ftrace: add function tracing to single thread

Impact: feature to function trace a single thread

This patch adds the ability to function trace a single thread.
The file:

  /debugfs/tracing/set_ftrace_pid

contains the pid to trace. Valid pids are any positive integer.
Writing any negative number to this file will disable the pid
tracing and the function tracer will go back to tracing all of
threads.

This feature works with both static and dynamic function tracing.

Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>

1 files changed, 79 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/ftrace.txt b/Documentation/ftrace.txt
index 35a78bc6651..de05042f11b 100644
--- a/Documentation/ftrace.txt
+++ b/Documentation/ftrace.txt
@@ -127,6 +127,8 @@ of ftrace. Here is a list of some of the key files:
 		be traced. If a function exists in both set_ftrace_filter
 		and set_ftrace_notrace,	the function will _not_ be traced.
 
+  set_ftrace_pid: Have the function tracer only trace a single thread.
+
   available_filter_functions: This lists the functions that ftrace
 		has processed and can trace. These are the function
 		names that you can pass to "set_ftrace_filter" or
@@ -1073,6 +1075,83 @@ For simple one time traces, the above is sufficent. For anything else,
 a search through /proc/mounts may be needed to find where the debugfs
 file-system is mounted.
 
+
+Single thread tracing
+---------------------
+
+By writing into /debug/tracing/set_ftrace_pid you can trace a
+single thread. For example:
+
+# cat /debug/tracing/set_ftrace_pid
+no pid
+# echo 3111 > /debug/tracing/set_ftrace_pid
+# cat /debug/tracing/set_ftrace_pid
+3111
+# echo function > /debug/tracing/current_tracer
+# cat /debug/tracing/trace | head
+ # tracer: function
+ #
+ #           TASK-PID    CPU#    TIMESTAMP  FUNCTION
+ #              | |       |          |         |
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1637.254676: finish_task_switch <-thread_return
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1637.254681: hrtimer_cancel <-schedule_hrtimeout_range
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1637.254682: hrtimer_try_to_cancel <-hrtimer_cancel
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1637.254683: lock_hrtimer_base <-hrtimer_try_to_cancel
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1637.254685: fget_light <-do_sys_poll
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1637.254686: pipe_poll <-do_sys_poll
+# echo -1 > /debug/tracing/set_ftrace_pid
+# cat /debug/tracing/trace |head
+ # tracer: function
+ #
+ #           TASK-PID    CPU#    TIMESTAMP  FUNCTION
+ #              | |       |          |         |
+ ##### CPU 3 buffer started ####
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1701.957688: free_poll_entry <-poll_freewait
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1701.957689: remove_wait_queue <-free_poll_entry
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1701.957691: fput <-free_poll_entry
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1701.957692: audit_syscall_exit <-sysret_audit
+     yum-updatesd-3111  [003]  1701.957693: path_put <-audit_syscall_exit
+
+If you want to trace a function when executing, you could use
+something like this simple program:
+
+#include <stdio.h>
+#include <stdlib.h>
+#include <sys/types.h>
+#include <sys/stat.h>
+#include <fcntl.h>
+#include <unistd.h>
+
+int main (int argc, char **argv)
+{
+        if (argc < 1)
+                exit(-1);
+
+        if (fork() > 0) {
+                int fd, ffd;
+                char line[64];
+                int s;
+
+                ffd = open("/debug/tracing/current_tracer", O_WRONLY);
+                if (ffd < 0)
+                        exit(-1);
+                write(ffd, "nop", 3);
+
+                fd = open("/debug/tracing/set_ftrace_pid", O_WRONLY);
+                s = sprintf(line, "%d\n", getpid());
+                write(fd, line, s);
+
+                write(ffd, "function", 8);
+
+                close(fd);
+                close(ffd);
+
+                execvp(argv[1], argv+1);
+        }
+
+        return 0;
+}
+
 dynamic ftrace
 --------------