Re: [RFC PATCH 0/1] trace: Add early event trace support

[Ezequiel Garcia]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Ezequiel Garcia <elezegarcia@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Steven,
>
> This patch is my first attempt to address the "early tracing issue".
> Right now, trace events are registered on fs_initcall, which is very late
> if you want to capture boot-up events.
>
> This feature is in developers wish list as this old (2009) thread shows [1].
>
> By splitting the initialization, separating the ftrace enable from the
> sysfs entry
> creation, it is possible to move events enable to early_initcall.
> (which is also late, but I wouldn't expect more from such a small patch).
>
> Without this patch, and using
> "trace_event=kmem:kmalloc,kmem:kmalloc_node,kmem:kfree"
> as kernel parameter, on a bare kernel I can start capturing kmallocs
> from ~0.4 secs,
> and I get 186 callers.
>
> This patch moves the capture to ~ 0.2 secs and captures 220 callers.
>
> The caller count is inaccurate since gcc does some automatic inlining
> (I have another RFC PATCH for that), but it shows a rough increase.
>
> Also, this enable is not time-consuming:
> [    0.190000] calling  event_trace_enable+0x0/0xad @ 1
> [    0.190000] initcall event_trace_enable+0x0/0xad returned 0 after 0 usecs
>
> This patch is intended to trigger this discussion: to be honest I'm
> not sure how ugly
> this is. So some feedback about it would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Also, I'd like to ask for some guidelines (not solutions, just some guidelines)
> on how to attack this problem.
> I'm interesting on capturing kmem events, from the very first kmalloc onwards.
> Though, it would be nice to extend the solution to other event classes.
>
> Thanks,
> Ezequiel.
>
> [1] http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0911.3/00036.html


I forgot to add this work is part of a project funded by CE workgroup.
You can find more details here:

http://elinux.org/Kernel_dynamic_memory_allocation_tracking_and_reduction

Thanks,
Ezequiel.
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