Compiling bcc and bpftrace from sources

Notes on how to compile and install bcc and bpftrace from sources on Ubuntu 18.04 with a recent HWE enabled kernel v5.4.0-73-generic

• Enable BPF related kernel configs. The ubuntu kernel comes pre-built with BPF configs. Enable these configs

  CONFIG_BPF=y
  CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL=y
  # [optional, for tc filters]
  CONFIG_NET_CLS_BPF=m
  # [optional, for tc actions]
  CONFIG_NET_ACT_BPF=m
  CONFIG_BPF_JIT=y
  # [for Linux kernel versions 4.1 through 4.6]
  CONFIG_HAVE_BPF_JIT=y
  # [for Linux kernel versions 4.7 and later]
  CONFIG_HAVE_EBPF_JIT=y
  # [optional, for kprobes]
  CONFIG_BPF_EVENTS=y
  # Need kernel headers through /sys/kernel/kheaders.tar.xz
  CONFIG_IKHEADERS=y
  

• Install build deps

  # For Bionic (18.04 LTS)
  sudo apt-get -y install bison build-essential cmake flex git libedit-dev \
  python zlib1g-dev libelf-dev libfl-dev
  

• Install Googletest and googlemock

  git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git
  mkdir build && cd build;
  make -j
  sudo make install
  

• Install llvm-12

  wget https://apt.llvm.org/llvm.sh
  chmod +x llvm.sh
  sudo ./llvm.sh 12
  

• Update alternatives to point to v12

  wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/arkivm/e3f2dec38ef258d0fa1a23ebd4342a33/raw/92f0e73d2558402b7316021c1ab408b30e534de6/update-alternatives-clang.sh
  ./update-alternatives-clang.sh <version> <prio>
  

• Install bcc
  • Without a special commandline (LLVM_SHARED), you may likely encounter this issue
  • Use the cmake flags as described here

    git clone https://github.com/iovisor/bcc.git
    mkdir bcc/build; cd bcc/build
    cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=... -DENABLE_TESTS=0 -DENABLE_MAN=0   -DENABLE_LLVM_SHARED=1
    make -j
    sudo make install
    cmake -DPYTHON_CMD=python3 .. # build python3 binding
    pushd src/python/
    make
    sudo make install
    popd
    

• Install bpftrace

  sudo apt-get install -y bison cmake flex g++ git libelf-dev zlib1g-dev libfl-dev systemtap-sdt-dev binutils-dev
  git clone https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace
  mkdir bpftrace/build && cd bpftrace/build;
  cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
  make -j
  sudo make install