In order to build pocl, you need the following support libraries and tools:
- A supported version of LLVM & Clang (check release notes)
- development files for LLVM & Clang + their transitive dependencies (e.g. libclang-dev, libllvm-dev, zlib1g-dev, libtinfo-dev...)
- CMake
- GNU make or ninja
- pkg-config
- pthread (should be installed by default)
- hwloc v1.0 or newer (e.g. libhwloc-dev) - optional
- python3 (for support of LLVM bitcode with SPIR target; optional but enabled by default)
- python3, llvm-spirv (version-compatible with LLVM) and spirv-tools (optional; required for SPIR-V support in CPU / CUDA; Vulkan driver supports SPIR-V through clspv)
Note: The binary packages from https://apt.llvm.org/ are recommended (and tested for each release) instead of the binary tar balls or the packages included in the distribution. The following assumes apt.llvm.org is added to your apt repos:
apt install -y python3-dev libpython3-dev build-essential ocl-icd-libopencl1 cmake git pkg-config libclang-${LLVM_VERSION}-dev clang llvm-${LLVM_VERSION} make ninja-build ocl-icd-libopencl1 ocl-icd-dev ocl-icd-opencl-dev libhwloc-dev zlib1g zlib1g-dev clinfo dialog apt-utils libxml2-dev libclang-cpp${LLVM_VERSION}-dev libclang-cpp${LLVM_VERSION} llvm-${LLVM_VERSION}-dev
Installing requirements for Arch Linux:
pacman -S gcc patch hwloc cmake git pkg-config make ninja ocl-icd clang llvm llvm-libs clinfo opencl-headers
Installing requirements for Fedora:
dnf install gcc gcc-c++ clinfo hwloc-devel hwloc-libs cmake git-core pkgconfig make ninja-build ocl-icd ocl-icd-devel clang clang-devel clang-libs llvm llvm-devel llvm-libs patch redhat-rpm-config findutils
There are also Dockerfiles available for a few most common linux
distributions in tools/docker
, looking into them might be helpful.
If you want PoCL built with ICD and OpenCL 3.0 support at platform level, you will need sufficiently new ocl-icd (2.3.x). For Ubuntu, it can be installed from this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~ocl-icd/+archive/ubuntu/ppa Additionally, if you want the CPU device to report as 3.0 OpenCL, you will need LLVM 14 or newer.
Note: PoCL assumes that the OpenCL development headers and the ICD loader (if present on your system) are version compatible.
IMPORTANT NOTE! Some targets (TCE and possibly HSA) require that you compile & build LLVM with RTTI on. It can be enabled on cmake command line, as follows:
cmake [other CMake options] -DLLVM_ENABLE_RTTI=ON -DLLVM_ENABLE_EH=ON <llvm-source-directory>
Note that pocl aims to support the latest LLVM version at the time of pocl release, plus the previous LLVM version. All older LLVM versions are supported with "best effort" basis; there might not be build bots continuously testing the code base nor anyone fixing their possible breakage.
CMake version 3.12 or higher is required.
The build+install is the usual CMake way:
cd <directory-with-pocl-sources> mkdir build cd build cmake [-D<option>=<value> ...] .. make && make install
To see the default detected values, run cmake ..
without any options,
it will produce a summary.
Since pocl includes a compiler for the kernels, it both compiles (producing code) and is compiled (it consists of code). This distinction typically called "host" and "target": The host is where pocl is running, the target is where the OpenCL code will be running. These two systems can be wildly different.
Host compiler used to compile pocl can be GCC or Clang; the target compiler is always Clang+LLVM since pocl uses Clang/LLVM internally. For host compiler, you should use the one which your LLVM was compiled with (because the LLVM-related parts of pocl take LLVM's CXXFLAGS from llvm-config and pass them to the host compiler).
- Compile C:
- CMAKE_C_FLAGS CMAKE_C_FLAGS_<build-type>
- Compile C++:
- CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_<build-type>
All of these empty by default. There are hardcoded defaults which may be overridden by setting these variables (rarely needed).
- Extra parameters to llc
- EXTRA_HOST_LLC_FLAGS
- Extra parameters to clang
- EXTRA_HOST_CLANG_FLAGS
Extra parameters to linker (links kernel to shared library which is then dlopened):
EXTRA_HOST_LD_FLAGS
- EXTRA_KERNEL_FLAGS
- is applied to all kernel library compilation commands, IOW it's for language-independent options
- EXTRA_KERNEL_{C,CL,CXX}_FLAGS
- cmake variables for per-language options for kernel library compilation
Note that there are a few more packaging-related options described
in README.packaging
.
For multiple-item options like KERNELLIB_HOST_CPU_VARIANTS, use ";" as separator (you'll have to escape it for bash).
-DWITH_LLVM_CONFIG=<path-to-llvm-config>
IMPORTANT Path to a llvm-config binary. This determines the LLVM installation used by pocl. If not specified, pocl will try to find and link against llvm-config in PATH env var (usually means your system LLVM).-DSTATIC_LLVM
pocl usesllvm-config --libs
to get list of LLVM libraries it should link to. With this flag enabled, it additionally passes--link-static
tollvm-config
; otherwise it passes--link-shared
. Default is OFF (=shared).-DENABLE_ICD
By default pocl's buildsystem will try to find an ICD and build pocl as a dynamic library named "libpocl". This option is useful if you want to avoid ICD and build pocl directly as libOpenCL library. See also :ref:`linking-with-icd`-DPOCL_INSTALL_<something>_DIR
The equivalent of--bindir
,--sbindir
etc fine-tuning of paths for autotools. See the beginning of toplevel CMakeLists.txt for all the variables.Note that if
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
equals/usr
then pocl.icd is installed to/etc/OpenCL/vendors
, otherwise it's installed to${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/etc/OpenCL/vendors
.-DLLC_HOST_CPU=<something>
Defaults to auto-detection viallc
. Runllc -mcpu=help
for valid values. The CPU type is required to compile the "target" (kernel library) part of CPU backend.This variable overrides LLVM's autodetected host CPU at configure time. Useful when llc fails to detect the CPU (often happens on non-x86 platforms, or x86 with CPU newer than LLVM).
Note that when this is set (set by default) and the KERNELLIB_HOST_CPU_VARIANTS variable is not
distro
, pocl will first try to find compiled kernel library for runtime-detected CPU then fallback to LLC_HOST_CPU. This works well if pocl is run where it was built, or the actual CPU is in the KERNELLIB_HOST_CPU_VARIANTS list, or the actual CPU is >= LLC_HOST_CPU feature-wise; otherwise it will likely fail with illegal instruction at runtime.-DKERNELLIB_HOST_CPU_VARIANTS
You can control which CPUs the "target" part of CPU backend will be built for. Unlike LLC_HOST_CPU, this variable is useful if you plan to build for multiple CPUs. Defaults to "native" which is automagically replaced by LLC_HOST_CPU. Available CPUs are listed byllc -mcpu=help
. See above for runtime CPU detection rules.Note that there's another valid value on x86(64) platforms. If set to
distro
, the KERNELLIB_HOST_CPU_VARIANTS variable will be set up with a few preselected sse/avx variants covering 99.99% of x86 processors, and the runtime CPU detection is slightly altered: pocl will find the suitable compiled library based on detected CPU features, so it cannot fail (at worst it'll degrade to SSE2 library).-DLLC_TRIPLE=<something>
Controls what target triple pocl is built for. You can set this manually in case the autodetection fails. Example value:x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
-DENABLE_TESTSUITES
Which external (source outside pocl) testsuites to enable. For the list of testsuites, see examples/CMakeLists.txt or theexamples
directory. Set toall
and pocl will try to autodetect & enable everything it can.Note that you may build testsuites outside pocl's build tree, and test multiple pocl builds with a single testsuite directory. To use this, run cmake with
-DTESTSUITE_BASEDIR=<tests-builddir>
and-DTESTSUITE_SOURCE_BASEDIR=<tests-sourcedir>
. The directory structure mirrors that ofpocl/examples
. So to build e.g. AMD SDK 2.9 with-DTESTSUITE_BASEDIR=/home/pocltest-build -DTESTSUITE_SOURCE_BASEDIR=/home/pocltest-src
, place theAMD-APP-SDK-v2.9-RC-lnx64.tgz
file into/home/pocltest-src/AMDSDK2.9
directory.-DENABLE_TESTS=ON/OFF
enable/disable compilation of internal tests.-DENABLE_EXAMPLES=ON/OFF
enable/disable compilation of all examples. Disabling this makes ENABLE_TESTSUITES option unavailable.-DENABLE_POCLCC=ON/OFF
enable/disable compilation of poclcc.-DENABLE_CONFORMANCE=ON/OFF
Ensures that certain build options which would result in non-conformant pocl build stay disabled. Defaults to OFF. Note that this does not quarantee a fully conformant build of pocl by itself. See :ref:`pocl-conformance` for details.-DENABLE_{A,L,T,UB}SAN
- compiles pocl's host code (and tests + examples) with various sanitizers. Using more than one sanitizer at a time is untested. Using together with-DENABLE_ICD=OFF -DENABLE_LOADABLE_DRIVERS=OFF
is highly recommended to avoid issues with loading order of sanitizer libraries.-DENABLE_{CUDA,TCE,HSA,VULKAN,LEVEL0}=ON/OFF
- enable various (non-CPU) backends. Usually requires some additional build dependencies; see their documentation.-DPOCL_DEBUG_MESSAGES=ON
- when disabled, pocl is compiled without debug messages (POCL_DEBUG env var) support.-DEXAMPLES_USE_GIT_MASTER=ON
- when enabled, examples (external programs inexamples/
directory) are built from their git branches (if available), as opposed to default: building from release tars.-DENABLE_POCL_FLOAT_CONVERSION=ON/OFF
When enabled, OpenCL printf() call's f/e/g formatters are handled by pocl. When disabled (default), these are handled by system C library.-DINTEL_SDE_AVX512=<PATH>
Path to Intel® Software Development Emulator. When this option is given, the LLVM host CPU is forcibly set to 'skylake-avx512', and the internal tests are run through the Emulator. Mostly useful to test AVX512.
You can build a runtime-only pocl to run prebuilt pocl binaries on a device. To do this
First, build a pocl with LLVM somewhere.
on that machine, set up env vars required for your device (if any), then run
bin/poclcc -l
. That should print something like:LIST OF DEVICES: 0: Vendor: AuthenticAMD Name: pthread-AMD A10-7800 Radeon R7, 12 Compute Cores 4C+8G Version: OpenCL 2.0 pocl HSTR: pthread-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-bdver3
The string after "HSTR:" is the device build hash.
now build the LLVM-less pocl. You will need the device build hash from previous step:
cmake -DENABLE_LLVM=0 -DHOST_DEVICE_BUILD_HASH=<something> ...
This is required because pocl binaries contain a device hash, and the LLVM-less pocl needs to know which binaries it can load.
NOTE: If you've enabled the :ref:`almaif device <almaif_usage>` , HOST_DEVICE_BUILD_HASH can be set to anything you want. Reason being, fixed function accelerators don't require compiling OpenCL kernels, therefore, no hash will ever be matched.
It's now possible to cross-compile pocl on x86-64 to run on ARM/MIPS/etc, There is a ToolchainExample.cmake file; copy it under different name, then follow the instructions in the file.
There are unsolved issues and bugs in pocl. See the bug listing for a complete listing at https://github.com/pocl/pocl/issues
- install docker for your distribution
- start the docker daemon
- make sure you have enough space (default location is usually
/var/lib/docker
, required storage for standard pocl build is about 1.5 GB per container, and more than 10GB for TCE/PHSA builds)
cd tools/docker
- pick a Dockerfile from tools/docker, e.g. Fedora/default
- to build PoCL:
sudo docker build -t TAG -f Fedora/default .
, where TAG is a name you choose for the build (must be lowercase) - to run the tests on the built PoCL:
sudo docker run -t TAG
- this will by default use master branch of pocl git; to use a different branch/commit,
run docker build with
--build-arg GIT_COMMIT=<branch/commit>
Note that some images (e.g. RHEL and PHSA) may be impossible to build, due to not having a sufficiently new version of LLVM available.
Dockerfiles are named according to what they build, or the release they're based on:
- default: builds pocl, then runs the internal tests from build dir.
- Uses latest release of a distribution, with whatever is the default version of LLVM.
- distro: does a distribution-friendly build: enables runtime detection of CPU,
- installs pocl into system path, then runs the internal tests
- <release>: same as above, except uses specific release and specific LLVM version (the latest available in that release).
- conformance: builds & installs Pocl, then runs conformance test suite (the shortest version of it)