From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Christoph Hellwig Subject: Re: [patch 4/4] KVM-trace port to tracepoints Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:13:10 -0400 Message-ID: <20080723101310.GA30309@infradead.org> References: <20080717160003.359557938@polymtl.ca> <487F7800.4010502@siemens.com> <20080717172853.GB29855@Krystal> <488604F8.1040008@siemens.com> <48862B01.7070907@qumranet.com> <1216799346.7257.125.camel@twins> <4886E6FD.4090200@qumranet.com> <1216803303.7257.138.camel@twins> <20080723100314.GA2847@infradead.org> <48870329.2080401@qumranet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Christoph Hellwig , Peter Zijlstra , Jan Kiszka , Mathieu Desnoyers , akpm@linux-foundation.org, Ingo Molnar , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, kvm@vger.kernel.org, "Feng(Eric) Liu" To: Avi Kivity Return-path: Received: from bombadil.infradead.org ([18.85.46.34]:49575 "EHLO bombadil.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752849AbYGWKNx (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:13:53 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <48870329.2080401@qumranet.com> Sender: kvm-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 01:08:41PM +0300, Avi Kivity wrote: > trace_mark() is implement kvmtrace, which is propagated to userspace. > So while trace_mark() itself is not a userspace interface, one of its > users is. > > It's an unstable interface. But so is dmesg; that's the nature of tracing. Trace_mark is as stable as any other kernel interface, and the data you pass through it is as stable as you want it to. In most cases like kvmtrace or my spu scheduler tracing code the trace data is directly forwarded through a userspace interface, and that is as stable as any freeform interface, e.g. as like printk mentioned above.