- Contents
- Introduction
- Obtaining BLIS
- Step 1: Chose a framework configuration
- Step 2: Running
configure - Step 3: Compilation
- Step 3b: Testing (optional)
- Step 4: Installation
- Cleaning out build products
- Compiling with BLIS
- Linking against BLIS
- Uninstalling
- make targets
- Conclusion
This document describes how to configure, compile, and install a BLIS library on your local system.
The BLIS build system was designed for use with GNU/Linux (or some other sane UNIX). Other requirements are:
- Python (2.7 or later for python2; 3.4 or later for python3)
- GNU
bash(3.2 or later) - GNU
make(3.81 or later) - a working C99 compiler
- Perl (any version)
git(1.8.5 or later, only required if cloning from Github)
BLIS also requires a POSIX threads library at link-time (-lpthread or libpthread.so). This requirement holds even when configuring BLIS with multithreading disabled (the default) or with multithreading via OpenMP (--enable-multithreading=openmp). (Note: BLIS implements basic pthreads functionality automatically for Windows builds via AppVeyor.)
Finally, we also require various other shell utilities that are so ubiquitous that they are not worth mentioning (such as mv, mkdir, find, and so forth). If you are missing these utilities, then you have much bigger problems than not being able to build BLIS.
Before starting, you must obtain a copy of BLIS.
If you are an end-user (i.e., not a developer), you can download a tarball or zip file of the latest tagged version by returning to the main BLIS homepage and clicking on the releases link. However, we highly recommend that you instead clone a copy using the command:
$ git clone https://github.com/flame/blis.git
Cloning a repository allows users and developers alike to quickly and easily pull in new commits as they are available, including commits that occur between tagged releases.
Once you download the BLIS distribution, the top-level directory should look something like:
$ ls
CHANGELOG Makefile common.mk configure mpi_test testsuite
CREDITS README.md config frame obj version
INSTALL bli_config.h config.mk kernels ref_kernels windows
LICENSE build config_registry lib test
The first step is to choose how to configure BLIS. Specifically, a user must decide which configuration to use, or whether to allow configure to automatically guess the best configuration for your hardware. (Note: This automatic configuration selection only applies to x86_64 systems.)
Configurations are described in detail in the Configuration Guide.
Generally speaking, a configuration consists of several files that reside in a sub-directory of the config directory. To see a list of the available configurations, you may inspect this directory, or run configure with no arguments. Here are the current (as of this writing) contents of the config directory:
$ ls config
amd64 cortexa15 excavator intel64 old power7 template
bgq cortexa57 generic knc penryn sandybridge zen
bulldozer cortexa9 haswell knl piledriver steamroller
There is one additional configuration available that is not present in the config directory, and that is auto.
By targeting the auto configuration (i.e., ./configure auto), the user is requesting that configure select a configuration automatically based on the detected features of the processor.
Another special configuration (one that, unlike auto, is present in config) is the generic configuration. This configuration, like its name suggests, is architecture-agnostic and may be targeted in virtually any environment that supports the minimum build requirements of BLIS. The generic configuration uses a set of built-in, portable reference kernels (written in C99) that should work without modification on most, if not all, architectures. These reference kernels, however, should be expected to yield relatively low performance since they do not employ any architecture-specific optimizations beyond those the compiler provides automatically. (Historical note: The generic configuration corresponds to the reference configuration of previous releases of BLIS.)
If you are a BLIS developer and wish to create your own configuration, either from scratch or using an existing configuration as a starting point, please read the BLIS Configuration Guide.
Multithreading in BLIS is disabled by default. For more information on enabling multithreading, please read the section of the Multithreading document titled "Enabling Multithreading".
IMPORTANT: Even when multithreading is enabled at configure-time, BLIS will default to single-threaded execution at runtime. For more information on the various ways of specifying multithreading at runtime, please read the section titled "Specifying Multithreading".
This step should be somewhat familiar to many people who use open source software. To configure the build system, simply run:
$ ./configure <configname>
where <configname> is the configuration sub-directory name you chose in Step 1 above. If <configname> is not given, a helpful message is printed reminding you to explicit specify a configuration name along with a list of valid configuration families and their implied sub-configurations. For more information on sub-configurations and families, please see the BLIS Configuration Guide.
Alternatively, configure can automatically select a configuration based on your hardware:
$ ./configure auto
However, as of this writing, BLIS lacks support for automatically detecting some architectures. If the configure script is not able to detect your architecture, the generic configuration will be used.
Upon running configure, you will get output similar to the following. The exact output will depend on whether you cloned BLIS from a git repository or whether you obtained BLIS via a downloadable tarball from the releases page.
$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/blis haswell
configure: using 'gcc' compiler.
configure: found gcc version 5.4.0 (maj: 5, min: 4, rev: 0).
configure: checking for blacklisted configurations due to gcc 5.4.0.
configure: warning: gcc 5.4.0 does not support 'skx'; adding to blacklist.
configure: found assembler ('as') version 2.26.1 (maj: 2, min: 26, rev: 1).
configure: checking for blacklisted configurations due to as 2.26.1.
configure: configuration blacklist:
configure: skx
configure: reading configuration registry...done.
configure: determining default version string.
configure: found '.git' directory; assuming git clone.
configure: executing: git describe --tags.
configure: got back 0.3.2-16-gb699bb1f.
configure: truncating to 0.3.2-16.
configure: starting configuration of BLIS 0.3.2-16.
configure: configuring with official version string.
configure: found shared library .so version '0.0.0'.
configure: .so major version: 0
configure: .so minor.build version: 0.0
configure: manual configuration requested; configuring with 'haswell'.
configure: checking configuration against contents of 'config_registry'.
configure: configuration 'haswell' is registered.
configure: 'haswell' is defined as having the following sub-configurations:
configure: haswell
configure: which collectively require the following kernels:
configure: haswell zen
configure: checking sub-configurations:
configure: 'haswell' is registered...and exists.
configure: checking sub-configurations' requisite kernels:
configure: 'haswell' kernels...exist.
configure: 'zen' kernels...exist.
configure: no install prefix option given; defaulting to '/u/field/blis'.
configure: no install libdir option given; defaulting to PREFIX/lib.
configure: no install includedir option given; defaulting to PREFIX/include.
configure: final installation directories:
configure: libdir: /u/field/blis/lib
configure: includedir: /u/field/blis/include
configure: debug symbols disabled.
configure: disabling verbose make output. (enable with 'make V=1'.)
configure: building BLIS as a static library.
configure: threading is disabled.
configure: internal memory pools for packing buffers are enabled.
configure: libmemkind not found; disabling.
configure: the BLAS compatibility layer is enabled.
configure: the CBLAS compatibility layer is disabled.
configure: the internal integer size is automatically determined.
configure: the BLAS/CBLAS interface integer size is 32-bit.
configure: creating ./config.mk from ./build/config.mk.in
configure: creating ./bli_config.h from ./build/bli_config.h.in
configure: creating ./obj/haswell
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/config
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/config/haswell
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/kernels
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/kernels/haswell
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/kernels/zen
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/ref_kernels
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/ref_kernels/haswell
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/frame
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/blastest
configure: creating ./obj/haswell/testsuite
configure: creating ./lib/haswell
configure: creating ./include/haswell
configure: mirroring ./config/haswell to ./obj/haswell/config/haswell
configure: mirroring ./kernels/haswell to ./obj/haswell/kernels/haswell
configure: mirroring ./kernels/zen to ./obj/haswell/kernels/zen
configure: mirroring ./ref_kernels to ./obj/haswell/ref_kernels/haswell
configure: mirroring ./frame to ./obj/haswell/frame
configure: creating makefile fragments in ./config/haswell
configure: creating makefile fragments in ./kernels/haswell
configure: creating makefile fragments in ./kernels/zen
configure: creating makefile fragments in ./ref_kernels
configure: creating makefile fragments in ./frame
configure: configured to build within top-level directory of source distribution.
The installation prefix can be specified via the --prefix=PREFIX option:
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr <configname>
This will cause libraries to eventually be installed (via make install) to PREFIX/lib and development headers to be installed to PREFIX/include. (The default value of PREFIX is /usr/local.) You can also specify the library install directory separately from the development header install directory with the --libdir=LIBDIR and --includedir=INCDIR options, respectively:
$ ./configure --libdir=/usr/lib --includedir=/usr/include <configname>
The --libdir=LIBDIR and --includedir=INCDIR options will override any path implied by PREFIX, whether it was specified explicitly via --prefix or implicitly (via the default). That is, LIBDIR defaults to EXECPREFIX/lib (where EXECPREFIX, set via --exec-prefix=EXECPREFIX, defaults to PREFIX) and INCDIR defaults to PREFIX/include, but LIBDIR and INCDIR will each be overriden by their respective --libdir/--includedir options. There is a third related option, --sharedir=SHAREDIR, where SHAREDIR defaults to PREFIX/share. This option specifies the installation directory for certain makefile fragments that contain variables determined by configure (e.g. CC, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, etc.). These files allow certain BLIS makefiles, such as those in the examples or testsuite directories, to operate on an installed copy of BLIS rather than a local (and possibly uninstalled) copy.
For a complete list of supported configure options and arguments, run configure with the -h option:
$ ./configure -h
The output from this invocation of configure should give you an up-to-date list of options and their descriptions.
Once configure is finished, you are ready to instantiate (compile) BLIS into a library by running make. Running make will result in output similar to:
$ make
Generating monolithic blis.h.........................................................
.....................................................................................
.....................................................................................
.....................................................................................
.....................................................................................
..........................................
Generated include/haswell/blis.h
Compiling obj/haswell/config/haswell/bli_cntx_init_haswell.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for config code)
Compiling obj/haswell/kernels/zen/1/bli_amaxv_zen_int.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for kernels)
Compiling obj/haswell/kernels/zen/1/bli_axpyv_zen_int.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for kernels)
Compiling obj/haswell/kernels/zen/1/bli_axpyv_zen_int10.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for kernels)
Compiling obj/haswell/kernels/zen/1/bli_dotv_zen_int.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for kernels)
Compiling obj/haswell/kernels/zen/1/bli_dotv_zen_int10.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for kernels)
If you want to see the individual command line invocations of the compiler, you can run make as follows:
$ make V=1
Also, if you are compiling on a multicore system, you can get parallelism via:
$ make -j<n>
where <n> is the number of jobs make is allowed to run simultaneously. Generally, you should limit <n> to p+1, where p is the number of processor cores on your system.
On some systems, you may observe an error message when the build system attempts to archive BLIS object files into the static library (or perhaps when the linker attempts to generate the shared library):
Archiving lib/x86_64/libblis.a
bash: ar: Argument list too long
Makefile:584: recipe for target 'lib/x86_64/libblis.a' failed
make: *** [lib/x86_64/libblis.a] Error 126
This error message results when the user attempts to execute a program with too many arguments (or more specifically, a program-argument string that occupies too many bytes)--that is, when the command exceeds the ARG_MAX limit. This doesn't occur very often, but if it does, don't worry--we have a workaround. Simply rerun configure as you did previously, except this time include an addition option: --enable-arg-max-hack. You will see confirmation that the option was accepted as configure runs:
configure: enabling ARG_MAX hack.
The archiver and/or linker should no longer choke when creating the libraries.
If you would like to run some ready-made tests that exercise BLIS in a number of ways, including through its BLAS compatibility layer, run make check:
$ make check
Watch the output near the end. You should see the following messages, though not necessarily in immediate succession:
All BLIS tests passed!
All BLAS tests passed!
Please see the Testsuite document for more details on running either the BLIS testsuite or the BLAS test drivers. If you have any trouble, please report your problem to BLIS developers by opening a new issue.
Toward the end of compilation, you should get output similar to:
Compiling obj/haswell/frame/thread/bli_thread.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for framework code)
Compiling obj/haswell/frame/thread/bli_thrinfo.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for framework code)
Compiling obj/haswell/frame/util/bli_util_check.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for framework code)
Compiling obj/haswell/frame/util/bli_util_oapi.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for framework code)
Compiling obj/haswell/frame/util/bli_util_oapi_wc.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for framework code)
Compiling obj/haswell/frame/util/bli_util_oapi_woc.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for framework code)
Compiling obj/haswell/frame/util/bli_util_tapi.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for framework code)
Compiling obj/haswell/frame/util/bli_util_unb_var1.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for framework code)
Archiving lib/haswell/libblis.a
Dynamically linking lib/haswell/libblis.so
Now you have a BLIS library (in static and shared forms) residing in the lib/<configname>/ directory. To install the libraries and the header files associated with it, simply execute:
$ make install
This installs copies of the libraries and header files, and also creates conventional symbolic links of shared libraries:
Installing libblis.a into /u/field/blis/lib/
Installing libblis.so.0.0.0 into /u/field/blis/lib/
Installing symlink libblis.so into /u/field/blis/lib/
Installing symlink libblis.so.0 into /u/field/blis/lib/
Installing blis.h into /u/field/blis/include/blis/
This results in your PREFIX directory looking like:
# Check the contents of 'PREFIX'.
$ ls -l $HOME/blis
drwxr-xr-x 3 field dept 4096 May 10 17:36 include
drwxr-xr-x 2 field dept 4096 May 10 17:42 lib
# Check the contents of 'PREFIX/include'.
$ ls -l $HOME/blis/include
drwxr-xr-x 2 field dept 4096 May 10 17:42 blis
$ ls -l $HOME/blis/include/blis
-rw-r--r-- 1 field dept 915324 May 10 17:42 blis.h
# Check the contents of 'PREFIX/lib'.
$ ls -l $HOME/blis/lib
-rw-r--r-- 1 field dept 2979052 May 10 17:42 libblis.a
lrwxrwxrwx 1 field dept 16 May 10 17:42 libblis.so -> libblis.so.0.0.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 field dept 16 May 10 17:42 libblis.so.0 -> libblis.so.0.0.0
-rw-r--r-- 1 field dept 2185976 May 10 17:42 libblis.so.0.0.0
If you want to remove various build products, you can use one of the make targets already defined for you in the BLIS Makefile:
$ make clean
Removing flattened header files from ./include/haswell.
Removing object files from ./obj/haswell.
Removing libraries from ./lib/haswell.
Executing the clean target will remove all binary object files and library builds from the obj and lib directories, as well as any flattened header files. Any other configurations' build products are left untouched.
$ make cleanmk
Removing makefile fragments from ./config.
Removing makefile fragments from ./frame.
Removing makefile fragments from ./ref_kernels.
Removing makefile fragments from ./kernels.
The cleanmk target results in removal of all makefile fragments from the framework source tree. (Makefile fragments are named .fragment.mk and are generated at configure-time.)
$ make distclean
Removing makefile fragments from ./config.
Removing makefile fragments from ./frame.
Removing makefile fragments from ./ref_kernels.
Removing makefile fragments from ./kernels.
Removing flattened header files from ./include/haswell.
Removing object files from ./obj/haswell.
Removing libraries from ./lib/haswell.
Removing object files from ./obj/haswell/blastest.
Removing libf2c.a from ./obj/haswell/blastest.
Removing binaries from ./obj/haswell/blastest.
Removing driver output files 'out.*'.
Removing object files from ./blastest/obj.
Removing libf2c.a from ./blastest.
Removing binaries from ./blastest.
Removing driver output files 'out.*' from ./blastest.
Removing object files from ./obj/haswell/testsuite.
Removing binary test_libblis.x.
Removing output.testsuite.
Removing object files from testsuite/obj.
Removing binary testsuite/test_libblis.x.
Removing ./bli_config.h.
Removing config.mk.
Removing obj.
Removing lib.
Removing include.
Running the distclean target is like saying, "Remove anything ever created by the build system."
All BLIS definitions and prototypes may be included in your C source file by including a single header file, blis.h:
#include "stdio.h"
#include "stdlib.h"
#include "otherstuff.h"
#include "blis.h"If the BLAS compatibility layer was enabled at configure-time (as it is by default), then blis.h will also provide BLAS prototypes to your source code.
Some applications already #include a header that contains BLAS prototypes. This can cause problems if those applications also try to #include the BLIS header file, as shown above. Suppose for a moment that otherstuff.h in the example above already provides BLAS prototypes.
$ gcc -I/path/to/blis -I/path/to/otherstuff -c main.c -o main.o
In file included from main.c:41:0:
/path/to/blis/blis.h:36900:111: error: conflicting declaration of C function ‘int xerbla_(const bla_character*, const bla_integer*, ftnlen)’
TEF770(xerbla)(const bla_character *srname, const bla_integer *info, ftnlen srname_len);
If your application is already declaring (prototyping) BLAS functions, then you may disable those prototypes from being defined included within blis.h. This prevents blis.h from re-declaring those prototypes, or, allows your other header to declare those functions for the first time, depending on the order that you #include the headers.
#include "stdio.h"
#include "stdlib.h"
#include "otherstuff.h"
#define BLIS_DISABLE_BLAS_DEFS // disable BLAS prototypes within BLIS.
#include "blis.h"By #defining the BLIS_DISABLE_BLAS_DEFS macro, we signal to blis.h that it should skip over the BLAS prototypes, but otherwise #include everything else as it normally would. Note that BLIS_DISABLE_BLAS_DEFS must be #defined prior to the #include "blis.h" directive in order for it to have any effect.
If you build BLIS with CBLAS enabled and you wish to access CBLAS function prototypes from within your application, you will have to #include the cblas.h header separately from blis.h.
#include "blis.h"
#include "cblas.h"
Once you have instantiated (configured and compiled, and perhaps installed) a BLIS library, you can link to it in your application's makefile as you would any other library. The following is an abbreviated makefile for a small hypothetical application that has just two external dependencies: BLIS and the standard C math library. We also link against libpthread since that library has been a runtime dependency of BLIS since 70640a3 (December 2017).
BLIS_PREFIX = $(HOME)/blis
BLIS_INC = $(BLIS_PREFIX)/include/blis
BLIS_LIB = $(BLIS_PREFIX)/lib/libblis.a
OTHER_LIBS = -L/usr/lib -lm -lpthread
CC = gcc
CFLAGS = -O2 -g -I$(BLIS_INC)
LINKER = $(CC)
OBJS = main.o util.o other.o
%.o: %.c
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $@
all: $(OBJS)
$(LINKER) $(OBJS) $(BLIS_LIB) $(OTHER_LIBS) -o my_program.xThe above example assumes you will want to include BLIS definitions and function prototypes into your application via #include blis.h. (If you are only using the BLIS via the BLAS compatibility layer, including blis.h is not necessary.) Since BLIS headers are installed into a blis subdirectory of PREFIX/include, you must make sure that the compiler knows where to find the blis.h header file. This is typically accomplished by inserting #include "blis.h" into your application's source code files and compiling the code with -I PREFIX/include/blis.
The makefile shown above a very simple example. If you need help linking your application to your BLIS library, please open an issue.
If you decide that you want to uninstall BLIS, simply run make uninstall
$ make uninstall
Uninstalling libraries libblis.a libblis.so.0.0.0 from /u/field/blis/lib/.
Uninstalling symlinks libblis.so libblis.so.0 from /u/field/blis/lib/.
Uninstalling directory 'blis' from /u/field/blis/include/.
This removes the libraries, symlinks, and header directory that was installed by make install. Before running make uninstall, however, make sure that BLIS is configured the with the same LIBDIR and INCDIR paths used during installation.
The BLIS Makefile implements many make targets. The table below lists most of the interesting ones that typical users and developers may wish to use.
make target |
Description |
|---|---|
all |
Execute libs target. |
libs |
Compile BLIS as a static and/or shared library (depending on configure options). |
test |
Execute checkblis and checkblas targets. |
check |
Execute checkblis-fast and checkblas targets. |
checkblis |
Execute testblis and characterize the results to stdout. |
checkblis-fast |
Execute testblis-fast and characterize the results to stdout. |
checkblis-md |
Execute testblis-md and characterize the results to stdout. |
checkblis-salt |
Execute testblis-salt and characterize the results to stdout. |
checkblas |
Execute testblas and characterize the results to stdout. |
testblis |
Run the BLIS testsuite with default parameters (runs for 2-8 minutes). |
testblis-fast |
Run the BLIS testsuite with "fast" parameters (runs for a few seconds). |
testblis-md |
Run the BLIS testsuite for gemm with full mixing of datatypes (runs for 10-30 seconds). |
testblis-salt |
Run the BLIS testsuite while simulating application-level threading (runs for a few seconds). |
testsuite |
Same as testblis. |
testblas |
Run the BLAS test drivers with default parameters (runs for a few seconds). |
showconfig |
Show a summary of currently selected configure options. |
clean |
Execute cleanh and cleanlib. |
cleanmk |
Remove .fragment.mk makefile fragments generated by configure. |
cleanh |
Remove the flattened header file(s) in include/<config>/. |
cleanlib |
Remove the libraries in lib/<config>/. |
cleantest |
Remove build products produced by testblis/testblis-fast and testblas. |
install |
Install libraries and header files to installation directories. |
uninstall |
Uninstall libraries and header files that reside within installation directories. |
uninstall-old |
Uninstall older libraries and header files that reside within installation directories. |
For more details on configure options, such as enabling/disabling static or shared library generation, or specifying installation directories for libraries and/or headers, please review the output of ./configure --help.
If you have feedback, please consider keeping in touch with the project maintainers, contributors, and other users by joining and posting to the BLIS mailing lists.
Thanks for using BLIS!