Benchmark machine is missing `perf` binary

[targos]

Used by node-test-commit-v8-linux: https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-commit-v8-linux/2342/nodes=benchmark,v8test=v8test/console

22:01:11 + perf --version
22:01:11 /tmp/jenkins8232152946391786726.sh: 104: /tmp/jenkins8232152946391786726.sh: perf: not found
22:01:11 + exit 54

[rvagg]

@targos is perf a new requirement for this job or is this a new error for this job that has previously been working?

infra-softlayer-ubuntu1404-x64-2 has been around a long time and I don't see evidence that someone's been messing with installed software. We can probably install perf on it, although 14.04 is ancient now and perhaps there'll be trouble getting a perf to match the kernel with all the ppa's moving on. But first I'd like to understand why this is newly broken.

[targos]

@rvagg I don't know actually. This makes the build permanently yellow (when not red) but maybe it was always like that.
/cc @mhdawson

[sam-github]

I only spent a couple minutes, but the deps/v8 tree definitely has references to perf, such as deps/v8/tools/unittests/run_perf_test.py. It may be a test dependency. @nodejs/v8 -- do one of you know if perf is an expected dependency of the v8 tests? It looks like we call deps/v8/tools/run-tests.py to run the mjsunit cctest debugger inspector message preparser and benchmarks tests.

I'll try to repro the problems on local linux after uninstalling perf to see what happens.

/cc @miladfarca

[targos]

@sam-github it's used at least by one of our own tests that we only run in this job: test/v8-updates/test-linux-perf

[sam-github]

OK, so its a test dep. @targos, can you figure out from which release versions it became a test dep?

Also, is it only a perf test dep, or is it all v8 tests? I can look at how the benchmark machine is ansibled, but it would be good to know for what, and since when, perf is need, if you have the time to figure that out.

[targos]

@sam-github

The test was added in this PR: nodejs/node#20783
Node.js v10.5.0 (Jun 20, 2018) is the first release that contains it.
I am not certain but I think I remember V8 CI being green more recently than that.

[rvagg]

is green now https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-commit-v8-linux/nodes=benchmark,v8test=v8test/2351/

I manually did a full compile from linux kernel master (same as https://github.com/nodejs/build/blob/master/ansible/roles/linux-perf/tasks/main.yml which is restricted to 16.04 machines). I don't think we have this machine ansibilised properly so manual will have to do I think. @mhdawson that's correct isn't it? It's got all the benchmark rsync stuff on it which I think is manually set up too.

[sam-github]

Great, thanks @rvagg

[targos]

Thanks a lot, Rod!