Re: [PATCH 0/5] [RFC] binary reading of ftrace ring buffers

[Mathieu Desnoyers]

* Steven Rostedt (rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> 
> RFC only, not for pulling, unless everyone is fine with these :-)
> 
> After telling the folks from Google that I had splice code that I needed
> to get working, I finally got around to doing it.
> 
> Not only did I get the splice code working, but I also made a perl
> script (might want to cover you eyes if you look at that code) that
> can automagically create the output from the binary files reading
> the format arguments in the /debugfs/tracing/events/<subsys>/<event>/format
> file.
> 
> From previous patches, we have in include/trace/sched_event_types.h:
> 
> #undef TRACE_SYSTEM
> #define TRACE_SYSTEM sched
> 
> TRACE_EVENT_FORMAT(sched_switch,
> 	TPPROTO(struct rq *rq, struct task_struct *prev,
> 		struct task_struct *next),
> 	TPARGS(rq, prev, next),
> 	TPFMT("task %s:%d ==> %s:%d",
> 	      prev->comm, prev->pid, next->comm, next->pid),
> 	TRACE_STRUCT(
> 		TRACE_FIELD(pid_t, prev_pid, prev->pid)
> 		TRACE_FIELD(int, prev_prio, prev->prio)
> 		TRACE_FIELD_SPECIAL(char next_comm[TASK_COMM_LEN],
> 				    next_comm,
> 				    TPCMD(memcpy(TRACE_ENTRY->next_comm,
> 						 next->comm,
> 						 TASK_COMM_LEN)))
> 		TRACE_FIELD(pid_t, next_pid, next->pid)
> 		TRACE_FIELD(int, next_prio, next->prio)
> 	),
> 	TPRAWFMT("prev %d:%d ==> next %s:%d:%d")
> 	);
> 

I fear that putting these user-visible format strings in tracepoint
header files will create a big maintainability issue.

I'll post the LTTng patchset in a jiffy, where the format string
awareness is done in a tracer-specific module. I don't understand why
Peter Z. is not yelling against your tracepoints modifications : they
are actually presenting to userspace an interface that is meant to
eventually change.

I used a separate layer for format string presentation for this very
purpose : I don't want to tie the kernel code instrumentation
(tracepoints) to any kind of user-visible API.

Mathieu

> By making that, we automagically get this file:
> 
>  # cat /debug/tracing/events/sched/sched_switch/format 
> name: sched_switch
> ID: 29
> format:
> 	field:unsigned char type;	offset:0;	size:1;
> 	field:unsigned char flags;	offset:1;	size:1;
> 	field:unsigned char preempt_count;	offset:2;	size:1;
> 	field:int pid;	offset:4;	size:4;
> 	field:int tgid;	offset:8;	size:4;
> 
> 	field:pid_t prev_pid;	offset:12;	size:4;
> 	field:int prev_prio;	offset:16;	size:4;
> 	field special:char next_comm[TASK_COMM_LEN];	offset:20;	size:16;
> 	field:pid_t next_pid;	offset:36;	size:4;
> 	field:int next_prio;	offset:40;	size:4;
> 
> print fmt: "prev %d:%d ==> next %s:%d:%d"
> 
> 
> Now with this patch set, we create a way to read the ftrace ring buffers
> directly, as a binary page. Splice has been used such that the user
> could splice the ring buffers without need to copy the pages.
> The pages are taken from the ring buffers and can be placed directly
> into files, without extra copies.
> 
>  # ls /debug/tracing/binary_buffers/
> 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7
> 
> One can either just use the read/write to grab live data from these
> buffers, or they could use splice. I have a simple file that reads
> this buffers using splice. Note, it only runs on one file, you
> can make multiple copies to run more. The ring buffers in ftrace
> are per cpu and they are not dependent on each other.
> 
> Also, if there is no data in the buffer, it returns -EAGAIN.
> 
>  # find /debug/tracing/events -name 'type' | while read f; do
> >    echo raw > $f; done
> 
>  # find /debug/tracing/events -name 'enable' | while read f; do
> >   echo 1 > $f; done
> 
>  # ./splice /debug/tracing/binary_buffers/0 /tmp/buf-0
> 
> Yes you can run multiple instances of this on different buffers.
> 
>  # ./rb-read.pl /tmp/buf-0
> 
> produces:
> 
>         0  [000]  7071.936459: (irq_handler_entry) irq 48
>         0  [000]  7071.936462: (irq_handler_exit) irq 48 ret 1
>         0  [000]  7071.988801: (sched_signal_send) sig: 14  task 0
>         0  [000]  7071.988813: (sched_wakeup) task 0 success=1
>         0  [000]  7071.988823: (sched_switch) prev 0:140 ==> next ntpd:6582272:0
>      3303  [000]  7071.988916: (sched_switch) prev 0:120 ==> next swap:7497072:0
>         0  [000]  7072.020370: (sched_wakeup) task 0 success=1
>         0  [000]  7072.020407: (sched_switch) prev 0:140 ==> next even:808416116:0
>        16  [000]  7071.936157: (sched_switch) prev 0:115 ==> next swap:7497072:0
> 
> Notice the "(sched_switch)" lines.
> 
>  The splice C code:
>    http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rostedt/splice.c
> 
>  The perl script to parse:
>    http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rostedt/rb-read.pl
> 
>  And yes I know, they are both ugly :-p
> 
> The following patches are in:
> 
>   git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rostedt/linux-2.6-trace.git
> 
>     branch: rfc/splice/tip/tracing/ftrace
> 
> 
> Steven Rostedt (5):
>       ring-buffer: reset write field for ring_buffer_read_page
>       ring-buffer: fix ring_buffer_read_page
>       ring-buffer: replace sizeof of event header with offsetof
>       ring-buffer: make ring_buffer_read_page read from start on partial page
>       tracing: add binary buffer files for use with splice
> 
> ----
>  include/linux/ring_buffer.h |    7 +-
>  kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c  |  118 +++++++++++++------
>  kernel/trace/trace.c        |  274 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
>  kernel/trace/trace.h        |    1 +
>  4 files changed, 357 insertions(+), 43 deletions(-)
> -- 
> 

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
OpenPGP key fingerprint: 8CD5 52C3 8E3C 4140 715F  BA06 3F25 A8FE 3BAE 9A68
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