1532516a36
* Use relative `call` instructions between wasm functions
This commit is a relatively major change to the way that Wasmtime
generates code for Wasm modules and how functions call each other.
Prior to this commit all function calls between functions, even if they
were defined in the same module, were done indirectly through a
register. To implement this the backend would emit an absolute 8-byte
relocation near all function calls, load that address into a register,
and then call it. While this technique is simple to implement and easy
to get right, it has two primary downsides associated with it:
* Function calls are always indirect which means they are more difficult
to predict, resulting in worse performance.
* Generating a relocation-per-function call requires expensive
relocation resolution at module-load time, which can be a large
contributing factor to how long it takes to load a precompiled module.
To fix these issues, while also somewhat compromising on the previously
simple implementation technique, this commit switches wasm calls within
a module to using the `colocated` flag enabled in Cranelift-speak, which
basically means that a relative call instruction is used with a
relocation that's resolved relative to the pc of the call instruction
itself.
When switching the `colocated` flag to `true` this commit is also then
able to move much of the relocation resolution from `wasmtime_jit::link`
into `wasmtime_cranelift::obj` during object-construction time. This
frontloads all relocation work which means that there's actually no
relocations related to function calls in the final image, solving both
of our points above.
The main gotcha in implementing this technique is that there are
hardware limitations to relative function calls which mean we can't
simply blindly use them. AArch64, for example, can only go +/- 64 MB
from the `bl` instruction to the target, which means that if the
function we're calling is a greater distance away then we would fail to
resolve that relocation. On x86_64 the limits are +/- 2GB which are much
larger, but theoretically still feasible to hit. Consequently the main
increase in implementation complexity is fixing this issue.
This issue is actually already present in Cranelift itself, and is
internally one of the invariants handled by the `MachBuffer` type. When
generating a function relative jumps between basic blocks have similar
restrictions. This commit adds new methods for the `MachBackend` trait
and updates the implementation of `MachBuffer` to account for all these
new branches. Specifically the changes to `MachBuffer` are:
* For AAarch64 the `LabelUse::Branch26` value now supports veneers, and
AArch64 calls use this to resolve relocations.
* The `emit_island` function has been rewritten internally to handle
some cases which previously didn't come up before, such as:
* When emitting an island the deadline is now recalculated, where
previously it was always set to infinitely in the future. This was ok
prior since only a `Branch19` supported veneers and once it was
promoted no veneers were supported, so without multiple layers of
promotion the lack of a new deadline was ok.
* When emitting an island all pending fixups had veneers forced if
their branch target wasn't known yet. This was generally ok for
19-bit fixups since the only kind getting a veneer was a 19-bit
fixup, but with mixed kinds it's a bit odd to force veneers for a
26-bit fixup just because a nearby 19-bit fixup needed a veneer.
Instead fixups are now re-enqueued unless they're known to be
out-of-bounds. This may run the risk of generating more islands for
19-bit branches but it should also reduce the number of islands for
between-function calls.
* Otherwise the internal logic was tweaked to ideally be a bit more
simple, but that's a pretty subjective criteria in compilers...
I've added some simple testing of this for now. A synthetic compiler
option was create to simply add padded 0s between functions and test
cases implement various forms of calls that at least need veneers. A
test is also included for x86_64, but it is unfortunately pretty slow
because it requires generating 2GB of output. I'm hoping for now it's
not too bad, but we can disable the test if it's prohibitive and
otherwise just comment the necessary portions to be sure to run the
ignored test if these parts of the code have changed.
The final end-result of this commit is that for a large module I'm
working with the number of relocations dropped to zero, meaning that
nothing actually needs to be done to the text section when it's loaded
into memory (yay!). I haven't run final benchmarks yet but this is the
last remaining source of significant slowdown when loading modules,
after I land a number of other PRs both active and ones that I only have
locally for now.
* Fix arm32
* Review comments
wasmtime
A standalone runtime for WebAssembly
A Bytecode Alliance project
Guide | Contributing | Website | Chat
Installation
The Wasmtime CLI can be installed on Linux and macOS with a small install script:
$ curl https://wasmtime.dev/install.sh -sSf | bash
Windows or otherwise interested users can download installers and binaries directly from the GitHub Releases page.
Example
If you've got the Rust compiler installed then you can take some Rust source code:
fn main() {
println!("Hello, world!");
}
and compile/run it with:
$ rustup target add wasm32-wasi
$ rustc hello.rs --target wasm32-wasi
$ wasmtime hello.wasm
Hello, world!
Features
-
Lightweight. Wasmtime is a standalone runtime for WebAssembly that scales with your needs. It fits on tiny chips as well as makes use of huge servers. Wasmtime can be embedded into almost any application too.
-
Fast. Wasmtime is built on the optimizing Cranelift code generator to quickly generate high-quality machine code at runtime.
-
Configurable. Whether you need to precompile your wasm ahead of time, generate code blazingly fast with Lightbeam, or interpret it at runtime, Wasmtime has you covered for all your wasm-executing needs.
-
WASI. Wasmtime supports a rich set of APIs for interacting with the host environment through the WASI standard.
-
Standards Compliant. Wasmtime passes the official WebAssembly test suite, implements the official C API of wasm, and implements future proposals to WebAssembly as well. Wasmtime developers are intimately engaged with the WebAssembly standards process all along the way too.
Language Support
You can use Wasmtime from a variety of different languages through embeddings of the implementation:
- Rust - the
wasmtimecrate - C - the
wasm.h,wasi.h, andwasmtime.hheaders - [C++] - the
wasmtime-cpprepository - Python - the
wasmtimePyPI package - .NET - the
WasmtimeNuGet package - Go - the
wasmtime-gorepository
Documentation
📚 Read the Wasmtime guide here! 📚
The wasmtime guide is the best starting point to learn about what Wasmtime can do for you or help answer your questions about Wasmtime. If you're curious in contributing to Wasmtime, it can also help you do that!
It's Wasmtime.