[ccache] useful test package to use with ccache at the outset in Gentoo.....

[Scott Bennett]

Michael Fothergill via ccache <ccache at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> On 8 December 2017 at 01:35, Scott Bennett via ccache <
> ccache at lists.samba.org> wrote:
>
> > Michael Fothergill via ccache <ccache at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> >
> > > I have an amd64 kaveri box with 8GB RAM and run Gentoo stable on it.
> > >
> > > I have just installed ccache with 2GB memory allocated to it.
> >
> >      By that, I assume you have allocated some kind of memory-based device
> > for the cache.  Is that a correct understanding?
> >
>
> ?Thanks for your reply and comments.  I am assuming that by having the
> standard command ?
>
> ?CCACHE_SIZE="4G" (I have increased the allocation)

     As ccache is installed on my system, I cannot find an environment
variable of that name documented.  Are you sure it is being used?  What I
do find documented are CCACHE_MAX_SIZE and the corresponding ccache.conf
parameter max_size.  If you're going to build large items like libreoffice
or a LINUX world, you probably ought to have a much larger cache.  I also
found it a good idea to change limit_multiple from its default value of 0.8
to 0.95 to avoid half-hour-long cleanups in the middle of build runs.
     It is worth noting that, by my understanding of ccache the last time
I dug into it a bit, ccache actually maintains 16 distinct caches, but the
max_size and limit_multiple values apply to the total size and usage
fraction of the aggregate of all 16 caches.  When a cleanup occurs, ccache
chooses one of the 16 caches and begins deleting the least recently used
entries in it until the total space allocated has been reduced to the
limit_multiple fraction of the max_size.  If it runs out of things to
delete in that cache while the total allocated remains above that fraction,
ccache chooses another cache from which to begin deleting entries, and so on.
This procedure differs from the one described in the ccache man page and is
one reason I like to give more space to the cache(s) in order to prevent
recent entries from disappearing from a cache while other, far less recently
used entries remain in the other 15 caches.  By having a max_size large
enough to hold the last several iterations of frequently built items,
cleanups are more likely to satisfy the limit_multiple by deleting the oldest
few iterations of updates while sparing the more recently used entries 
in a cache.  These days the disk space is cheap enough to give it 10 GB to
30 GB without creating any problems for me, so I just do that.  Another trick
to keep the caches useful is to allocate separate ones for different purposes.
For example, I set up one for building the OS userland and kernel, another
for building libreoffice, and a third for building everything else.  Doing
this keeps the OS and libreoffice from evicting everything else or each other
prematurely. :-)

> then memory from the hard drive is being used by default here - I was not
> trying to use e.g. RAM memory.
>
     Oh.  Okay.
     If your system is used heavily for compiling software, you may see some
performance gains from putting the cache area onto an SSD.  Using a system
memory-based cache is, of course, lightning fast, but the entire cache
evaporates when the device is deallocated (e.g., during a system shutdown or
failure).  I tried using software five- and six-way RAID-0 devices for the
file system containing my caches for a while, but decided their performance
was poor.  At present I'm using a software CONCAT made of two two-way software
RAID-1's, all on the same kind of hard drives as the earlier setups, and this
setup seems to do very nicely for now.  I just have to remember not to run
updates at the same time as scrubs on the six-way raidz2 that occupies the
bulk of the same drives. :-)  I only scrub that pool about every three to four
weeks, though, so it usually isn't a problem.
> >
> > > I have tried some repeat compilations to see if there would be any speed
> > > increase.
> > >
> > > So far I have not seen much change but I am not skilled enough to improve
> > > things yet.
> >
> >      Your statistics show that slightly more than 45% of your total
> > compiler invocations (hits/(hits+misses)) were avoided.  Did that not
> > make a dent in your timings?
> > >
> > > I tried compiling gcc, glibc and imagemagick but did not see much
> > > improvement.
> >
> >      If you run the full build process for gcc, I would not expect
> > to see much improvement because most of it involves the use of either
> > a) a temporarily built compiler in a temporary location or b) the
> > newly built compiler being used for testing, but not yet installed
> > into the production location on your system.
> >
>
> ?Would cachecc1 perform any better with gcc??
>
     I don't know what cachecc1 is, so I have no idea.  Sorry.
>
> >      ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick both should provide useful timings
> > and ccache statistics.  glibc probably would, too, though it's not
> > nearly as big.  I don't know what sort of build procedures Gentoo uses,
> > but from the FreeBSD ports tree, here are some other good examples of
> > test cases:  math/octave, www/webkit-gtk2, www/webkit-gtk3,
> > www/webkit2-gtk3, devel/llvm40.  Be prepared to wait a long time for
> > the first compilation of each of the webkits.  They are big and slow
> > to compile and, in the past, have shown instabilities in their build
> > procedures when parallel make runs were used.
> >
>
> ?I have now compiled qtwebengine, libreoffice and and dramatically reduced
> the compile time with ccache
> now I am using the 3.3.4 version of the program ( see here
> https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1073298.html
> ? ). I think the earlier version of ccache was not working properly.

     Although some parts of libreoffice remain unaffected by ccache, the
build as a whole will show radically lower run times.  I hope you enjoyed
seeing how much shorter it was after the first run with ccache. :-)
>
> People on the thread have suggested that maybe cachecc1 might not work so
> well with gcc in practice and I should stick
> with ccache as is.
>
> But you may take a different view.  ?
>
     I must plead ignorance, so no view at all.
>
>
> > YMMV on another OS.
> >      One big savings for me was in running "make buildworld" and "make
> > buildkernel".  buildworld, on my last machine, was taking about six
> > hours elapsed time for a first run.  When running it later after
> > updating the source tree, the elapsed time was reduced by 2/3 to 3/4,
> > depending upon the number and sizes of source modules affected by the
> > updates.
> >
>
> ?These sound like the emerge --ask --update --deep @world command used in
> Gentoo (and similar versions).?

     buildworld is the make target that oversees the compilation of all of
the FreeBSD userland.  buildkernel is the corresponding target for the
FreeBSD kernel and all of its loadable modules.
>
> ?It's not time to update the system again yet but I think that it could
> well speed things up as long as the cache size is big enough for a lot of
> packages (e.g. 200 plus)

     Again, I'd recommend setting up a separate cache area for it.  I
currently allow 10 GB for the libreoffice cache, 16 GB for the OS build
cache, and 30 GB for everything else.  All three of these and
the build temporary area for ports are physically in the same file system.
The libreoffice cache and OS build cache space allowances are probably
bigger than is really helpful, but I have the space, and space not being
used is space being wasted.  FWIW, the cache for building ports averages a
50% - 55% hit rate, which adds up to quite a bit of CPU and elapsed time
saved in the course of a month.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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