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authorKees Cook <kees+treewide@kernel.org>2026-09-02 15:31:14 -0700
committerKees Cook <kees@kernel.org>2026-09-04 21:37:00 -0700
commit3a2c4d55e32ad65efebdb6de44eef3bfa08bb49d (patch)
treec65086f9bdcd48c6360fb7cb4598bca084da1f32 /tools/perf/Documentation/Build.txt
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treewide: refresh kmalloc_obj() conversionsgrafted
This is another run of the Coccinelle script for converting kmalloc() family of allocations to kmalloc_obj() via the existing rules in scripts/coccinelle/api/kmalloc_objs.cocci This catches both the set of kmalloc() uses added since the first kmalloc_obj() conversions in v7.0 and adds a large group missed in the first pass due to Coccinelle not interacting well with the cleanup.h scoped_...() family of macros[1]. I worked around this with spatch's "--macro-file" argument to a file with all the scoped_...() macros mapped to Coccinelle's YACFE_ITERATOR[2] as that was the closest viable control flow indicator I could find. Build tested allmodconfig on x86, arm64, arm, loongarch, mips, powerpc, riscv, and s390 with no new warnings. Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/202609021314.8A9C0B8@keescook/ [1] Link: https://github.com/coccinelle/coccinelle/blob/master/standard.h [2] Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <kees+treewide@kernel.org>
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+
+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.
+
+5) Build with Clang
+===================
+By default, the makefile uses GCC as compiler. With specifying environment
+variables HOSTCC, CC and CXX, it allows to build perf with Clang.
+
+Using Clang for a native build:
+
+ $ HOSTCC=clang CC=clang CXX=clang++ make -C tools/perf
+
+Specifying ARCH and CROSS_COMPILE for cross compilation:
+
+ $ HOSTCC=clang CC=clang CXX=clang++ \
+ ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- \
+ make -C tools/perf