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Installation

This is a high level description of how to build LiveHD.

Requirements

Although LiveHD should run on most common Linux distributions, it is heavily tested on both Arch and Kali (Debian based).

The following programs are assumed to be present when building LiveHD:

  • GCC 12+ or Clang 12+ (C++20 support is required)
  • Bazel
  • python3

It is also assumed that bash is used to compile LiveHD.

gcc and clang offers better warnings and execution speed dependent of the benchmark.

If you're unsure if your copy of gcc or clang is new enough, you can check the version by typing

g++ --version

or

clang++ --version

Steps

Download LiveHD source

git clone https://github.com/masc-ucsc/livehd

Install Bazelisk

Bazelisk is a wrapper around bazel that allows you to use a specific version.

If you do not have system permissions, you can install a local bazelisk

npm install  @bazel/bazelisk
alias bazel=$(pwd)/node_modules/\@bazel/bazelisk/bazelisk.js

You can also install it directly if you have administrative permissions:

macos: 

brew install bazelisk.

Linux: 

npm install -g @bazel/bazelisk


go install github.com/bazelbuild/bazelisk@latest
export PATH=$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin

Arch linux: 

pacaur -S bazelisk  # or yay or paru installers

Build LiveHD

LiveHD has several build options, detailed below. All three should result in a working executable, but may differ in speed or output.

A binary will be created in livehd/bazel-bin/main/lgshell.

bazel build       //main:all # fast build, no debug symbols, slow execution (default)
bazel build -copt //main:all # fastest execution speed, no debug symbols, no assertions
bazel build -cdbg //main:all # moderate execution speed, debug symbols

Potential issues

If you have multiple gcc versions, you may need to specify the latest. E.g:

CXX=g++-8 CC=gcc-8 bazel build //main:all -c opt # fast execution for benchmarking
CXX=g++-8 CC=gcc-8 bazel build //main:all -c dbg # debugging/development

If you want to run clang specific version:

CXX=clang++-10 CC=clang-10 bazel build //main:all -c dbg # debugging/development

Make sure that the openJDK installed is compatible with bazel and has the certificates to use tools. E.g in debian:

dpkg-reconfigure openjdk-11-jdk
/var/lib/dpkg/ca-certificates-java.postinst configure

If you fail to build for the first time, you may need to clear the cache under your home directory before rebuilding:

rm -rf ~/.cache/bazel

Make sure to have enough memory (4+GB at least)

Next Steps

To start using LiveHD, check out Usage. If you're interested in working on LiveHD, refer to Creating a pass.