Re: [PATCH] Documentation: tracing: Add documentation about eprobes

[Google]

On Mon, 28 Jul 2025 17:15:22 -0400
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Eprobes was added back in 5.15, but was never documented. It became a
> "secret" interface even though it has been a topic of several
> presentations. For some reason, when eprobes was added, documenting it
> never became a priority, until now.
> 

Thanks for the document!

> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  Documentation/trace/eprobes.rst | 268 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  Documentation/trace/index.rst   |   1 +
>  2 files changed, 269 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 Documentation/trace/eprobes.rst
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/trace/eprobes.rst b/Documentation/trace/eprobes.rst
> new file mode 100644
> index 000000000000..c7aa7c867e9e
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/Documentation/trace/eprobes.rst

BTW, can't you rename it as 'eprobetrace.rst' as same as others?
I usually name the doc of "a probe feature which provides only in-kernel
APIs" as '*probe.rst' and the doc of "a probe *event* feature which can
controlled via tracefs interface" as '*probetrace.rst'.

> @@ -0,0 +1,268 @@
> +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
> +
> +=====================
> +Eprobe - Event probes

What about below title?

 Eprobe - Event-based Probe Tracing

> +=====================
> +
> +:Author: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> +
> +- Written for v6.17
> +
> +Overview
> +========
> +
> +Eprobes are dynamic events that are placed on existing events to eiter
> +dereference a field that is a pointer, or simply to limit what fields get
> +recorded in the trace event.
> +
> +Eprobes depend on kprobe events so to enable this feature, build your kernel
> +with CONFIG_KPROBE_EVENTS=y.

Is this correct? It seems that eprobe event only depends on event trigger
(by implementation. Actually we should fix the kernel/trace/Kconfig.)

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace.git/tree/kernel/trace/trace_eprobe.c?h=trace-v6.16-rc5#n576


Thank you,


-- 
Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx>