
976    43: Convert CONFIG_SPL_USBETH_SUPPORT to Kconfig
977    arm:
978    + u-boot.cfg: CONFIG_SPL_ENV_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_NET_SUPPORT=1
979    + u-boot-spl.cfg: CONFIG_SPL_MMC_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_NAND_SUPPORT=1
980    + all: CONFIG_SPL_ENV_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_MMC_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_NAND_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_NET_SUPPORT=1
981    am335x_evm_usbspl :
982    + u-boot.cfg: CONFIG_SPL_ENV_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_NET_SUPPORT=1
983    + u-boot-spl.cfg: CONFIG_SPL_MMC_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_NAND_SUPPORT=1
984    + all: CONFIG_SPL_ENV_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_MMC_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_NAND_SUPPORT=1 CONFIG_SPL_NET_SUPPORT=1
985    44: Convert CONFIG_SPL_USB_HOST_SUPPORT to Kconfig
986    ...
987
988This shows that commit 44 enabled three new options for the board
989am335x_evm_usbspl which were not enabled in commit 43. There is also a
990summary for 'arm' showing all the changes detected for that architecture.
991In this case there is only one board with changes, so 'arm' output is the
992same as 'am335x_evm_usbspl'/
993
994The -K option uses the u-boot.cfg, spl/u-boot-spl.cfg and tpl/u-boot-tpl.cfg
995files which are produced by a build. If all you want is to check the
996configuration you can in fact avoid doing a full build, using -D. This tells
997buildman to configuration U-Boot and create the .cfg files, but not actually
998build the source. This is 5-10 times faster than doing a full build.
999
1000By default buildman considers the follow two configuration methods
1001equivalent:
1002
1003   #define CONFIG_SOME_OPTION
1004
1005   CONFIG_SOME_OPTION=y
1006
1007The former would appear in a header filer and the latter in a defconfig
1008file. The achieve this, buildman considers 'y' to be '1' in configuration
1009variables. This avoids lots of useless output when converting a CONFIG
1010option to Kconfig. To disable this behaviour, use --squash-config-y.
1011
1012
1013Other options
1014=============
1015
1016Buildman has various other command line options. Try --help to see them.
1017
1018When doing builds, Buildman's return code will reflect the overall result:
1019
1020    0 (success)     No errors or warnings found
1021    128             Errors found
1022    129             Warnings found
1023
1024
1025How to change from MAKEALL
1026==========================
1027
1028Buildman includes most of the features of MAKEALL and is generally faster
1029and easier to use. In particular it builds entire branches: if a particular
1030commit introduces an error in a particular board, buildman can easily show
1031you this, even if a later commit fixes that error.
1032
1033The reasons to deprecate MAKEALL are:
1034- We don't want to maintain two build systems
1035- Buildman is typically faster
1036- Buildman has a lot more features
1037
1038But still, many people will be sad to lose MAKEALL. If you are used to
1039MAKEALL, here are a few pointers.
1040
1041First you need to set up your tool chains - see the 'Setting up' section
1042for details. Once you have your required toolchain(s) detected then you are
1043ready to go.
1044
1045To build the current source tree, run buildman without a -b flag:
1046
1047   ./tools/buildman/buildman <list of things to build>
1048
1049This will build the current source tree for the given boards and display
1050the results and errors.
1051
1052However buildman usually works on entire branches, and for that you must
1053specify a board flag:
1054
1055   ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch_name> <list of things to build>
1056
1057followed by (afterwards, or perhaps concurrently in another terminal):
1058
1059   ./tools/buildman/buildman -b <branch_name> -s <list of things to build>
1060
1061to see the results of the build. Rather than showing you all the output,
1062buildman just shows a summary, with red indicating that a commit introduced
1063an error and green indicating that a commit fixed an error. Use the -e
1064flag to see the full errors and -l to see which boards caused which errors.
1065
1066If you really want to see build results as they happen, use -v when doing a
1067build (and -e to see the errors/warnings too).
1068
1069You don't need to stick around on that branch while buildman is running. It
1070checks out its own copy of the source code, so you can change branches,
1071add commits, etc. without affecting the build in progress.
1072
1073The <list of things to build> can include board names, architectures or the
1074like. There are no flags to disambiguate since ambiguities are rare. Using
1075the examples from MAKEALL:
1076
1077Examples:
1078  - build all Power Architecture boards:
1079      MAKEALL -a powerpc
1080      MAKEALL --arch powerpc
1081      MAKEALL powerpc
1082          ** buildman -b <branch> powerpc
1083  - build all PowerPC boards manufactured by vendor "esd":
1084      MAKEALL -a powerpc -v esd
1085          ** buildman -b <branch> esd
1086  - build all PowerPC boards manufactured either by "keymile" or "siemens":
1087      MAKEALL -a powerpc -v keymile -v siemens
1088          ** buildman -b <branch> keymile siemens
1089  - build all Freescale boards with MPC83xx CPUs, plus all 4xx boards:
1090      MAKEALL -c mpc83xx -v freescale 4xx
1091          ** buildman -b <branch> mpc83xx freescale 4xx
1092
1093Buildman automatically tries to use all the CPUs in your machine. If you
1094are building a lot of boards it will use one thread for every CPU core
1095it detects in your machine. This is like MAKEALL's BUILD_NBUILDS option.
1096You can use the -T flag to change the number of threads. If you are only
1097building a few boards, buildman will automatically run make with the -j
1098flag to increase the number of concurrent make tasks. It isn't normally
1099that helpful to fiddle with this option, but if you use the BUILD_NCPUS
1100option in MAKEALL then -j is the equivalent in buildman.
1101
1102Buildman puts its output in ../<branch_name> by default but you can change
1103this with the -o option. Buildman normally does out-of-tree builds: use -i
1104to disable that if you really want to. But be careful that once you have
1105used -i you pollute buildman's copies of the source tree, and you will need
1106to remove the build directory (normally ../<branch_name>) to run buildman
1107in normal mode (without -i).
1108
1109Buildman doesn't keep the output result normally, but use the -k option to
1110do this.
1111
1112Please read 'Theory of Operation' a few times as it will make a lot of
1113things clearer.
1114
1115Some options you might like are:
1116
1117   -B shows which functions are growing/shrinking in which commit - great
1118        for finding code bloat.
1119   -S shows image sizes for each commit (just an overall summary)
1120   -u shows boards that you haven't built yet
1121   --step 0 will build just the upstream commit and the last commit of your
1122        branch. This is often a quick sanity check that your branch doesn't
1123        break anything. But note this does not check bisectability!
1124
1125
1126TODO
1127====
1128
1129This has mostly be written in my spare time as a response to my difficulties
1130in testing large series of patches. Apart from tidying up there is quite a
1131bit of scope for improvement. Things like better error diffs and easier
1132access to log files. Also it would be nice if buildman could 'hunt' for
1133problems, perhaps by building a few boards for each arch, or checking
1134commits for changed files and building only boards which use those files.
1135
1136A specific problem to fix is that Ctrl-C does not exit buildman cleanly when
1137multiple builder threads are active.
1138
1139Credits
1140=======
1141
1142Thanks to Grant Grundler <grundler@chromium.org> for his ideas for improving
1143the build speed by building all commits for a board instead of the other
1144way around.
1145
1146
1147Simon Glass
1148sjg@chromium.org
1149Halloween 2012
1150Updated 12-12-12
1151Updated 23-02-13
1152