gccgo: Is there a way to build a binary which will be run on AIX? what GOARCH and GOOS should I choose?

[toussaiv]

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

1.8

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

windows but I want a binary for AIX

Question

Is there a way to build a binary which will be run on AIX? what GOARCH and GOOS should I choose?

[OneOfOne]

Dup of #19200?

[bradfitz]

See in-progress dup issue #19200.

You'll need to use gccgo. There are no plans for the gc compiler (the one from golang.org) to support AIX, but the gccgo compiler should work. Or it appears that it's increasingly working.

Closing as dup of #19200.

[toussaiv]

Thank you, Is there a tutorial on how to configure gccgo? I have gcc installed but it seems not as easy to use it with gccgo...

[trex58]

We (BullFreeware project) have ported gccgo on AIX.
It is a first release. Further release should fix some more issues (mainly in libgo).

You need to download and install GCC 7.1.0-7 (for AIX 7.1 and 7.2) or GCC 7.1.0-6 (for AIX 6.1).
It is delivered as RPMs.
Look at: http://www.bullfreeware.com/search.php?package=gcc&version=aix7.2
gcc-go-7.1.0-7 for aix7.2 is available at: http://www.bullfreeware.com/affichage.php?id=3733
You'll have to download and install all dependencies (and some more).

There are 3 RPMs:
gcc-go-7.1.0-7.aix7.2.ppc.rpm
libgo-7.1.0-7.aix7.2.ppc.rpm
libgo-devel-7.1.0-7.aix7.2.ppc.rpm
requiring other RPMs (from GCC 7.1.0, and more).

What you have to do:
Let say you have a path = /X/Y/Z/src where is your Go code.
Do:
export GOPATH=/X/Y/Z
cd $GOPATH/src/
go build

go version
go version go1.8.1 gccgo (GCC) 7.1.0 aix/ppc

Let me know if you succeed to use it.

Current test status:

• go compiler tests : 4 failures out of 7358 tests
• libgo tests (32bit) : failing tests:
  fmt : TestCountMallocs
  log : TestAll
  net : TestConnAndListener : SIGILL: illegal instruction
  os : TestExecutable
  reflect : TestArrayOfAlg : SIGILL: illegal instruction
  runtime : TestCallers TestCallersPanic
  : TestGoroutineParallelism2 : timed out in gotest
  sync : TestWaitGroupMisuse2 : Unexpected panic:
  syscall : export_unix_test.go:10:22: error: reference to undefined name 'SYS_IOCTL'
  time : TestLoadFixed
  crypto/tls : TestVerifyHostname TestVerifyHostnameResumed : ??
  database/sql : TestStmtCloseDeps : ??
  encoding/gob : TestHugeWriteFails : fatal error: : runtime: out of memory
  go/build : TestDependencies
  log/syslog : TestFlap : SIGILL: illegal instruction
  net/http : TestClientRedirects : timed out in gotest : ??
  net/http/internal : TestChunkReaderAllocs
  os/exec : TestExtraFiles
  os/user : TestGroupIds
  reflect : TestArrayOfAlg : SIGILL: illegal instruction
  runtime/pprof : TestMemoryProfiler
  : TestMathBigDivide : fatal error: out of memory
  : TestMutexProfile : panic: runtime error: index out of range
  sync/atomic : TestNilDeref : timed out in gotest
  : TestUnaligned64 : LoadUint64 did not panic
  : TestValuePanic : Inconsistent store panic: got '
  (SIGILL failures deal with dereferencing function reference)
  ("out of memory" and "timed out" deal with issue in GccGo or limitation on AIX, for now)

[toussaiv]

Big thanks @trex58 ! I Will test it tomorrow.. I was close to stop the benchmark of golang for my project..

[toussaiv]

Thanks @trex58 , I finally managed to make it work on 7.1! But what I was expected became true => the binary produce with the go compiler on 7.1 is not working on AIX 6.2 : ( . So go language is not a wonderful cross platform tool as I thought ;(.

Last question => Do you know if some day AIX will be support officialy?

[trex58]

About Gcc Go for AIX 7.1, look at:
http://www.bullfreeware.com/search.php?package=gcc&version=aix7.1

Go & libgo for AIX 7.1 :
gcc go : http://www.bullfreeware.com/affichage.php?id=3722
libgo : http://www.bullfreeware.com/affichage.php?id=3723
libgo-devel : http://www.bullfreeware.com/affichage.php?id=3724

In general, all RPM packages built for AIX 6.1 can be used on AIX 7.1 and 7.2, except Gcc (and Gcc Go), and some more RPMs (PostgreSQL).

[trex58]

Hummm A binary produced on AIX 7.1 does not work on AIX 6.1 ?
I never experimented this. I'll do.
What are the error messages ? Discuss with me at: tony dot reix at atos dot net .

About Gcc Go beeing officialy supported on AIX, there are 2 ways:

• we are submitting our patches to FSF and Google in GCC v8: next year, when Gcc v8 is in GA, the code required for Gcc Go on AIX should be available in Gcc v8 code.
• some day IBM should reuse our work and deliver an "official" version of Gcc Go 7.1.0 for AIX on their "AIX Toolbox" web-site: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/linux/toolbox/alpha.html

Moreover, we still are working on solving issues in libgo, and there are bugs and limitations in Gcc Go that prevent some features to run correctly on AIX. (AIX/Power architecture is different from Linux/x86_64 and some Go code is provinding code that was not used on Linux/x86_64 but is used on AIX/Power).

[trex58]

The executables produced by GCC Go depend on Go packages that are provided by libgo.a.
It also requires libgcc_s.a .
Bof of them are provided by GCC libraries:
rpm -q --whatprovides /opt/freeware/lib/libgo.a
libgo-7.1.0-7
rpm -q --whatprovides /opt/freeware/lib/libgcc_s.a
libgcc-7.1.0-7

Thus, you can compile on AIX 7.2 and run it on AIX 6.1, if same version of GCC Go is installed (libgo and libgcc RPMs) on the AIX 6.1 machine.

cat Hello.go
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
fmt.Println("Hello World!")
}

go build Hello.go

./Hello
Hello World!

ldd ./Hello
./Hello needs:
/usr/lib/libc.a(shr.o)
/opt/freeware/lib/libgo.a(libgo.so.11)
/opt/freeware/lib/libgcc_s.a(shr.o)
/usr/lib/librtl.a(shr.o)
/unix
/usr/lib/libcrypt.a(shr.o)
/usr/lib/libpthread.a(shr_xpg5.o)
/usr/lib/libpthread.a(shr_comm.o)
/usr/lib/libpthreads.a(shr_comm.o)

One can compile with -static-go in order of no more be dependent on libgo.a . However, the a.out file will be big (>= 68MB).
gccgo Hello.go -static-libgo
./a.out

[tw-bert]

@trex58 Interesting project. I'd like to know more about the current status (couldn't find the info on the BullFreeware site, but can see new versions). Would compiling Telegraf be feasible?

[trex58]

Hi, we are continuously improving the port on AIX, submitting changes to the Go and GCC projects. See: https://go-review.googlesource.com/q/reix (and old: https://go-review.googlesource.com/q/sarter) . I've recently produced a new snapshot of GCC 8 (20171205), which enables to build Filebeat 6.0, Kubernetes 1.8, and more. Take it at: http://www.bullfreeware.com/go/go8.0.0/aix7.2/ . And I know I'll have to teach AIX to golang.org/x asap.
About Telegraf, I have no idea. Let me know where I can download it and have a look at it.

[tw-bert]

@trex58 Thanks for the info, great stuff. Telegraf: see here . It is a metrics collector, similar to collectd (which some people have succesfully compiled on AIX by the way - I will give it a go if Telegraf's a no-go).

[trex58]

@tw-bert I have issues on AIX. That probably deals (as usual) with AIX operating system not managed in some code. Not difficult to work it around.
However, on Linux/Power and Linux/x86_64, though the errors I see on AIX do not appear, there are error messages, like:
undefined reference to `github_com_influxdata_telegraf_plugins_inputs_couchdb.metaData$hash'
That's a deeper error.
I've warned the GCC Go team.