1) perf build
=============
The perf build process consists of several separated building blocks,
which are linked together to form the perf binary:
- libperf library (static)
- perf builtin commands
- traceevent library (static)
- GTK ui library
Several makefiles govern the perf build:
- Makefile
top level Makefile working as a wrapper that calls the main
Makefile.perf with a -j option to do parallel builds.
- Makefile.perf
main makefile that triggers build of all perf objects including
installation and documentation processing.
- tools/build/Makefile.build
main makefile of the build framework
- tools/build/Build.include
build framework generic definitions
- Build makefiles
makefiles that defines build objects
Please refer to tools/build/Documentation/Build.txt for more
information about build framework.
2) perf build
=============
The Makefile.perf triggers the build framework for build objects:
perf, libperf, gtk
resulting in following objects:
$ ls *-in.o
gtk-in.o libperf-in.o perf-in.o
Those objects are then used in final linking:
libperf-gtk.so <- gtk-in.o libperf-in.o
perf <- perf-in.o libperf-in.o
NOTE this description is omitting other libraries involved, only
focusing on build framework outcomes
3) Build with ASan or UBSan
==========================
$ cd tools/perf
$ make DESTDIR=/usr
$ make DESTDIR=/usr install
AddressSanitizer (or ASan) is a GCC feature that detects memory corruption bugs
such as buffer overflows and memory leaks.
$ cd tools/perf
$ make DEBUG=1 EXTRA_CFLAGS='-fno-omit-frame-pointer -fsanitize=address'
$ ASAN_OPTIONS=log_path=asan.log ./perf record -a
ASan outputs all detected issues into a log file named 'asan.log.<pid>'.
UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (or UBSan) is a fast undefined behavior detector
supported by GCC. UBSan detects undefined behaviors of programs at runtime.
$ cd tools/perf
$ make DEBUG=1 EXTRA_CFLAGS='-fno-omit-frame-pointer -fsanitize=undefined'
$ UBSAN_OPTIONS=print_stacktrace=1 ./perf record -a
If UBSan detects any problem at runtime, it outputs a “runtime error:” message.
4) Cross compilation
====================
As Multiarch is commonly supported in Linux distributions, we can install
libraries for multiple architectures on the same system and then cross-compile
Linux perf. For example, Aarch64 libraries and toolchains can be installed on
an x86_64 machine, allowing us to compile perf for an Aarch64 target.
Below is the command for building the perf with dynamic linking.
$ cd /path/to/Linux
$ make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- -C tools/perf
For static linking, the option `LDFLAGS="-static"` is required.
$ make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- \
LDFLAGS="-static" -C tools/perf
In the embedded system world, a use case is to explicitly specify the package
configuration paths for cross building:
$ PKG_CONFIG_SYSROOT_DIR="/path/to/cross/build/sysroot" \
PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR="/usr/lib/:/usr/local/lib" \
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- -C tools/perf
In this case, the variable PKG_CONFIG_SYSROOT_DIR can be used alongside the
variable PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR or PKG_CONFIG_PATH to prepend the sysroot path to
the library paths for cross compilation.
