Re: [PATCH 00/18] [ANNOUNCE] Dynamically created function based events

Alexei Starovoitov
2018-02-03T21:30:15Z

On Sat, Feb 03, 2018 at 04:08:24PM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Feb 2018 12:52:08 -0800
> Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Feb 03, 2018 at 02:02:17PM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> > >
> > > From those that were asking about having "trace markers" (ie.
> > > Facebook), they told us they can cope with kernel changes.
> >
> > There is some misunderstanding here.
> > We never asked for this interface.
>
> But you wanted trace markers? Just to confirm.

what is a definition of 'trace marker' and how it's better than tracepoint?

> > We're perfectly fine with existing kprobe/tracepoint+bpf.
>
> OK, so no new development in this was wanted? So the entire talk about
> getting tracepoints into vfs and scheduling wasn't needed?

I don't know who wants tracepoints in vfs.
Improving scheduler tracepoints? yes. definitely,
but it's not a technical problem and cannot be solved by technical means.

> > I don't see how they are any better than kprobes and suffer from the same issues.
>
> One only needs to look at source code, to add these. You don't need to
> know the specifics of a registers and such. That's a big +. Sure, we
> could add this to kprobes as well. But this also doesn't need the
> kprobe infrastructure.

same goes for kprobes.
with bcc it's even easier. we write tools like:
int kprobe__inet_listen(struct pt_regs *ctx, struct socket *sock, int backlog)
{
struct sock *sk = sock->sk;
...
and bcc knows that it needs to add kprobe to inet_listen()
and this function has two arguments of the given types.
Then sock->sk access is automatically replaced with bpf_probe_read, etc, etc.

> Not if you are working in the embedded space and only have busybox as
> your interface.

did you notice bpfd project that does remote kprobe+bpf into an android phone?
or phone is not an embedded space?

> I've already cleaned up several tracepoints that have no path to them.

Great. So you're making the same point as I do that tracepoints can and do change.