VM suite

The VM suite allows you to build custom GraalVM distributions, as well as installable components. It defines a base GraalVM distribution that contains the JVMCI-enabled JDK, the GraalVM SDK, Truffle, and the GraalVM component installer. More components are added by dynamically importing additional suites. This can be done either by:

1. running mx --dynamicimports <suite...> build
2. setting the DEFAULT_DYNAMIC_IMPORTS or DYNAMIC_IMPORTS environment variables before running mx build
3. running mx --env <env file> build

After the compilation:

• the latest_graalvm symbolic link points to the latest built GraalVM
• $ mx [build-time arguments] graalvm-home prints the path to the GraalVM home directory

Note that the build dependencies of each component are specified in the README file of the corresponding repository. A common requirement is that the JAVA_HOME environment variable must point to the latest JVMCI-enabled JDK8 (pre-built archives; build instructions).

Example: build the base GraalVM CE image

The base GraalVM CE image includes:

• SubstrateVM (with the native-image tool)
• GraalVM compiler & the Truffle partial evaluator (imported as a dependency of substratevm)
• The inspector, profiler, and VisualVM tools
• Sulong
• Graal.nodejs
• Graal.js (imported as a dependency of graal-nodejs)
• the polyglot launcher
• the libpolyglot shared library

In our CI, we build it using:

• the latest JVMCI-enabled JDK8 (pre-built archives; build instructions). The JAVA_HOME environment variable must point to it.
• gcc: 4.9.1
• make: 3.83
• binutils: 2.23.2
• llvm: 3.8 on linux; 4.0.1 on darwin

Newer versions might also work. For more details, please check the README file of each component.

To start the build, you can either run:

$ mx --dynamicimports /substratevm,/tools,sulong,/graal-nodejs build

$ export DEFAULT_DYNAMIC_IMPORTS=/substratevm,/tools,sulong,/graal-nodejs
$ mx build

or:

$ export DYNAMIC_IMPORTS=/substratevm,/tools,sulong,/graal-nodejs
$ mx build

Note that the suites listed in:

• DYNAMIC_IMPORTS are always imported
• DEFAULT_DYNAMIC_IMPORTS are imported only if no other dynamic import is specified (via command line, env file, or environment variable)

$ mx --env ce build

Which uses the settings in the env file in mx.vm/ce. Note that you can add custom env files to your mx.vm directory, and call mx --env <env file name> build.

Installable components

Installable components for the Graal Updater (gu) are built alongside the GraalVM for languages other than JS. For example:

$ env FASTR_RELEASE=true mx --dynamicimports fastr,truffleruby,graalpython,/substratevm build

creates:

• a GraalVM image which includes the base CE components plus FastR, TruffleRuby, and Graal.Python
• the installables for FastR, TruffleRuby, and Graal.Python

Native images

When substratevm is imported, the build system creates native launchers for the supported languages and for polyglot, plus the shared polyglot library (libpolyglot). Otherwise, it creates bash launchers for the languages and for polyglot, and does not create the shared polyglot library.

To override the default behavior, the vm suite defines the following mx arguments:

  --disable-libpolyglot         Disable the 'polyglot' library project
  --disable-polyglot            Disable the 'polyglot' launcher project
  --force-bash-launchers=...    Force the use of bash launchers instead of native images.
                                This can be a comma-separated list of disabled launchers or `true` to disable all native launchers.

And the following environment variables:

  DISABLE_LIBPOLYGLOT           Same as '--disable-libpolyglot'
  DISABLE_POLYGLOT              Same as '--disable-polyglot'
  FORCE_BASH_LAUNCHERS          Same as '--force-bash-launchers'

Note that when the shared polyglot library is not built, Graal.nodejs can only work in JVM-mode (node --jvm [args]).

Example: avoid building the polyglot image and the polyglot shared library

$ mx --disable-polyglot --disable-libpolyglot --dynamicimports /substratevm,/tools,sulong,/graal-js build

builds the native SubstrateVM launchers for native-image, Graal.js, and Sulong, but no polyglot launcher and polyglot library.

Example: force bash launchers

$ mx --force-bash-launchers=true --dynamicimports /substratevm,/tools,sulong,/graal-nodejs

builds the native SubstrateVM launcher for native-image, and creates bash launchers for Sulong, Graal.js, and polyglot

Example: create an env file that builds only the SubstrateVM, Graal.Python, and their dependencies (no polyglot; no libpolyglot)

$ echo "DYNAMIC_IMPORTS=/substratevm,graalpython" > mx.vm/python
$ echo "DISABLE_LIBPOLYGLOT=true" >> mx.vm/python
$ echo "DISABLE_POLYGLOT=true" >> mx.vm/python
$ mx --env python build

Now, if you want to add Graal.js:

$ mx --env python --dynamicimports /graal-js build

Versioned dynamic imports

Dynamic imports typically require the user to locate and clone the dynamically imported suites. There is also no indication of which version of those suites would work. To avoid this issue, the vm suite uses "versioned dynamic imports".

The mx.vm/suite.py file contains references to all the suites that might be imported to compose a GraalVM. Unlike usual suite imports, they are marked as dynamic, which means they are only considered if they are part of the dynamically imported suites. However, when they are included, they have URLs and versions which allow mx to automatically clone the correct version.

More details can be found in docs/dynamic-imports.md in the mx repository.

Example: checkout the correct imports of Graal.js and Sulong, then build a GraalVM CE image

$ mx --env ce sforceimports
$ mx --env ce build

Registering custom components

Suites can register new, custom components callingmx_sdk.register_graalvm_component().