The goal of this article is to guide you through compiling and running Barrelfish inside QEMU, and to write and run programs on Barrelfish itself. The instructions below assume you are using a recent version of Ubuntu.

Requirements

Barrelfish requires the following tools to compile correctly:

• GCC 4.x
  • 4.4.5 and 4.5.2 are known to work. However, 4.4.5 throws compile warnings when building the current release as it does not support flags used by the Makefile, so 4.5.x is recommended.
• GNU binutils 2.19 and 2.20 are known to work
• GNU make
• GHC and some additional libraries

  • Some versions of GHC are not supported. See Section on GHC for more informations

• Non-kvm QEMU. The kvm version causes runtime errors, see known issues.

Getting Barrelfish

First we need to get the latest version of Barrelfish from the mercurial repository. Use the following command:

hg clone http://hg.barrelfish.org/barrelfish

or, if you are using an HTTP proxy:

hg --config http_proxy.host=ipOfYourProxyServer:portOfYourProxyServer --config http_proxy.user=user --config http_proxy.passwd=password clone http://hg.barrelfish.org/barrelfish

Configuring

Once you have cloned the repository, cd into it, create a build directory, and enter it:

cd hg.barrelfish.org
mkdir build
cd build

Prepare for build: The hake build system

We use hake to build barrelfish.

• You need ghc. See the README. Please, read section GHC Versions for more details.

• Packages
  • libghc-ghc-paths-dev
  • libghc-parsec2-dev (libghc-parsec3-dev seems to work as well)
• You may also need to install the libgmp3-dev package

GHC Versions

• 7.4.1 is the version we use internally, so this is expected to always work

• 7.4.2 is currently not working. This problem will be fixed in the next release with the following patch provided by Wang Nan (wangnan0 at huawei.com):

diff --git a/hake/Main.hs b/hake/Main.hs
--- a/hake/Main.hs
+++ b/hake/Main.hs
@@ -357,7 +357,7 @@ evalHakeFiles :: Opts -> [String] -> [(String,String)]
               -> IO [(String,HRule)]
 evalHakeFiles o allfiles hakefiles = 
     let imports = [ "Hakefiles"]
-        all_imports = imports
+        all_imports = ("Prelude":"HakeTypes":imports)
         moddirs = [ (opt_installdir o) ./. "hake", 
                     ".", 
                     (opt_bfsourcedir o) ./. "hake" ]
@@ -374,8 +374,7 @@ evalHakeFiles o allfiles hakefiles =
            targets <- mapM (\m -> guessTarget m Nothing) imports
            setTargets targets
            load LoadAllTargets
-           modlist <- mapM (\m -> findModule (mkModuleName m) Nothing) all_imports
-           setContext [IIModule m | m <- modlist]
+           setContext [(IIDecl . simpleImportDecl) (mkModuleName m) | m <- (all_imports)]
            val <- dynCompileExpr "Hakefiles.hf :: [(String, HRule)]" 
            return (fromDyn val [("failed",Error "failed")])

• 7.6 is not supported. Wang Nan (wangnan0 at huawei.com) kindly provided a patch for this:

diff --git a/hake/Main.hs b/hake/Main.hs
index 8a42a3b..bf0c75b 100644
--- a/hake/Main.hs
+++ b/hake/Main.hs
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ import System.Directory
 import System.Exit
 import GHC hiding (Target)
 import GHC.Paths ( libdir )
-import DynFlags ( defaultLogAction,
+import DynFlags ( defaultFatalMessager, defaultFlushOut,
                   xopt_set,
                   ExtensionFlag (Opt_DeriveDataTypeable) )
 import Data.Dynamic
@@ -362,7 +362,7 @@ evalHakeFiles o allfiles hakefiles =
                     ".", 
                     (opt_bfsourcedir o) ./. "hake" ]
     in do 
-      defaultErrorHandler defaultLogAction $ do
+      defaultErrorHandler defaultFatalMessager defaultFlushOut $ do
          runGhc (Just libdir) $ do
            dflags <- getSessionDynFlags
           let dflags1 = foldl xopt_set dflags [ Opt_DeriveDataTypeable ]
diff --git a/tools/mackerel/Fields.hs b/tools/mackerel/Fields.hs
index 267cd5e..4d2e860 100644
--- a/tools/mackerel/Fields.hs
+++ b/tools/mackerel/Fields.hs
@@ -121,11 +121,11 @@ make_ftype t@(TypeRef _ _) dn = Just (TN.fromRef t dn)
 -- are polymorphic so that they don't need to know how large the total
 -- load unit is (32 bits? 8 bits?) etc.
 --
-extract_mask :: (Bits a) => Rec -> Integer -> a
+extract_mask :: (Num a, Bits a) => Rec -> Integer -> a
 extract_mask f sz = 
     foldl setBit 0 (enumFromTo (fromInteger $ offset f) 
                                (fromInteger $ (offset f) + (size f) - 1))
-insert_mask :: (Bits a) => Rec -> Integer -> a
+insert_mask :: (Num a, Bits a) => Rec -> Integer -> a
 insert_mask f sz = 
     foldl complementBit (extract_mask f sz) (enumFromTo 0 (fromInteger sz - 1))
 
diff --git a/tools/mackerel/Main.hs b/tools/mackerel/Main.hs
index 3a8e55d..6a3e0a7 100644
--- a/tools/mackerel/Main.hs
+++ b/tools/mackerel/Main.hs
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ import qualified BitFieldDriver
 import qualified ShiftDriver
 import Checks
 import Dev
+import Control.Exception
 
 --
 -- Command line options and parsing code
diff --git a/tools/mackerel/ShiftDriver.hs b/tools/mackerel/ShiftDriver.hs
index 2a2161b..4ea09f2 100644
--- a/tools/mackerel/ShiftDriver.hs
+++ b/tools/mackerel/ShiftDriver.hs
@@ -306,12 +306,12 @@ snputs_like_call s = snprintf_like_call "snprintf" [ C.StringConstant $ percent_
 --
 -- Functions to generate masks to select or deselect a subfield of bits
 --
-select_mask :: (Bits a) => Integer -> Integer -> Integer -> a
+select_mask :: (Num a, Bits a) => Integer -> Integer -> Integer -> a
 select_mask word_size start width = 
     foldl setBit 0 (enumFromTo (fromInteger $ start) 
                                (fromInteger $ start + width - 1))
 
-deselect_mask :: (Bits a) => Integer -> Integer -> Integer -> a
+deselect_mask :: (Num a, Bits a) => Integer -> Integer -> Integer -> a
 deselect_mask word_size start width = 
     foldl complementBit (select_mask word_size start width) 
               (enumFromTo 0 (fromInteger word_size - 1))

Build barrelfish

Then create the required makefile:

../hake/hake.sh -s .. -a x86_64

or, if you wish to build the 32-bit version:

../hake/hake.sh -s .. -a x86_32

Valid arm targets are:

../hake/hake.sh -s .. -a arm

or

../hake/hake.sh -s .. -a arm11mp

or

../hake/hake.sh -s .. -a arm_gem5

Note: If you get the following error:

../hake/Main.hs:369:25:
    Not in scope: data constructor `Opt_DeriveDataTypeable'

Apply the following patch to hake/Main.hs: Main.hs.patch

Note: If you get the following error:

stack overflow: use +RTS -K<size> to increase it

Try to avoid having the build directory in the source tree

Compiling

Now we can build Barrelfish:

make

To speed things up you can specify a number of jobs. This should ideally be slightly more than the number of cores, so on a 4-core machine you could use:

make -j 5

Once that has completed, you can issue the following command to run Barrelfish on QEMU:

make sim

To allocate more cores to QEMU, instead of the default 2, you can edit the symbolic_targets.mk file in the build directory. Do this by editing the QEMU_CMD line for the architecture you've chosen for Barrelfish.

Known Issues

QEMU-kvm

If you get the following error when booting Barrelfish:

ERROR: pci.0 in AcpiOsInstallInterruptHandler() ../usr/pci/acpica_osglue.c:831
ERROR: failed to route interrupt
Failure: (            pci) Unknown global system interrupt number [PCI_ERR_UNKNOWN_GSI]
Assertion failed on core 0 in pci: r == 0, function init_acpi, file ../usr/pci/acpi.c, line 725.
Aborted

This is most likely due to Barrelfish being run inside QEMU-kvm. To fix this you can add '-no-kvm' to the QEMU_CMD in build/symbolic_targets.mk Alternatively, if you have an intel CPU, you can issue the following command as root: 'rmmod kvm_intel kvm'

GHC 6.12.1/GHC 6.12.2

Note: This is deprecated. GHC 6 is not supported on recent barrelfish versions

There is a bug in some versions of GHC 6.12.2 on ubuntu and GHC 6.12.1 which causes the Barrelfish build to fail. If you see errors like the following:

../tools/fof/IL/FoF/Compile.lhs:71:18:
    Can't find interface-file declaration for variable freshVar
      Probable cause: bug in .hi-boot file, or inconsistent .hi file
      Use -ddump-if-trace to get an idea of which file caused the error
    In the expression: freshVar binding
    In the definition of `loc': loc = freshVar binding
    In the definition of `getFreshVar':
        getFreshVar binding
                      = (loc, binding1)
                      where
                          loc = freshVar binding
                          binding1 = binding {freshVar = loc + 1}
 
../tools/fof/IL/FoF/Compile.lhs:72:23:
    Can't find interface-file declaration for variable freshVar
      Probable cause: bug in .hi-boot file, or inconsistent .hi file
      Use -ddump-if-trace to get an idea of which file caused the error
    In the expression: binding {freshVar = loc + 1}
    In the definition of `binding1':
        binding1 = binding {freshVar = loc + 1}
    In the definition of `getFreshVar':
        getFreshVar binding
                      = (loc, binding1)
                      where
                          loc = freshVar binding
                          binding1 = binding {freshVar = loc + 1}
 
../tools/fof/IL/FoF/Compile.lhs:92:6:
    Can't find interface-file declaration for variable freshVar
      Probable cause: bug in .hi-boot file, or inconsistent .hi file
      Use -ddump-if-trace to get an idea of which file caused the error
    In the expression:
        stableBinding
          {freshVar = freshVar upBinding, defStructs = defStructs upBinding,
           defUnions = defUnions upBinding, defEnums = defEnums upBinding}
    In the definition of `passFreshVar':
        passFreshVar upBinding stableBinding
                       = stableBinding
                           {freshVar = freshVar upBinding, defStructs = defStructs upBinding,
                            defUnions = defUnions upBinding, defEnums = defEnums upBinding}

See this section on how to fix this.

GCC 4.6.x

Compilation will fail due to new warnings which have been introduced in GCC 4.6.x, these warnings can be suppressed with two flags:

-Wno-unused-but-set-variable -Wno-format

These must be added to the build rules file for the architecture you are building for. These are all contained in hake/. For example, for the x86_64 target, the file is X86_64.hs. The variables which must have the flags added to them are ourCommonFlags and kernelCFlags. After modifying the file, just run make and the necessary files will be recompiled and the makefile will be regenerated and compilation will resume.

Note: these flags cannot simply be added to ArchDefaults.hs as the kernel flags are specified individually for each architecture. However, this may be simpler if you are compiling Barrelfish for multiple architectures.

Gold linker

GNU binutils includes an ELF linker named "gold" which is faster than the default BFD linker for large C++ applications. However, when linking Barrelfish's CPU driver you may see the following error:

/usr/bin/ld: fatal error: -pie and -static are incompatible
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [x86_64/sbin/cpu] Error 1

To fix this issue uninstall the binutils-gold package. For further details on why this occurs see this discussion.