Introduce PRODUCTION flag to enable/disable stripping binaries after build

[egypcio]

by merging this PR we would:

• be able to set PRODUCTION to strip the exporter and validator binaries;
• avoid adding DWARF debug information to newer releases;
• reduce the size/footprint of the built binaries;
• still be able to find/follow debug symbols using Delve, should necessary;
• promote the usage of less energy/power consumption.

example using PRODUCTION to enable/disable stripped build for the exporter locally:

$ PRODUCTION=1 make _build_local
$ file _output/bin/linux_amd64/kepler 
_output/bin/linux_amd64/kepler: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=45a457a614ec12d4f18e983f7f28c9bfd3dfc9f3, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, stripped
$ ls -laish _output/bin/linux_amd64/kepler
27662536 37M -rwxrwxr-x 1 egypcio egypcio 37M May  8 11:42 _output/bin/linux_amd64/kepler

$ make _build_local
$ file _output/bin/linux_amd64/kepler 
_output/bin/linux_amd64/kepler: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=ee248b3f1e691fa128d33baa5f91eaa82286a12b, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, with debug_info, not stripped
$ ls -laish _output/bin/linux_amd64/kepler
27662536 53M -rwxrwxr-x 1 egypcio egypcio 53M May  8 11:46 _output/bin/linux_amd64/kepler

impact on the binary created after building the validator:

8.4M -rwxrwxr-x 1 egypcio egypcio 8.4M May  8 11:49 _output/bin/validator-debug
5.7M -rwxrwxr-x 1 egypcio egypcio 5.7M May  8 11:49 _output/bin/validator

Host: Linux version 6.11.0-25-generic (buildd@lcy02-amd64-027) (x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04) 13.3.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Ubuntu) 2.42), a.k.a. Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (Noble Numbat)

[sthaha]

@egypcio Thank you for the patch but TBH I don't feel strongly about potential saving ..

As mentioned in the article you linked ...

Symbol information takes up a lot of storage space, so when there are space constraints, it makes sense to work with stripped binaries.

Where exactly are you hitting space constraint ?

Also if we are to enable this, we would want make build PRODUCTION=1 so that the default build contains debug information.

Could you also please squash the commits into a single one?

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR introduces a DEBUG flag for controlling whether binaries are stripped after being built. The changes include adding a new DEBUG flag and conditional Makefile logic to include or exclude the stripping linker flags for both the exporter and validator binaries.

[egypcio]

@egypcio Thank you for the patch but TBH I don't feel strongly about potential saving ..

As mentioned in the article you linked ...

Symbol information takes up a lot of storage space, so when there are space constraints, it makes sense to work with stripped binaries.

Where exactly are you hitting space constraint ?

Also if we are to enable this, we would want make build PRODUCTION=1 so that the default build contains debug information.

Could you also please squash the commits into a single one?

olá @sthaha,

many thanks for the input/feedback. much appreciated!

I've applied the suggested changes and squashed the commits into a single one.

now, on the space constraint: I wouldn't take that specific cut from that blog post so literal, as per serving a smaller binary without debug symbols would reduce I/O and memory consumption (now: consider a large scale deployment, or multiple pipelines running to perform CI/CD; consider multiple deployments world wide).

one of the motivations for the proposed change in the PR comes from this article:

• https://www.cncf.io/blog/2023/10/11/exploring-keplers-potentials-unveiling-cloud-application-power-consumption/

[sthaha]

@egypcio , could you please elaborate what exactly in the blog is the motivation that you are referring to ..

one of the motivations for the proposed change in the PR comes from this article:
https://www.cncf.io/blog/2023/10/11/exploring-keplers-potentials-unveiling-cloud-application-power-consumption/

[egypcio]

@egypcio , could you please elaborate what exactly in the blog is the motivation that you are referring to ..

one of the motivations for the proposed change in the PR comes from this article:
https://www.cncf.io/blog/2023/10/11/exploring-keplers-potentials-unveiling-cloud-application-power-consumption/

I would prefer not to; appreciate the curiosity/interest though.

PS: gonna apply your latest suggestions later and rebase/squash the commit again to update the PR.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests ✅

Project coverage is 51.53%. Comparing base (639982d) to head (902bb7c).
Report is 2 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

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##             main    #2057   +/-   ##
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  Coverage   51.53%   51.53%           
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  Files          39       39           
  Lines        3522     3522           
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  Hits         1815     1815           
  Misses       1555     1555           
  Partials      152      152           

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