Is it possible to speed up crosstool-ng builds once errors have occured?

Question

I am using crosstool-ng to build a tolchain for beagleboard-xm. The build proceeds in a manner depicted below:

[INFO ] ================================================================= [INFO ] Retrieving needed toolchain components' tarballs [INFO ] Retrieving needed toolchain components' tarballs: done in 0.51s (at 00:08) [INFO ] ================================================================= [INFO ] Extracting and patching toolchain components [INFO ] Extracting and patching toolchain components: done in 7.91s (at 00:16) [INFO ] ================================================================= [INFO ] Installing GMP [INFO ] Installing GMP: done in 140.48s (at 02:36) [INFO ] ================================================================= [INFO ] Installing MPFR [INFO ] Installing MPFR: done in 36.01s (at 03:13) [INFO ] ================================================================= [INFO ] Installing PPL . .

`

Now, after 50 mins of compiling, it breaks with an error:

[ERROR] configure: error: expat is missing or unusable"

I installed the required package (in Ubuntu 10.04) but the error is a non-issue. Earlier I was able to get to steps where it had successfully installed the compiler and there were no errors till then. I was wondering if there is a way to have the tool skip over previously successfull steps, saving time? Is it even possible with the way crosstool-ng works?

Answer 1

Yes, it's possible. Run ct-ng like this

CT_DEBUG_CT_SAVE_STEPS=1 ct-ng build

After crashing at a certain step, just find the step in the list produced by

ct-ng list-steps

At which point you can resume the build by running

RESTART=libc_start_files ct-ng build

Answer 2

yes, current crosstool-ng has support this feature.

1. enable this feature in menuconfig

for ct-ng menuconfig, config Paths and misc options like this

───────────────────── Paths and misc options ─────────────────────
[*] Debug crosstool-NG
[ ]   Pause between every steps
[*]   Save intermediate steps
[*]     gzip saved states
[*]   Interactive shell on failed commands

2.when do build, for each step done successfully, you will see something like this:

Saving state to restart at step 'xxx'...

3.when fail, after fix it, then use ct-ng LAST_SUCCESSFUL_STETP_NAME+ to continue build

my example:

CLi@PC-CLI-1 ~/develop/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng-1.18.0_build
$ ct-ng list-steps
Available build steps, in order:
  - libc_check_config
  - companion_libs_for_build
  - binutils_for_build
  - companion_libs_for_host
  - binutils_for_host
  - cc_core_pass_1
  - kernel_headers
  - libc_start_files
  - cc_core_pass_2
  - libc
  - cc_for_build
  - cc_for_host
  - libelf_for_target
  - binutils_for_target
  - debug
  - test_suite
  - finish
Use "<step>"p>" as action to execute only that step"+<step>"lt;step>" as action to execute up to tha"<step>+"se "<step>+" as action to execute from that step onward.

CLi@PC-CLI-1 ~/develop/crosstool-ng/crosstool-ng-1.18.0_build
$ ct-ng libc+
[INFO ]  Performing some trivial sanity checks
[INFO ]  Build started 20130801.120248
[INFO ]  Building environ'libc'ariables
[EXTRA]  Preparing working directories
[EXTRA]  Restoring state at step 'libc', as requested.
[INFO ]  =================================================================
[INFO ]  Installing C library
[EXTRA]    Configuring C library
[EXTRA]    Building C library
[01:55] /

for more explaination, refer my post:crosstool-ng build for xscale