Build iwasm

WAMR vmcore is a set of runtime libraries for loading and running Wasm modules. This document introduces how to build the WAMR vmcore.

References:

how to build iwasm: building different target platforms such as Linux, Windows, Mac etc
Blog: Introduction to WAMR running modes

WAMR vmcore cmake building configurations

By including the script runtime_lib.cmake under folder build-scripts in CMakeList.txt, it is easy to use vmcore to build host software with cmake.

# add this into your CMakeList.txt
include (${WAMR_ROOT_DIR}/build-scripts/runtime_lib.cmake)
add_library(vmlib ${WAMR_RUNTIME_LIB_SOURCE})

The script runtime_lib.cmake defines a number of variables for configuring the WAMR runtime features. You can set these variables in your CMakeList.txt or pass the configurations from cmake command line.

Configure platform and architecture

WAMR_BUILD_PLATFORM: set the target platform. It can be set to any platform name (folder name) under folder core/shared/platform.
WAMR_BUILD_TARGET: set the target CPU architecture. Current supported targets are: X86_64, X86_32, AARCH64, ARM, THUMB, XTENSA, ARC, RISCV32, RISCV64 and MIPS.
- For ARM and THUMB, the format is <arch>[<sub-arch>][_VFP], where <sub-arch> is the ARM sub-architecture and the "_VFP" suffix means using VFP coprocessor registers s0-s15 (d0-d7) for passing arguments or returning results in standard procedure-call. Both <sub-arch> and "_VFP" are optional, e.g. ARMV7, ARMV7_VFP, THUMBV7, THUMBV7_VFP and so on.
- For AARCH64, the format is<arch>[<sub-arch>], VFP is enabled by default. <sub-arch> is optional, e.g. AARCH64, AARCH64V8, AARCH64V8.1 and so on.
- For RISCV64, the format is <arch>[_abi], where "_abi" is optional, currently the supported formats are RISCV64, RISCV64_LP64D and RISCV64_LP64: RISCV64 and RISCV64_LP64D are identical, using LP64D as abi (LP64 with hardware floating-point calling convention for FLEN=64). And RISCV64_LP64 uses LP64 as abi (Integer calling-convention only, and hardware floating-point calling convention is not used).
- For RISCV32, the format is <arch>[_abi], where "_abi" is optional, currently the supported formats are RISCV32, RISCV32_ILP32D, RISCV32_ILP32F and RISCV32_ILP32: RISCV32 and RISCV32_ILP32D are identical, using ILP32D as abi (ILP32 with hardware floating-point calling convention for FLEN=64). RISCV32_ILP32F uses ILP32F as abi (ILP32 with hardware floating-point calling convention for FLEN=32). And RISCV32_ILP32 uses ILP32 as abi (Integer calling-convention only, and hardware floating-point calling convention is not used).

cmake -DWAMR_BUILD_PLATFORM=linux -DWAMR_BUILD_TARGET=ARM

Configure interpreters

WAMR_BUILD_INTERP=1/0: enable or disable WASM interpreter
WAMR_BUILD_FAST_INTERP=1/0: build fast (default) or classic WASM interpreter.
NOTE: the fast interpreter runs ~2X faster than classic interpreter, but consumes about 2X memory to hold the pre-compiled code.

Configure AOT and JITs

WAMR_BUILD_AOT=1/0, enable AOT or not, default to enable if not set
WAMR_BUILD_JIT=1/0, enable LLVM JIT or not, default to disable if not set
WAMR_BUILD_FAST_JIT=1/0, enable Fast JIT or not, default to disable if not set
WAMR_BUILD_FAST_JIT=1 and WAMR_BUILD_JIT=1, enable Multi-tier JIT, default to disable if not set

Configure LIBC

WAMR_BUILD_LIBC_BUILTIN=1/0, build the built-in libc subset for WASM app, default to enable if not set
WAMR_BUILD_LIBC_WASI=1/0, build the WASI libc subset for WASM app, default to enable if not set
WAMR_BUILD_LIBC_UVWASI=1/0 (Experiment), build the WASI libc subset for WASM app based on uvwasi implementation, default to disable if not set

Note: for platform which doesn't support WAMR_BUILD_LIBC_WASI, e.g. Windows, developer can try using WAMR_BUILD_LIBC_UVWASI.

Enable Multi-Module feature

WAMR_BUILD_MULTI_MODULE=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: See Multiple Modules as Dependencies for more details.

Enable WASM mini loader

WAMR_BUILD_MINI_LOADER=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: the mini loader doesn't check the integrity of the WASM binary file, developer must ensure that the WASM file is well-formed.

Enable shared memory feature

WAMR_BUILD_SHARED_MEMORY=1/0, default to disable if not set

Enable bulk memory feature

WAMR_BUILD_BULK_MEMORY=1/0, default to disable if not set

Enable memory64 feature

WAMR_BUILD_MEMORY64=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: Currently, the memory64 feature is only supported in classic interpreter running mode and AOT mode.

Enable thread manager

WAMR_BUILD_THREAD_MGR=1/0, default to disable if not set

Enable lib-pthread

WAMR_BUILD_LIB_PTHREAD=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: The dependent feature of lib pthread such as the shared memory and thread manager will be enabled automatically.

See WAMR pthread library for more details.

Enable lib-pthread-semaphore

WAMR_BUILD_LIB_PTHREAD_SEMAPHORE=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: This feature depends on lib-pthread, it will be enabled automatically if this feature is enabled.

Enable lib wasi-threads

WAMR_BUILD_LIB_WASI_THREADS=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: The dependent feature of lib wasi-threads such as the shared memory and thread manager will be enabled automatically.

See wasi-threads and Introduction to WAMR WASI threads for more details.

Enable lib wasi-nn

WAMR_BUILD_WASI_NN=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: See WASI-NN for more details.

Enable lib wasi-nn GPU mode

WAMR_BUILD_WASI_NN_ENABLE_GPU=1/0, default to disable if not set

Enable lib wasi-nn external delegate mode

WAMR_BUILD_WASI_NN_ENABLE_EXTERNAL_DELEGATE=1/0, default to disable if not set
WAMR_BUILD_WASI_NN_EXTERNAL_DELEGATE_PATH=Path to the external delegate shared library (e.g. libedgetpu.so.1.0 for Coral USB)

Enable lib wasi-nn with `wasi_ephemeral_nn` module support

WAMR_BUILD_WASI_EPHEMERAL_NN=1/0, default to disable if not set

Disable boundary check with hardware trap

WAMR_DISABLE_HW_BOUND_CHECK=1/0, default to enable if not set and supported by platform

Note: by default only platform linux/darwin/android/windows/vxworks 64-bit will enable the boundary check with hardware trap feature, for 32-bit platforms it's automatically disabled even when the flag is set to 0, and the wamrc tool will generate AOT code without boundary check instructions in all 64-bit targets except SGX to improve performance. The boundary check includes linear memory access boundary and native stack access boundary, if WAMR_DISABLE_STACK_HW_BOUND_CHECK below isn't set.

Disable native stack boundary check with hardware trap

WAMR_DISABLE_STACK_HW_BOUND_CHECK=1/0, default to enable if not set and supported by platform, same as WAMR_DISABLE_HW_BOUND_CHECK.

Note: When boundary check with hardware trap is disabled, or WAMR_DISABLE_HW_BOUND_CHECK is set to 1, the native stack boundary check with hardware trap will be disabled too, no matter what value is set to WAMR_DISABLE_STACK_HW_BOUND_CHECK. And when boundary check with hardware trap is enabled, the status of this feature is set according to the value of WAMR_DISABLE_STACK_HW_BOUND_CHECK.

Disable async wakeup of blocking operation

WAMR_DISABLE_WAKEUP_BLOCKING_OP=1/0, default to enable if supported by the platform

Note: The feature helps async termination of blocking threads. If you disable it, the runtime can wait for termination of blocking threads possibly forever.

Enable tail call feature

WAMR_BUILD_TAIL_CALL=1/0, default to disable if not set

Enable 128-bit SIMD feature

WAMR_BUILD_SIMD=1/0, default to enable if not set

Note: only supported in AOT mode x86-64 target.

Enable Exception Handling

WAMR_BUILD_EXCE_HANDLING=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: Currently, the exception handling feature is only supported in classic interpreter running mode.

Enable Garbage Collection

WAMR_BUILD_GC=1/0, default to disable if not set

Configure Debug

WAMR_BUILD_CUSTOM_NAME_SECTION=1/0, load the function name from custom name section, default to disable if not set

Enable AOT stack frame feature

WAMR_BUILD_AOT_STACK_FRAME=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: if it is enabled, the AOT or JIT stack frames (like stack frame of classic interpreter but only necessary data is committed) will be created for AOT or JIT mode in function calls. And please add --enable-dump-call-stack option to wamrc during compiling AOT module.

Enable dump call stack feature

WAMR_BUILD_DUMP_CALL_STACK=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: if it is enabled, the call stack will be dumped when exception occurs.

For interpreter mode, the function names are firstly extracted from custom name section, if this section doesn't exist or the feature is not enabled, then the name will be extracted from the import/export sections
For AOT/JIT mode, the function names are extracted from import/export section, please export as many functions as possible (for wasi-sdk you can use -Wl,--export-all) when compiling wasm module, and add --enable-dump-call-stack --emit-custom-sections=name option to wamrc during compiling AOT module.

Enable memory profiling (Experiment)

WAMR_BUILD_MEMORY_PROFILING=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: if it is enabled, developer can use API void wasm_runtime_dump_mem_consumption(wasm_exec_env_t exec_env) to dump the memory consumption info. Currently we only profile the memory consumption of module, module_instance and exec_env, the memory consumed by other components such as wasi-ctx, multi-module and thread-manager are not included.

Also refer to Memory usage estimation for a module.

Enable performance profiling (Experiment)

WAMR_BUILD_PERF_PROFILING=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: if it is enabled, developer can use API void wasm_runtime_dump_perf_profiling(wasm_module_inst_t module_inst) to dump the performance consumption info. Currently we only profile the performance consumption of each WASM function.

The function name searching sequence is the same with dump call stack feature.

Also refer to Tune the performance of running wasm/aot file.

Enable the global heap

WAMR_BUILD_GLOBAL_HEAP_POOL=1/0, default to disable if not set for all iwasm applications, except for the platforms Alios and Zephyr.

WAMR_BUILD_GLOBAL_HEAP_POOL is used in the iwasm applications provided in the directory product-mini. When writing your own host application using WAMR, if you want to use a global heap and allocate memory from it, you must set the initialization argument mem_alloc_type to Alloc_With_Pool. The global heap is defined in the documentation Memory model and memory usage tunning.

Set the global heap size

WAMR_BUILD_GLOBAL_HEAP_SIZE=n, default to 10 MB (10485760) if not set for all iwasm applications, except for the platforms Alios (256 kB), Riot (256 kB) and Zephyr (128 kB).

WAMR_BUILD_GLOBAL_HEAP_SIZE is used in the iwasm applications provided in the directory product-mini. When writing your own host application using WAMR, if you want to set the amount of memory dedicated to the global heap pool, you must set the initialization argument mem_alloc_option.pool with the appropriate values. The global heap is defined in the documentation Memory model and memory usage tunning. Note: if WAMR_BUILD_GLOBAL_HEAP_SIZE is not set and the flag WAMR_BUILD_SPEC_TEST is set, the global heap size is equal to 300 MB (314572800), or 100 MB (104857600) when compiled for Intel SGX (Linux).

Set maximum app thread stack size

WAMR_APP_THREAD_STACK_SIZE_MAX=n, default to 8 MB (8388608) if not set

Note: the AOT boundary check with hardware trap mechanism might consume large stack since the OS may lazily grow the stack mapping as a guard page is hit, we may use this configuration to reduce the total stack usage, e.g. -DWAMR_APP_THREAD_STACK_SIZE_MAX=131072 (128 KB).

Set vprintf callback

WAMR_BH_VPRINTF=<vprintf_callback>, default to disable if not set

Note: if the vprintf_callback function is provided by developer, the os_printf() and os_vprintf() in Linux, Darwin, Windows, VxWorks, Android and esp-idf platforms, besides WASI Libc output will call the callback function instead of libc vprintf() function to redirect the stdout output. For example, developer can define the callback function like below outside runtime lib:
int my_vprintf(const char *format, va_list ap)
{
    /* output to pre-opened file stream */
    FILE *my_file = ...;
    return vfprintf(my_file, format, ap);
    /* or output to pre-opened file descriptor */
    int my_fd = ...;
    return vdprintf(my_fd, format, ap);
    /* or output to string buffer and print the string */
    char buf[128];
    vsnprintf(buf, sizeof(buf), format, ap);
    return my_printf("%s", buf);
}
and then use cmake -DWAMR_BH_VPRINTF=my_vprintf .. to pass the callback function, or add BH_VPRINTF=my_vprintf macro for the compiler, e.g. add line add_definitions(-DBH_VPRINTF=my_vprintf) in CMakeLists.txt. See basic sample for a usage example.

WAMR_BH_LOG=<log_callback>, default to disable if not set

Note: if the log_callback function is provided by the developer, WAMR logs are redirected to such callback. For example:
void my_log(uint32 log_level, const char *file, int line, const char *fmt, ...)
{
    /* Usage of custom logger */
}
See basic sample for a usage example.

Enable reference types feature

WAMR_BUILD_REF_TYPES=1/0, default to disable if not set

Exclude WAMR application entry functions

WAMR_DISABLE_APP_ENTRY=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: The WAMR application entry (core/iwasm/common/wasm_application.c) encapsulate some common process to instantiate, execute the wasm functions and print the results. Some platform related APIs are used in these functions, so you can enable this flag to exclude this file if your platform doesn't support those APIs. Don't enable this flag if you are building product-mini

Enable source debugging features

WAMR_BUILD_DEBUG_INTERP=1/0, default to 0 if not set

Note: There are some other setup required by source debugging, please refer to source_debugging.md and WAMR source debugging basic for more details.

Enable load wasm custom sections

WAMR_BUILD_LOAD_CUSTOM_SECTION=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: By default, the custom sections are ignored. If the embedder wants to get custom sections from wasm_module_t, then WAMR_BUILD_LOAD_CUSTOM_SECTION should be enabled, and then wasm_runtime_get_custom_section can be used to get a custom section by name.

Note: If WAMR_BUILD_CUSTOM_NAME_SECTION is enabled, then the custom name section will be treated as a special section and consumed by the runtime, not available to the embedder.

For AoT file, must use --emit-custom-sections to specify which sections need to be emitted into AoT file, otherwise all custom sections will be ignored.

Stack guard size

WAMR_BUILD_STACK_GUARD_SIZE=n, default to N/A if not set.

Note: By default, the stack guard size is 1K (1024) or 24K (if uvwasi enabled).

Disable writing the linear memory base address to x86 GS segment register

WAMR_DISABLE_WRITE_GS_BASE=1/0, default to enable if not set and supported by platform

Note: by default only platform linux x86-64 will enable this feature, for 32-bit platforms it's automatically disabled even when the flag is set to 0. In linux x86-64, writing the linear memory base address to x86 GS segment register may be used to speedup the linear memory access for LLVM AOT/JIT, when --enable-segue=[<flags>] option is added for wamrc or iwasm.

See Enable segue optimization for wamrc when generating the aot file for more details.

User defined linear memory allocator

WAMR_BUILD_ALLOC_WITH_USAGE=1/0, default to disable if not set

Notes: by default, the linear memory is allocated by system. when it's set to 1 and Alloc_With_Allocator is selected, it will be allocated by customer.

Enable running PGO(Profile-Guided Optimization) instrumented AOT file

WAMR_BUILD_STATIC_PGO=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: See Use the AOT static PGO method for more details.

Enable linux perf support

WAMR_BUILD_LINUX_PERF=1/0, enable linux perf support to generate the flamegraph to analyze the performance of a wasm application, default to disable if not set

Note: See Use linux-perf for more details.

Enable module instance context APIs

WAMR_BUILD_MODULE_INST_CONTEXT=1/0, enable module instance context APIs which can set one or more contexts created by the embedder for a wasm module instance, default to enable if not set:

    wasm_runtime_create_context_key
    wasm_runtime_destroy_context_key
    wasm_runtime_set_context
    wasm_runtime_set_context_spread
    wasm_runtime_get_context

Note: See wasm_export.h for more details.

Enable quick AOT/JTI entries

WAMR_BUILD_QUICK_AOT_ENTRY=1/0, enable registering quick call entries to speedup the aot/jit func call process, default to enable if not set

Note: See Refine callings to AOT/JIT functions from host native for more details.

Enable AOT intrinsics

WAMR_BUILD_AOT_INTRINSICS=1/0, enable the AOT intrinsic functions, default to enable if not set. These functions can be called from the AOT code when --disable-llvm-intrinsics flag or --enable-builtin-intrinsics=<intr1,intr2,...> flag is used by wamrc to generate the AOT file.

Note: See Tuning the XIP intrinsic functions for more details.

Configurable memory access boundary check

WAMR_CONFIGURABLE_BOUNDS_CHECKS=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: If it is enabled, allow to run iwasm --disable-bounds-checks to disable the memory access boundary checks for interpreter mode.

Module instance context APIs

WAMR_BUILD_MODULE_INST_CONTEXT=1/0, default to disable if not set

Note: If it is enabled, allow to set one or more contexts created by embedder for a module instance, the below APIs are provided:

    wasm_runtime_create_context_key
    wasm_runtime_destroy_context_key
    wasm_runtime_set_context
    wasm_runtime_set_context_spread
    wasm_runtime_get_context

Combination of configurations:

We can combine the configurations. For example, if we want to disable interpreter, enable AOT and WASI, we can run command:

cmake .. -DWAMR_BUILD_INTERP=0 -DWAMR_BUILD_AOT=1 -DWAMR_BUILD_LIBC_WASI=0 -DWAMR_BUILD_PLATFORM=linux

Or if we want to enable interpreter, disable AOT and WASI, and build as X86_32, we can run command:

cmake .. -DWAMR_BUILD_INTERP=1 -DWAMR_BUILD_AOT=0 -DWAMR_BUILD_LIBC_WASI=0 -DWAMR_BUILD_TARGET=X86_32

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