Re: [PATCH 2/3] tracing: export stats of ring buffers to userspace

From: Frederic Weisbecker
Date: Thu Apr 30 2009 - 23:09:06 EST


On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:22:12PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> From: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> This patch adds stats to the ftrace ring buffers:
>
> # cat /debugfs/tracing/per_cpu/cpu0/stats
> entries: 42360
> overrun: 30509326
> commit overrun: 0
> nmi dropped: 0
>
> Where entries are the total number of data entries in the buffer.
>
> overrun is the number of entries not consumed and were overwritten by
> the writer.
>
> commit overrun is the number of entries dropped due to nested writers
> wrapping the buffer before the initial writer finished the commit.


I feel a bit confused with this one.
How such a thing can happen? The write page and the commit page
are not the same. So is that because we can have (ring-buffer inspires
all of us to try ascii-art):


Write page Commit page (which becomes new write page)
------------------------------------ -----------------
| | | | |
Writer 1 | Writer 2 | Writer n | | Writer n + 1 | .....
reserved | reserved | reserved | | reserved |
----------------------------------- ----------------
| ^
| |
---------------- Was supposed to commit here--|


I know this is silly, my picture seem to show a data copy whereas
the ring buffer deals with page pointers.
But the commit page on the ring buffer is a mistery for me.
Just because you haven't drawn in in ascii in your comments :)

Thanks.
Frederic.

> nmi dropped is the number of entries dropped due to the ring buffer
> lock being held when an nmi was going to write to the ring buffer.
> Note, this field will be meaningless and will go away when the ring
> buffer becomes lockless.
>
> [ Impact: let userspace know what is happening in the ring buffers ]
>
> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> kernel/trace/trace.c | 42 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 1 files changed, 42 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/trace/trace.c b/kernel/trace/trace.c
> index f5427e0..74df029 100644
> --- a/kernel/trace/trace.c
> +++ b/kernel/trace/trace.c
> @@ -3595,6 +3595,45 @@ static const struct file_operations tracing_buffers_fops = {
> .llseek = no_llseek,
> };
>
> +static ssize_t
> +tracing_stats_read(struct file *filp, char __user *ubuf,
> + size_t count, loff_t *ppos)
> +{
> + unsigned long cpu = (unsigned long)filp->private_data;
> + struct trace_array *tr = &global_trace;
> + struct trace_seq *s;
> + unsigned long cnt;
> +
> + s = kmalloc(sizeof(*s), GFP_ATOMIC);
> + if (!s)
> + return ENOMEM;
> +
> + trace_seq_init(s);
> +
> + cnt = ring_buffer_entries_cpu(tr->buffer, cpu);
> + trace_seq_printf(s, "entries: %ld\n", cnt);
> +
> + cnt = ring_buffer_overrun_cpu(tr->buffer, cpu);
> + trace_seq_printf(s, "overrun: %ld\n", cnt);
> +
> + cnt = ring_buffer_commit_overrun_cpu(tr->buffer, cpu);
> + trace_seq_printf(s, "commit overrun: %ld\n", cnt);
> +
> + cnt = ring_buffer_nmi_dropped_cpu(tr->buffer, cpu);
> + trace_seq_printf(s, "nmi dropped: %ld\n", cnt);
> +
> + count = simple_read_from_buffer(ubuf, count, ppos, s->buffer, s->len);
> +
> + kfree(s);
> +
> + return count;
> +}
> +
> +static const struct file_operations tracing_stats_fops = {
> + .open = tracing_open_generic,
> + .read = tracing_stats_read,
> +};
> +
> #ifdef CONFIG_DYNAMIC_FTRACE
>
> int __weak ftrace_arch_read_dyn_info(char *buf, int size)
> @@ -3708,6 +3747,9 @@ static void tracing_init_debugfs_percpu(long cpu)
>
> trace_create_file("trace_pipe_raw", 0444, d_cpu,
> (void *) cpu, &tracing_buffers_fops);
> +
> + trace_create_file("stats", 0444, d_cpu,
> + (void *) cpu, &tracing_stats_fops);
> }
>
> #ifdef CONFIG_FTRACE_SELFTEST
> --
> 1.6.2.1
>
> --

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