Re: [PATCH] tracing: Allow raw_syscall tracepoints to work from boot

[Steven Rostedt]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:10:40 +1100
Michael Ellerman <mpe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > 
> > I don't like setting the swap task flag for syscall tracing, as
> > nothing will unset it.
> 
> We could unset it in the unregfunc(), I did that in my original patch
> but took it out because I wasn't sure it was necessary.

Yes we could but that shows the issue with this approach. We can not
just use for_each_process_thread(). swapper is special, and we really
shouldn't touch it for this special case (cmdline usage).

> 
> Actually I thought it was neat, basically everything else comes from
> init_task via copy_process().

Yes, but only at boot up. After that, the swapper is not part of the
game. That's why its not part of for_each_process_thread().

>  
> > Try my patch and let me know if it works for you?
> 
> Sure. It works.
> 
> I can still see the first syscalls in the trace:
> 
>     # entries-in-buffer/entries-written: 1021354/1021354   #P:8
>     #
>     #                              _-----=> irqs-off
>     #                             / _----=> need-resched
>     #                            | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
>     #                            || / _--=> preempt-depth
>     #                            ||| /     delay
>     #           TASK-PID   CPU#  ||||    TIMESTAMP  FUNCTION
>     #              | |       |   ||||       |         |
>                 init-1     [000] ....     3.706370: sys_exit: NR -1 =
> 0 init-1     [000] ....     3.706394: sys_enter: NR 45 (0, 0,
> 3fffa2e20000, 3fffcfd4eac2, 80, 3fffa2e61820) init-1
> [000] ....     3.706395: sys_exit: NR 45 = 70367490932736 init-1
> [000] ....     3.706409: sys_enter: NR 33 (3fffa2e694d0, 0,
> 3fffa2e7be20, 0, 1, ffffffffe0000000) init-1     [000] ....
> 3.713325: sys_exit: NR 33 = -2 
> 
> I like my version better, but your call.

Of course you do :-)

I thought about it a bit, and both versions are really hacks. But in
the end, I'd rather not touch the swapper task because that might give
us some unwanted side effects.

I don't really like my approach where I need to disable and re-enable
all tracepoints. I was thinking of only enabling and disabling just the
syscall ones, but I could imagine another tracepoint with a reg that
could be affected by early boot as well, so I left it touching all
events. My patch is fine for mainline, but I could make a patch for
3.20 that will only restart a tracepoint if it has its own reg/unreg
functions and does not use the default ones.

Your patch fixes syscall events. I wanted something that will fix any
event with its own special registration that might also use
for_each_process_thread() or some other call that does not work before
init is created.

Thanks,

-- Steve
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