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authorLi Zefan <lizf@cn.fujitsu.com>2009-04-09 11:40:27 +0800
committerIngo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>2009-04-09 07:28:10 +0200
commit66bb74888eb4bef4ba7c87c931ecb7ecca3a240c (patch)
tree567e333523e16ba7285deac89efb645f72a97529 /Documentation/tracepoints.txt
parent9eb85125ce218a8b8d9a7c982510388e227adbec (diff)
tracing: consolidate documents
Move kmemtrace.txt, tracepoints.txt, ftrace.txt and mmiotrace.txt to the new trace/ directory. I didnt find any references to those documents in both source files and documents, so no extra work needs to be done. Signed-off-by: Li Zefan <lizf@cn.fujitsu.com> Acked-by: Pekka Paalanen <pq@iki.fi> Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com> Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca> LKML-Reference: <49DD6E2B.6090200@cn.fujitsu.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
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- Using the Linux Kernel Tracepoints
-
- Mathieu Desnoyers
-
-
-This document introduces Linux Kernel Tracepoints and their use. It
-provides examples of how to insert tracepoints in the kernel and
-connect probe functions to them and provides some examples of probe
-functions.
-
-
-* Purpose of tracepoints
-
-A tracepoint placed in code provides a hook to call a function (probe)
-that you can provide at runtime. A tracepoint can be "on" (a probe is
-connected to it) or "off" (no probe is attached). When a tracepoint is
-"off" it has no effect, except for adding a tiny time penalty
-(checking a condition for a branch) and space penalty (adding a few
-bytes for the function call at the end of the instrumented function
-and adds a data structure in a separate section). When a tracepoint
-is "on", the function you provide is called each time the tracepoint
-is executed, in the execution context of the caller. When the function
-provided ends its execution, it returns to the caller (continuing from
-the tracepoint site).
-
-You can put tracepoints at important locations in the code. They are
-lightweight hooks that can pass an arbitrary number of parameters,
-which prototypes are described in a tracepoint declaration placed in a
-header file.
-
-They can be used for tracing and performance accounting.
-
-
-* Usage
-
-Two elements are required for tracepoints :
-
-- A tracepoint definition, placed in a header file.
-- The tracepoint statement, in C code.
-
-In order to use tracepoints, you should include linux/tracepoint.h.
-
-In include/trace/subsys.h :
-
-#include <linux/tracepoint.h>
-
-DECLARE_TRACE(subsys_eventname,
- TP_PROTO(int firstarg, struct task_struct *p),
- TP_ARGS(firstarg, p));
-
-In subsys/file.c (where the tracing statement must be added) :
-
-#include <trace/subsys.h>
-
-DEFINE_TRACE(subsys_eventname);
-
-void somefct(void)
-{
- ...
- trace_subsys_eventname(arg, task);
- ...
-}
-
-Where :
-- subsys_eventname is an identifier unique to your event
- - subsys is the name of your subsystem.
- - eventname is the name of the event to trace.
-
-- TP_PROTO(int firstarg, struct task_struct *p) is the prototype of the
- function called by this tracepoint.
-
-- TP_ARGS(firstarg, p) are the parameters names, same as found in the
- prototype.
-
-Connecting a function (probe) to a tracepoint is done by providing a
-probe (function to call) for the specific tracepoint through
-register_trace_subsys_eventname(). Removing a probe is done through
-unregister_trace_subsys_eventname(); it will remove the probe.
-
-tracepoint_synchronize_unregister() must be called before the end of
-the module exit function to make sure there is no caller left using
-the probe. This, and the fact that preemption is disabled around the
-probe call, make sure that probe removal and module unload are safe.
-See the "Probe example" section below for a sample probe module.
-
-The tracepoint mechanism supports inserting multiple instances of the
-same tracepoint, but a single definition must be made of a given
-tracepoint name over all the kernel to make sure no type conflict will
-occur. Name mangling of the tracepoints is done using the prototypes
-to make sure typing is correct. Verification of probe type correctness
-is done at the registration site by the compiler. Tracepoints can be
-put in inline functions, inlined static functions, and unrolled loops
-as well as regular functions.
-
-The naming scheme "subsys_event" is suggested here as a convention
-intended to limit collisions. Tracepoint names are global to the
-kernel: they are considered as being the same whether they are in the
-core kernel image or in modules.
-
-If the tracepoint has to be used in kernel modules, an
-EXPORT_TRACEPOINT_SYMBOL_GPL() or EXPORT_TRACEPOINT_SYMBOL() can be
-used to export the defined tracepoints.
-
-* Probe / tracepoint example
-
-See the example provided in samples/tracepoints
-
-Compile them with your kernel. They are built during 'make' (not
-'make modules') when CONFIG_SAMPLE_TRACEPOINTS=m.
-
-Run, as root :
-modprobe tracepoint-sample (insmod order is not important)
-modprobe tracepoint-probe-sample
-cat /proc/tracepoint-sample (returns an expected error)
-rmmod tracepoint-sample tracepoint-probe-sample
-dmesg