Multicore OCaml: February 2022

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Welcome to the February 2022 Multicore OCaml monthly report! As with previous updates, these have been compiled by me, @ctk21, @kayceesrk and @shakthimaan.

Progress towards a stable OCaml 5.0.0 release have been moving forward at full steam, with most of the multicore OCaml work now happening directly within the main ocaml/ocaml repository. As a number of deprecations have happened in OCaml 5.0+trunk, it can be a little tricky in the immediate term to get a working development environment. You may find these resources helpful:

  • There is a multicore monorepo which is a ‘fast clone and dune build’ with a number of ecosystem libraries. (thanks @patricoferris)
  • There is an alpha-opam-repository which contains work-in-progress packages. If a package you maintain is in there, now would be a good time to start releasing it to the mainline opam-repository. Remember that while we can propose changes, only the community maintainers of the relevant projects can do the actual release, so your help with making OCaml 5.0-compatible releases of your projects would be very much appreciated. (thanks @kit-ty-kate)

For mainline development, the compiler development newsletter has an overview of what’s been happening in the compiler. From a multicore perspective:

  • the ARM64 PR has been merged, so your shiny Mac M1s will now work
  • we continue to work on the post-Multicore merge tasks for an upcoming 5.0.0+trunk release. The documentation efforts on the OCaml memory model, runtime system, and STW synchronization have also started.
  • The eio project is actively being developed which now includes UDP support with Eio’s networking interface. There has been robust discussion on several aspects of eio which is all influencing the next iteration of its design (thank you to everyone!). For those of you who do not wish to participate in public discussion, feel free to get in touch with me or @kayceesrk for a private discussion, particularly if you have a large OCaml codebase and opinions on concurrency. We’ll summarise all these discussions as best we can over the coming months.
  • Sandmark-nightly and Sandmark have a custom variant support feature to build trunk, developer branches, or a specific commit to assess any performance regressions. The backend tooling with UI enhancements continue to drive the current-bench project forward.

As always, the Multicore OCaml updates are listed first, which are then followed by the ecosystem tooling updates. Finally, the sandmark, sandmark-nightly and current-bench project tasks are mentioned for your reference.

Multicore OCaml

Open

Discussion

  • ocaml-multicore/ocaml-multicore#750
    Discussing the design of Lazy under Multicore

    A continuing design discussion of Lazy under Multicore OCaml that
    involves sequential Lazy, concurrency problems, duplicated
    computations, and memory safety.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10960
    Audit stdlib for mutable state

    An issue tracker to audit stdlib for mutable state, as the OCaml
    5.00 stdlib implementation should be both memory and thread-safe.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11013
    Meta-issue for OCaml 5.0 release goals

    An issue tracker that contains a checklist for branching OCaml 5.0.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11073
    Code comprehension: why don’t STW sections keep all_domains_lock the whole time?

    A discussion on the mutual-exclusion mechanism in STW sections where
    race conditions on new domains are checked using a condition
    variable all_domains_cond.

Build

  • ocaml/ocaml#10940
    configure: C11 atomic support required for 5.00.0

    The _Atomic keyword was introduced in GCC 4.9 and hense RHEL 7 and
    its derivatives cannot build OCaml 5.0.0. RHEL 7 does not reach EOL
    until 2024. This issue tracks the changes required to add support
    for C11 _Atomic.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10989
    Download GNU parallel directly from git

    The tools/ci/appveyor/appveyor_build.sh has been updated to
    download GNU parallel with Git.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10991
    Use zstd for CI artifacts upload and download

    The upload and download time of CI artifacts are improved with the
    use of zstd compression.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11007
    Ship and install META files

    A PR to keep up-to-date META files for the compiler libraries
    (stdlib, compiler-libs, threads, unix, str, and dynlink)
    and to install them alongside the compiler.

Bug

  • ocaml/ocaml#10773
    [4.14] Type [> Cycle ] is not compatible with type [> Cycle ]

    A Type [> ``Cycle ] not compatible error reported when compiling
    capnp-rpc.1.2.1 with the 4.14 branch.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10868
    Fix off-by-1 bug when initializing frame hashtables

    A PR for runtime/frame_descriptors.c that fixes on off-by-1 bug
    when initializing frame hashtables.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11040
    ThreadSanitizer issues

    An issue tracker that contains list of ThreadSanitizer runs from
    tests/parallel execution for troubleshooting race conditions.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11061
    dumpobj tool crashes

    A segmentation fault from tools/dumpobj on a bytecode program has
    been reported.

Enhancement

  • ocaml/ocaml#10925
    Rename symbol for Caml_state to caml_state

    The Caml_state macro will be renamed to caml_state to avoid a
    name collision, but the change will not be backported to 4.14.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10967
    Add temp_dir function to create a temporary directory

    The addition of Filename.temp_dir in stdlib is required by the
    Tezos project to allow importing HTTP tar snapshots.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10971
    Means of limiting how much memory is being reserved by the runtime,
    so that Valgrind and AFL can be used

    The suggestion is to set max_domains from OCAMLRUNPARAM to
    provide a good balance between usability and complexity in the
    implementation.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11054
    Respect user provided maximum stack space value, and fix debug run of tmp/stack_space.ml test

    A PR that honors OCAMLRUNPARAM=1 for the initial stack size, and
    ensures that tmc/stack_space.ml applies stack restriction during
    the running stage.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11057
    Implement quality treatment for asynchronous actions in multicore

    The caml_process_pending behaviour has been reimplemented, and
    there are code improvements to the asynchronous actions in the
    Multicore runtime.

Documentation

  • ocaml/ocaml#10992
    OCaml multicore memory model and C (runtime, FFI, VM)

    A draft documentation on the OCaml Multicore memory model and the
    use of the Field macro.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11058
    runtime/HACKING.adoc: tips on debugging the runtime

    The HACKING.adoc has been updated with information on the runtime
    system, and a new runtime/HACKING.adoc file has been created on
    how to troubleshoot the same.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11072
    domain.c: document the STW synchronization code

    A draft documentation on the STW synchronization code in domain.c.

Testing

  • ocaml/ocaml#10953
    ocamltest/summarize.awk not properly reporting abort failures on testsuite runs

    The serializer needs to be thoroughly tested using ocamltest. The
    recommendation now is to use the strict minimum of code from the
    standard library and the OCaml runtime to implement ocamltest.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10980
    GitHub Actions / ocamltest / testsuite / OCaml 5

    An issue tracker that contains a list of action items related to
    ocamltest and OCaml 5.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11016
    lib-dynlink-private/test.ml failing on the debug runtime

    An assertion failure from lib-dynlink-private/test.ml has been
    found in the test_cow_repeated segment during the tests.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11055
    runtime: introduce Debug_uninit_tmc in misc.h

    An assertion check in runtime/memory.c with the introduction of
    Debug_uninit_tmc in misc.h.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11065
    Restore basic functionality to the bytecode debugger

    A draft PR to handle backtraces in the presence of fibers to restore
    the basic functionality in the bytecode debugger.

Performance

  • ocaml/ocaml#10964
    Ring-buffer based runtime tracing (eventring)

    Eventring is a runtime tracing system designed for continuous
    monitoring of OCaml applications. There is not much difference with
    this PR when running Sandmark’s sequential benchmarks as illustrated
    below:

OCaml-PR-10964-time
OCaml-PR-10964-time1608×828 149 KB

  • ocaml/ocaml#11062
    Bytecode compiler emits too many calls to caml_ensure_stack_capacity, causing a slowdown

    The bytecode compiler emits calls to caml_ensure_stack_capacity
    that causes a performance regression in Sandmark benchmarks. The
    following illustration compares the byte code results between 4.13.1
    and 5.0.0 (February 24, 2022).

OCaml-Issue-11062
OCaml-Issue-110621012×552 258 KB

Closed

Build

  • ocaml/ocaml#10760
    Use GNU parallel for the CI testsuite runs

    Use make parallel in tools/ci/actions/runner.sh to speed-up CI
    test runs.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10875
    Use mmap(MAP_STACK|…) for fibre stacks on OpenBSD

    An option to allocate stacks with mmap(MAP_STACK) instead of
    malloc. This is available using a configure
    --enable-mmap-map-stack option. There is not much difference
    between trunk or with mmap on/off on Linux as shown below:

OCaml-PR-10875
OCaml-PR-108751460×637 145 KB

  • ocaml/ocaml#10893
    Remove configuration options --disable-force-safe-string and DEFAULT_STRING=unsafe

    A PR that removes the deprecated --disable-force-safe-string and
    DEFAULT_STRING=unsafe compiler options.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10962
    Ignore compatible --disable options in configure

    The definitions of NO_NAKED_POINTERS in m.h and
    NAKED_POINTERS=false in Makefile.config.in are retained for
    compatibility, and the error for the --disable option in the
    configure script is ignored.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11037
    Assorted fixes found while restarting the Jenkins CI

    The PR contains configure tweaks, updates to Jenkins scripts, test
    suite fixes, and updates to the runtime system based on observations
    in the Jenkins CI.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11049
    Normalize the version number of the compiler

    The compiler version number is now 5.0.0.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11063
    Fix the opam file after #11049

    The ocaml-variants.opam file has been updated to use version
    5.0.0+trunk.

Fix

  • ocaml/ocaml#10973
    Remove unused gc_regs_slot in domain_state

    The gc_regs_slot is superseded by gc_regs_bucket, and the same
    is thus removed.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10994
    [minor] fix multicore merge error in minor_gc.c:reallloc_generic_table

    The realloc_generic_table in runtime/minor_gc.c has been
    restored with the correct parameters.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11002
    Do not use Begin_roots / End_roots in runtime

    The Begin_roots and End_roots are not to be used in the runtime,
    and a deprecation warning has been added to these macros.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11014
    Cut polling of pending signals vector in bytecode interpreter

    The polling using caml_check_pending_signals is removed in the
    bytecode interpreter. Also, caml_check_pending_interrupt is
    removed in favour of caml_check_gc_interrupt.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11039
    Reintroduce caml_final_do_calls_exn

    The runtime/finalise.c code has been updated based on the review
    of asynchronous action handling in Multicore, and
    caml_final_do_calls_exn has been reintroduced.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11046
    minor bugfix in caml_reallocate_minor_heap

    A fix in the “decommit” logic of caml_reallocate_minor_heap, and
    the current minor heap layout has been documented.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11051
    Fix leftover TODO in runtime/startup_byt.c

    The Fatal error during unlock: Operation not permitted error is
    now fixed in runtime/startup_byt.c.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11053
    Make Hd_val a relaxed atomic load

    The PR provides a fix for ThreadSanitizer issues. Hd_val is no
    longer an lvalue, and is moved to a relaxed atomic.

Documentation

  • ocaml/ocaml#11008
    Document and refactor the gc-stats code

    The GC module provides two kinds of runtime statistics, Heap Stats
    and Allocation Stats, and the same has been documented in
    runtime/caml/gc_stats.h.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11038
    Atomic: update documentation and add institution

    The CamlInternalAtomic is removed since atomics are now primitive,
    and documentation has been updated.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11059
    Documentation improvements for native stack switching functions

    Additional comments have been added in fiber.h for the native code
    specification of ocaml_runstack, caml_perform, caml_reperform,
    and caml_resume. The data structures, struct stack_info and
    struct stack_handler, have also been documented.

Testing

  • ocaml/ocaml#10930
    Downstream patch changes for removed Stream and Pervasives library PR#10896

    The recommended patch changes for Sandmark dependencies that are
    used to run parallel benchmarks for 5.00.0+trunk have been updated.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11004
    Memory model tests

    A new testsuite/tests/memory-model sub-directory has been created
    for testing the memory model.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11033
    Fix test callback/test_signalhandler.ml

    The .mli files in testsuite/tests/callback have been cleaned up,
    and unix_kill now checks for signals. A mykill function that
    does not allocate has been added to the test.

Enhancement

  • ocaml/ocaml#10462
    Add [@poll error] attribute

    The PR proposes an attribute to accompany the safepoints PR, which
    will help developers of libraries having atomic sections to do so in
    a less error prone way.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10950
    Allocate domain state using malloc instead of mmap

    The mmap calls are replaced by malloc to simplify Caml_state
    management.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10965
    Thread safety for all runtime hooks

    The thread-safety of hooks and the restoration of the GC timing
    hooks in Multicore have been merged.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10966
    Simplifications/cleanups/clarifications for Multicore review

    caml_modify has been documented, the APIs for signals/actions have
    been simplified, and dead code has been removed.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10974
    domain.c: Use an atomic counter for domain unique IDs

    The use of a fixed Max_domains setting is removed to dynamically
    configure the same during program execution.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10977
    Make <caml/sync.h> more abstract and refactor implementation of sync.c

    The POSIX implementation of mutexes and condition variables in
    <caml/sync.h> have been moved to sync_posix.h. The
    <caml/sync.h> declares only the high-level, platform-agnostic
    mutex and condition variable operations.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10988
    Provide a default definition of cpu_relax

    A default definition of cpu_relax has been added to
    runtime/caml/platform.h.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11003
    Adjust mmap alignment of minor heap space

    The alignment for mmap in the minor heap space has been adjusted
    to use caml_sys_pagesize.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11010
    Alternative approach to using strerror_r for reentrant error string conversion

    The strerror_r is used for reentrant error string
    conversion. Also, a caml_plat_fatal_error error reporting function
    has been added to runtime/platform.c.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11023
    Careful minor heap clear in DEBUG

    The Debug_free_minor is used to clear the minor heap at the end of
    a minor collection, and the transition from Debug_free_minor to
    Debug_uninit_minor is checked when using Alloc_small.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11031
    With frame-pointers, exception handlers should restore RBP

    On AMD64, the exception handlers should restore the rbp register
    when using frame-pointers.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11056
    Minor improvements to “named values” handling

    The result of caml_named_value("Unix.Unix_error") is cached, and
    the “djb2” hash function is used for the table of named
    values. Also, locking has been added to caml_iterate_named_values.

Cleanup

  • ocaml/ocaml#10966
    Simplifications/cleanups/clarifications from multicore review

    The caml_modify is now documented, and a few public API have been
    made private. The APIs for signals have been simplified, and dead
    code has been removed.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11001
    Header cleanup: mlvalues.h include domain_state.h once & minimise cross-header includes

    The domain_state.h now includes mlvalues.h once, and the PR
    minimises cross-inclusion between headers.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11019
    Remove unncessary Current_thread restore in caml_thread_enter_blocking_section

    The caml_thread_enter_blocking_section function in
    otherlibs/systhreads/st_stubs.c has been updated to remove the
    unnecessary use of Current_thread.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11041
    Minor cleanups in effect.ml

    The PR remove code duplication in Effect.Shallow. It also removes
    Obj.magic and includes optimization to Shallow.fiber.

Performance

  • ocaml/ocaml#10930
    Downstream patch changes for removed Stream and Pervasives library PR#10896

    The removal of Stream and Pervasives library required patch
    updates to Sandmark dependency packages.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10949
    Atomic operations on arrays

    A new Atomic.Array module contains the atomic operations on
    arrays, namely, atomic read, write, exchange, compare and set, and
    fetch and add. A program that spawns four threads and performs
    10,000 fetch-and-adds in an atomic array of integers was
    benchmarked. The performance of random write accesses is illustrated
    in the following figure:

    OCaml-PR-10949

  • ocaml/ocaml#11000
    Fix a minor regression from #10462

    The check_local_inline is added to lambda/translattribute.ml to
    fix a minor regression related to safepoints.

  • ocaml/ocaml#11047
    gc stats: properly orphan allocation stats

    The orphan stats are stored in a global structure alloc_stats in
    gc_stats.c, which is protected by a lock. On domain termination,
    the stats of the current domain are added to orphan stats.

ARM64

  • ocaml/ocaml#10943
    Introduce atomic loads in Cmm and Mach IRs

    The Patomic_load primitive is now enhanced to ease support for
    other architectures. This is required for the ARM64 support.

  • ocaml/ocaml#10972
    ARM64 multicore support

    The PR for ARM64 Multicore OCaml has been merged. The arm64.S file
    has been updated, and the coverage tests for
    testsuite/tests/effects and testsuite/tests/callback run fine.

Ecosystem

Eio

Open

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#190
    Update to cmdliner.1.1.0

    A draft PR to update to cmdline.1.1.0 with changes to
    lib_eio_linux/tests/eurcp.ml.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#196
    Consider renaming Fibre.fork

    The Fibre.fork name is not related to Unix.fork, and it does not
    copy the calling environment. It needs to be renamed. Suggestions
    include create, start, or spawn.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#205
    Prepare release

    The sources now depend on uring.0.3 and CHANGES.md file has been
    updated to prepare for a release.

Completed

Build

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#167
    Remove pin-depends on uring

    The pin-depends section in eio_linux.opam file has been removed.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#182
    Add a dependency on OCaml

    An explicit dependency mentioning ocaml (>= 4.12.0) has been added
    to the dune-project and eio.opam files.

Fix

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#173
    Buf_read.seq now checks the stream hasn’t moved on

    The error detection for using a sequence twice, or when performing
    other parsing operations first has been added.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#174
    Remove “broken” state from promises

    A promise is now simply unresolved or resolved. Promise.await does
    not raise exceptions, and Promise.break, Promise.broken, and
    await_result have been removed.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#176
    Prevent Switch and Cancel from being mutated from other domains

    A cancellation context across domains is not permitted, and
    cancellation functions are allowed to assume that they are running
    in their own domain.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#187
    WSL: Unix.Unix_error on “Hello, World” example

    A Unix.Unix_error reported by @leviroth (Levi Roth) when running a
    “Hello, World” example on Windows 11. The
    PR#203 provides a
    fix for the same.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#195
    Rename Fibre to Fiber

    The upstream naming of Fiber is used in the sources, and the old
    name is marked as deprecated.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#201
    Effect.eff is now Effect.t in trunk

    The upstream change in trunk from Effect.eff to Effect.t has
    been incorporated into Eio with compatibility for 4.12+domains.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#203
    Switch to luv backend if uring can’t be used

    A fallback argument has been added to check if io_uring is
    available on the system. Otherwise, the luv backend is used.

Enhancement

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#155
    Add Eio_unix.FD

    The FD module has been added to lib_eio/unix/eio_unix.ml to be
    used with the Luv.0.5.11 asynchronous I/O library.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#165
    Add secure_random device to stdenv

    A Random module has been added to lib_eio_luv/eio_luv.ml, and
    lib_eio/eio.ml includes a secure_random device to stdenv.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#166
    Simplify Flow interface

    The read and write classes have been removed, and we instead use
    source and sink for everything. Also, Flow.read_into src buf
    has been renamed to Flow.read src buf.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#168
    Move low-level backend functions to submodules

    The Eio abstraction provides top-level functions, and hence the
    low-level backend functions have been moved to submodules.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#169
    Make Eio.Std just provide aliases to Eio

    The PR allows you to directly refer to Eio.Promise.t, andEio.Std
    provides aliases to Eio.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#171
    UDP interface

    An initial implementation of UDP support to Eio’s networking
    interface. A tests/test_network.md file has also been added to
    test working with UDP and endpoints.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#175
    Add Buf_read.parse_exn

    The lib_eio/buf_read.ml file now includes a parse_exn function
    that converts parser errors into friendly message.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#177
    Replace Ipaddr.classify with Ipaddr.fold

    The Ipaddr.fold is used instead of Ipaddr.classify to match the
    style of stdlib.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#178
    Rename Sink.write to Sink.copy

    The Sink.write function has been renamed to Sink.copy to match
    the actual functionality.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#181
    Move ctf to eio

    The Ctf module has been moved inside Eio as its API could change
    quite often.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#188
    Add Eio_unix.sleep

    A Eio_unix.sleep function has been added as a replacement for
    Lwt_unix.sleep to not treat time as a capability.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#192
    Tidy up forking API

    The Cancel.cancel has been optimised, and fork_promise reports
    the result against the promise.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#198
    Add Eio_unix.FD.as_socket

    We now wrap a Unix FD as an Eio socket, which is useful for working
    with existing libraries that provide a Unix.file_descr or when
    receiving FDs from socket activation.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#199
    Update to new uring API to get FD passing

    The lib_eio_linux/eio_linux.ml file has been updated to use the
    new uring API, and a FD passing test has been added.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#200
    Eio_linux: cope with lack of fixed chunks

    A failure request to allocate a fixed buffer now logs a warning. The
    with_chunk function takes an n_blocks argument, and free is
    now called free_fixed.

Documentation

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#170
    Document how to implement Eio objects yourself

    A Provider Interfaces section has been added to the README.md
    file that documents how to define your own resources.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#172
    Clean up Eio odoc

    The Hook is inlined with Switch, and most modules now have
    documentation with an example.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#179
    Update odoc for eio_main, eio_luv and eio_linux

    The odoc documentation has been updated for eio_main, eio_luv,
    and eio_linux files.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#180
    Update README

    Additional notes on Object Capabilities have been added in the
    README.md file along with the current status of the Eio project.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#183
    Publish odoc on release

    The dune-project file has been updated with the link to the odoc
    documentation web page for Eio.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#185
    Link to generated odoc from README

    The links to the generated odoc from the README.md file have been
    explicitly linked for quick reference.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#186
    Minor documentation fixes

    The README.md and lib_eio/eio.mli documentation have been
    updated with minor fixes.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#194
    Remove confusing use of the word “object”

    The word object has been removed from the Capabilities section
    in the README.md file in order to avoid any confusion with OCaml
    objects (polymorphic records).

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#197
    Add more documentation

    The documentation on Cancellation has been updated with more
    low-level details.

Testing

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#184
    Tests: use local directory for test socket

    opam-repo-ci uses a read-only /tmp directory, and hence we
    switch to using a local directory for testing socket.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#189
    Add an example Eio_null backend

    A skeleton Eio backend with no actual effects has been added as an
    example. It is inefficient and not thread-safe, but, exists for
    demonstration purpose only.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#191
    Suppress cmdliner deprecation warning

    A -deprecated flag is added to lib_eio_linux/tests/eurcp.ml to
    suppress cmdliner warnings when testing.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#202
    Fix typo in tests

    The lib_eio/eio_linux/tests/fd_passing.md file has been updated to
    run uring tests with EIO_BACKEND=luv.

  • ocaml-multicore/eio#204
    Disable Linux mdx test on non-linux platforms

    Using the enabled_if construct from dune.2.9 the Linux MDX tests
    are now run only when the system is for linux.

Tezos

Open

  • ocaml-multicore/tezos#25
    Merge updates – disable failing tests temporarily

    The temporary disabling of failing tests, and a merge update for
    upstream changes.

  • ocaml-multicore/tezos#27
    Status of build on 5.0.0+trunk

    An issue tracker for the list of failing builds required to build
    Tezos on 5.0.0+trunk.

Closed

domainslib

Open

  • ocaml-multicore/domainslib#65
    Fix build on trunk

    A patch in Domainslib for the renaming of Effect.eff -> Effect.t
    change has been provided. The CI has now been updated to build for
    5.0.0+trunk as well.

  • ocaml-multicore/domainslib#66
    Domainslib.0.4.1 build failure with OCaml 5.0.0+trunk

    An Unbound type constructer eff error occurs when building
    Domainslib.0.4.1 in Sandmark for OCaml 5.0.0+trunk.

Completed

  • ocaml-multicore/domainslib#64
    Changes from opam-repository

    The domainslib.opam file has been updated to use OCaml (>= "5.0"),
    and dune (>= "1.8").

ocaml-uring

Closed

Updates

  • ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring#46
    Update to liburing 2.1

    The sources have been updated to use liburing.2.1, and
    lib/uring/uring_stubs.c now invokes io_uring_submit(ring).

  • ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring#49
    Add sendmsg and recvmsg

    The PR adds sendmsg(2) and recvmsg(2) calls to the uring
    library, and defines a module Msghdr.

  • ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring#50
    Cmdliner.1.1.0

    The Cmdliner version has been updated to 1.1.0 and to use the
    latest API for the tests.

  • ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring#52
    Allow sending and receiving FDs using SCM_RIGHTS

    The target address in send_msg is optional, and we can now send
    and receive FDs with SCM_RIGHTS.

  • ocaml-multicore/ocaml-uring#53
    Don’t allocate a fixed buffer by default

    The user needs to use set_fixed_buffer to allocate a fixed size
    buffer to avoid hitting a resource limit and locking memory.

Documentation

retro-httpaf-bench

Open

Completed

Sundries

Open

Closed

  • ocaml-multicore/eventlog-tools#5
    Update consts.ml to work with OCaml 4.13

    The force_minor/memprof sources have been included in
    lib/consts.ml to build eventlog-tools for OCaml 4.13.1.

  • ocaml-multicore/lockfree#9
    Update cpu_relax to new location

    The Domain.Sync.cpu_relax has been updated with cpu_relax in
    src/backoff.ml to build with OCaml 5.0.0.

  • ocaml-multicore/lockfree#10
    Remove unused dependencies from opam file

    The kcas package is not a dependency of lockfree, and
    ocamlfind and ocamlbuild are not needed any more. These three
    dependencies have been removed from the lockfree.opam file.

  • ocaml-multicore/kcas#11
    Update cpu_relax to new location

    The PR updates Domain.Sync.cpu_relax in src/backoff.ml so that
    it can compile with OCaml 5.0.0.

Benchmarking

Sandmark

Open

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#274
    Custom Variant Support

    The configuration to build developer branches in Sandmark for a
    specific branch, configure options, runtime parameters, a name for
    the variant, dependency package override, package removal list, and
    an expiry date until which the Sandmark nightly runs should occur is
    almost complete. The sample JSON configuration file is as follows:

     [ { "url" : "https://github.com/ocaml-multicore/ocaml-multicore/archive/parallel_minor_gc.tar.gz",
  "configure" : "-q",
  "runparams" : "v=0x400",
  "name": "5.00+trunk+kc+pr23423",
  "expiry": "YYYY-MM-DD"},
...]

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#279
    Update notebooks/ To 5.00.0+trunk

    The Jupyter notebooks in the notebooks/ folder need to be updated to
    use the 5.0.0+trunk, by default.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#280
    Upstream 5.00.0+trunk dependency packages

    A number of Sandmark dependency package patches have been upstreamed
    to the respective maintainers or to the OPAM repository. A few more
    patches remain to be submitted upstream.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#282
    Analyse Bytecode Performance

    The Sandmark benchmarks produce native code, by default, and we
    would like to run the byte code version of the benchmarks to
    identify any regression between 4.13 or 4.14 with 5.0.0+trunk.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#285
    Evaluate merging parallel run_config.json files

    A request to combine multicore_parallel_run_config.json and
    multicore_parallel_navajo_run_config.json into one JSON file, so
    that we add new benchmarks to one place instead of two (or more).

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#286
    Update check_url and validate URL in custom.json files

    The check_url target in the Makefile needs to check if a URL is
    present for each and every entry in the custom.json file, and that
    the URL actually exists.

Closed

Build

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#270
    Update to 5.00.0+domains

    The dependencies and benchmarks to run 5.00.0+domains variant have
    been updated to build in Sandmark.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#276
    Re-add 5.00.0+trunk with CI failure:ignore option

    The .drone.yml CI is updated to ignore a failed build for
    5.00.0+trunk, so that we can continue to merge changes as long as
    5.00.0+stable Sandmark builds fine.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#278
    Updated run_all scripts and 5.00.0+stable to February 3, 2022 commit

    The run_all scripts have been updated to use SYS_DUNE_HACK, and
    the 5.00.0+stable variant has been updated to the February 3, 2022
    ocaml/ocaml commit.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#295
    Clean OCaml dependencies/packages fully after a build

    The ocaml-base-compiler and ocaml dependency packages folder
    need to be cleaned correctly, as they are used in subsequent
    sandmark-nightly runs.

Enhancement

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#271
    Parameterize ocaml-variants information as Docker environment variables

    The following variables have been parameterized in the Sandmark
    Makefile to be used as environment variables to support the Custom Variant Support feature request:

    SANDMARK_DUNE_VERSION
SANDMARK_URL
SANDMARK_REMOVE_PACKAGES
SANDMARK_OVERRIDE_PACKAGES

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#283
    Add Custom Variant Support feature

    An initial support for the Custom Variant Support feature that
    allows you to specify url, tag, config_json, name, expiry,
    environment, configure, and runparams in a custom.json file
    has been merged to run with sandmark-nightly.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#284
    Use specific name in .orun.summary.bench output

    The name specified in a custom.json file is now used in the
    orun.summary.bench results file.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#287
    Use separate custom variant JSON files per server

    Two separate custom_navajo.json and custom_turing.json files
    have been created for sandmark-nightly execution runs.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#291
    Custom script log output to results directory

    The build and execution logs are now stored along with the benchmark
    results for easy access in the UI.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#293
    Allow raw GitHub JSON configuration input for custom variant

    You can now use a CUSTOM_FILE environment variable to pass a
    remote file as an input configuration to the Custom Support Variant
    feature request.

Documentation

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#268
    Update README CI Build status to main branch

    The CI Build Status for the main branch in Sandmark has been
    updated to point to the main branch.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#277
    Sync and update README from master branch

    The README changes from the Sandmark master branch have been synced
    up with the main branch, as we will soon switch to using the main
    branch as the default branch in Sandmark.

Sundries

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#281
    Sandmark.ocamllabs.io shows error instead of parallel benchmarks

    The production server has been deployed with the latest nightly
    scripts, and the web application that fixes the display of the
    parallel benchmarks.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#289
    Use CPU 5 in run_config.json for consistency

    The orun command now uses CPU 5 to be consistent with the other
    wrappers. This is not an issue with the CI runs.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#292
    Use Task run in parallel benchmarks

    The domainslib.0.4.1 package has been updated in Sandmark, and the
    parallel_for and await calls are now wrapped in Task.run.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark#296
    Use a single Task.run in parallel benchmarks

    A fix where the Task.pool inside the iter function was blocking
    indefinitely. Now the LU_decomposition_multicore.exe parallel
    benchmark runs correctly.

Sandmark-nightly

Open

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#21
    Add 5.0 variants

    The sandmark-nightly scripts now run 5.0 variants, but, the
    pausetimes with ocaml/ocaml needs to be updated.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#42
    Alert notification for Sandmark nightly runs

    A daily status summary of the nightly runs should be sent to a
    deployment of ocaml-matrix server.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#45
    Refactor sandmark-nightly

    A list of changes that are required to clean up the sandmark-nightly
    repository, and move the scripts to Sandmark. Thus, sandmark-nightly
    will just store the data results, and sandmark will have the code.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#48
    Numbered list is misaligned in the home page

    The list indentation is incorrect in the home page and it needs to
    be fixed.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#49
    Add Sandmark info to sandmark-nightly

    A PR that shows the commit version and branch of Sandmark used in
    the sandmark-nightly in the UI.

Closed

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#27
    Include the baseline variant information in the normalised graphs

    The normalised graph now includes the information of the baseline
    variant used for comparison.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#34
    Parallel benchmarks should be run on ocaml/ocaml#trunk

    The CI parallel benchmarks execution runs have been switched to run
    for ocaml/ocaml#trunk.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#37
    Sequential results comparison is broken

    The inclusion of the meta header first line is the .bench output is
    now handled in the UI.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#40
    The information in the landing page is out of date

    The landing page now displays both stable and trunk variants
    correctly.

  • ocaml-bench/sandmark-nightly#50
    Simple fix for index page to display text properly

    The trailing whitespaces and list indentation have been fixed.

current-bench

Open

End Users

  • ocurrent/current-bench#306
    WIP ocaml compiler benchmarks

    A high-level issue tracker for building ocaml/ocaml compiler
    benchmarks, and necessary tooling with current-bench.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#311
    Raspberry Pi long term support

    The Raspberry Pi is now added to the current-bench cluster, and
    you can add an entry for the same to environments/production.conf
    as shown below:

    {
"repositories": [
  {
    "name": "mirage/irmin",
    "worker": "rpi4b",
    "image": "ocaml/opam:debian-11-ocaml-4.12"
  }

    A way to handle the fan noise during intensive Irmin benchmarks on
    the Raspberry Pi is needed.

Enhancement

  • ocurrent/current-bench#312
    Time scheduling

    A benchmark is run on a new commit, or on the default branch, or for
    a PR. We need to add support to schedule jobs on a timely basis.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#314
    Retro-benchmark new repositories

    A feature request to be able to run benchmark results on older
    commits for a newer current-bench deployment.

Frontend

  • ocurrent/current-bench#313
    Record commits messages

    The commit first-line description needs to be shown along with the
    commit hash in the UI.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#317
    Frontend rewrite

    The frontend uses Rescript, and the current plotting library has its
    limitations. An open issue to discuss rewriting the frontend.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#322
    Adjust units on comparison commit values tool

    The adjust function is now called on both the benchmark and the
    comparison values to show the same units.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#323
    Allow clicking on the legend to show/hide plot lines and use more columns

    The legend now uses more columns when clicking on the show/hide plot
    in the UI as shown below:

    Current-bench-PR-323

  • ocurrent/current-bench#324
    Disabled worker / docker image

    The frontend automatically selects the first “environment” (worker +
    Docker image) and the system may contain disabled ones. The
    environment list needs to be filtered for the active entries only.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#326
    frontend: Fix bug with using same x-axis for all metrics

    The PR fixes the change to use the correct meta-data for all the
    commits, for every metric in the x-axis.

Testing

  • ocurrent/current-bench#316
    Real-life testing

    current-bench requires both functional and integration tests for
    checking on failure conditions and to validate the backend pipeline.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#318
    Cobench user library

    A validation test interface, when adding new benchmarks, is needed
    to check that the expected JSON output from the make bench output
    conforms to the latest schema.

Monitoring

  • ocurrent/current-bench#290
    Add optional field to JSON

    A request to add an optional field in the JSON object whose values
    can be printed verbatim in the log.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#298
    Production logs and warnings

    The filtering of the logs based on a component in the pipeline will
    be useful for troubleshooting and debugging production issues.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#319
    Github bot messages

    Similar to code coverage reports, it will be nice to produce
    detailed performance regressions results on GitHub PRs.

Closed

Build

  • ocurrent/current-bench#282
    Docker compose for stack deploy

    A docker-compose.yaml file can now build the backend pipeline and
    frontend stack for deployment.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#301
    Worker support for raspberry ARM: add new argument to specify arch

    The architecture argument has been added to the run_command
    function to allow the use of Raspberry Pi ARM as a worker.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#305
    Update ocamlformat version to 0.20.1

    The ocamlformat version has been updated from 0.19.0 to 0.20.1.

Enhancement

  • ocurrent/current-bench#289
    Fix URL missing pull number

    The URL should contain the PR number when redirecting to add the
    worker or Docker image.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#292
    Return better HTTP error codes for API requests

    The client requests now receive correct HTTP error codes for
    exception handling.

Frontend

  • ocurrent/current-bench#293
    Make log links noticeable by removing log ID from link text

    A link to view the build and execution logs is now provided in the
    UI, instead of the log UUIDs.

    Current-bench-PR-293

  • ocurrent/current-bench#299
    Fix GitHub status update: wait for benchmark to terminate

    The GitHub status of the application should show a green “pass”
    state only after the successful execution of the benchmarks.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#308
    frontend: Fix incorrect GraphQL query for default benchmark

    The default benchmark now has a name instead of NULL to satisfy
    PostgreSQL’s UNIQUE constraint.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#309
    Make it easier to go back to “home page” from error view

    A side bar has been added to the error view for easier navigation.

  • ocurrent/ocurrent#309
    Show line numbers and allow jumping to specific lines in job logs

    A URL like
    http://localhost:8080/job/2022-02-09/115753-docker-build-71c777#L11-L15
    would highlight lines 11 to 15 and scroll the page to line 11 as
    illustrated below:

    OCurrent-PR-309

  • ocurrent/current-bench#320
    Show all commits for all metrics and highlight failed metrics

    The metrics that do not have a value for the latest commit are
    considered failed commits, but, all the metrics are shown in the
    UI. The graphs are also made full width and aligned vertically as
    shown below:

    Current-bench-PR-320

  • ocurrent/current-bench#325
    Display old commit benchmarks warning irrespective of build status

    The UI now shows the old commit benchmarks warnings.

Testing

  • ocurrent/current-bench#294
    Add unit tests

    A pipeline/tests folder has been created with unit tests, and you
    can run them from the pipeline/ directory as follows:

    $ dune runtest
$ dune exec tests/test.exe

  • ocurrent/current-bench#307
    Add coverage using bisect_ppx

    The Makefile now includes a coverage target that uses
    bisect_ppx, and generates a HTML coverage report.

Sundries

  • ocurrent/current-bench#281
    Document how to add workers

    The HACKING.md file has been updated with information on how to
    add new workers to the cluster, and configuration of remote workers
    to run the benchmarks.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#295
    Fix benchmark name unique constraint

    PostgreSQL does not consider NULL values to be equal and hence the
    conflict on UNIQUE constraint for the benchmark name does not get
    triggered. This creates duplicate rows in the database, and this PR
    provides fixes at the application and the database level.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#296
    Capture line numbers of where metrics appear in the logs

    The line numbers of the metrics from the logs are now captured in
    the database.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#303
    Run DB migrations on pipeline start

    The database migrations are now run prior to starting the
    application, which were earlier defined in a make target.

  • ocurrent/current-bench#304
    Update deprecated Term functions

    The cmdliner.1.1.0 package has been updated along with changes to
    remove the use of the deprecated Term functions.

Our special thanks to all the OCaml users, developers and contributors
in the community for their valuable time and continued support to the
project.

Acronyms

  • AFL: American Fuzzy Lop
  • AMD: Advanced Micro Devices
  • API: Application Programming Interface
  • ARM: Advanced RISC Machines
  • AWK: Aho Weinberger Kernighan
  • BSD: Berkeley Software Distribution
  • CI: Continuous Integration
  • CTF: Common Trace Format
  • DB: Database
  • EOL: End Of Life
  • FD: File Descriptor
  • FFI: Foreign Function Interface
  • GC: Garbage Collector
  • GNU: GNU’s Not Unix
  • HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol
  • IO: Input/Output
  • IR: Intermediate Representation
  • JSON: JavaScript Object Notation
  • MD: Markdown
  • OPAM: OCaml Package Manager
  • POSIX: Portable Operating System Interface
  • PR: Pull Request
  • RHEL: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • STW: Stop The World
  • UDP: User Datagram Protocol
  • UI: User Interface
  • URL: Uniform Resource Locator
  • UUID: Universally Unique Identifier
  • VM: Virtual Machine
  • WSL: Windows Subsystem for Linux
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