[patch 3/4] Linux Kernel Markers - Documentation

Mathieu Desnoyers
2007-09-18T21:15:57Z

[-- Attachment #1: linux-kernel-markers-documentation.patch --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 9442 bytes --]

Here is some documentation explaining what is/how to use the Linux
Kernel Markers.

Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>
Acked-by: "Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@redhat.com>
CC: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
---

Documentation/markers/markers.txt | 93 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Documentation/markers/src/Makefile | 7 ++
Documentation/markers/src/marker-example.c | 55 ++++++++++++++++
Documentation/markers/src/probe-example.c | 98 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4 files changed, 253 insertions(+)

Index: linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/markers/markers.txt
===================================================================
--- /dev/null 1970-01-01 00:00:00.000000000 +0000
+++ linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/markers/markers.txt 2007-09-07 09:17:45.000000000 -0400
@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
+ Using the Linux Kernel Markers
+
+ Mathieu Desnoyers
+
+
+This document introduces Linux Kernel Markers and their use. It provides
+examples of how to insert markers in the kernel and connect probe functions to
+them and provides some examples of probe functions.
+
+
+* Purpose of markers
+
+A marker placed in code provides a hook to call a function (probe) that you can
+provide at runtime. A marker can be "on" (a probe is connected to it) or "off"
+(no probe is attached). When a marker is "off" it has no effect, except for
+adding a tiny time penalty (checking a condition for a branch) and space
+penalty (adding a few bytes for the function call at the end of the
+instrumented function and adds a data structure in a separate section). The
+immediate values are used to minimize the impact on data cache, encoding the
+condition in the instruction stream. When a marker is "on", the function you
+provide is called each time the marker is executed, in the execution context of
+the caller. When the function provided ends its execution, it returns to the
+caller (continuing from the marker site).
+
+You can put markers at important locations in the code. Markers are
+lightweight hooks that can pass an arbitrary number of parameters,
+described in a printk-like format string, to the attached probe function.
+
+They can be used for tracing and performance accounting.
+
+
+* Usage
+
+In order to use the macro trace_mark, you should include linux/marker.h.
+
+#include <linux/marker.h>
+
+And,
+
+trace_mark(subsystem_event, "%d %s", someint, somestring);
+Where :
+- subsystem_event is an identifier unique to your event
+ - subsystem is the name of your subsystem.
+ - event is the name of the event to mark.
+- "%d %s" is the formatted string for the serializer.
+- someint is an integer.
+- somestring is a char pointer.
+
+Connecting a function (probe) to a marker is done by providing a probe (function
+to call) for the specific marker through marker_probe_register() and can be
+activated by calling marker_arm(). Marker deactivation can be done by calling
+marker_disarm() as many times as marker_arm() has been called. Removing a probe
+is done through marker_probe_unregister(); it will disarm the probe and make
+sure there is no caller left using the probe when it returns. Probe removal is
+preempt-safe because preemption is disabled around the probe call. See the
+"Probe example" section below for a sample probe module.
+
+The marker mechanism supports inserting multiple instances of the same marker.
+Markers can be put in inline functions, inlined static functions, and
+unrolled loops.
+
+The naming scheme "subsystem_event" is suggested here as a convention intended
+to limit collisions. Marker names are global to the kernel: they are considered
+as being the same whether they are in the core kernel image or in modules.
+Conflicting format strings for markers with the same name will cause the markers
+to be detected to have a different format string not to be armed and will output
+a printk warning which identifies the inconsistency:
+
+"Format mismatch for probe probe_name (format), marker (format)"
+
+
+* Optimization for a given architecture
+
+One can implement optimized markers for a given architecture by replacing
+asm-$ARCH/marker.h.
+
+To force use of a non-optimized version of the markers, _trace_mark() should be
+used. It takes the same parameters as the normal markers, but it does not use
+the immediate values based on code patching.
+
+
+* Probe / marker example
+
+See the example provided in Documentation/markers/markers/src
+
+Run, as root :
+
+make
+insmod marker-example.ko (insmod order is not important)
+insmod probe-example.ko
+cat /proc/marker-example (returns an expected error)
+rmmod marker-example probe-example
+dmesg
Index: linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/markers/src/Makefile
===================================================================
--- /dev/null 1970-01-01 00:00:00.000000000 +0000
+++ linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/markers/src/Makefile 2007-09-07 09:14:38.000000000 -0400
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+obj-m := probe-example.o marker-example.o
+KDIR := /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build
+PWD := $(shell pwd)
+default:
+ $(MAKE) -C $(KDIR) SUBDIRS=$(PWD) modules
+clean:
+ rm -f *.mod.c *.ko *.o
Index: linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/markers/src/marker-example.c
===================================================================
--- /dev/null 1970-01-01 00:00:00.000000000 +0000
+++ linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/markers/src/marker-example.c 2007-09-07 09:16:27.000000000 -0400
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+/* marker-example.c
+ *
+ * Executes a marker when /proc/marker-example is opened.
+ *
+ * (C) Copyright 2007 Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>
+ *
+ * This file is released under the GPLv2.
+ * See the file COPYING for more details.
+ */
+
+#include <linux/module.h>
+#include <linux/marker.h>
+#include <linux/sched.h>
+#include <linux/proc_fs.h>
+
+struct proc_dir_entry *pentry_example = NULL;
+
+static int my_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
+{
+ int i;
+
+ trace_mark(subsystem_event, "%d %s", 123, "example string");
+ for (i=0; i<10; i++) {
+ trace_mark(subsystem_eventb, MARK_NOARGS);
+ }
+ return -EPERM;
+}
+
+static struct file_operations mark_ops = {
+ .open = my_open,
+};
+
+static int example_init(void)
+{
+ printk(KERN_ALERT "example init\n");
+ pentry_example = create_proc_entry("marker-example", 0444, NULL);
+ if (pentry_example)
+ pentry_example->proc_fops = &mark_ops;
+ else
+ return -EPERM;
+ return 0;
+}
+
+static void example_exit(void)
+{
+ printk(KERN_ALERT "example exit\n");
+ remove_proc_entry("marker-example", NULL);
+}
+
+module_init(example_init)
+module_exit(example_exit)
+
+MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
+MODULE_AUTHOR("Mathieu Desnoyers");
+MODULE_DESCRIPTION("Marker example");
Index: linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/markers/src/probe-example.c
===================================================================
--- /dev/null 1970-01-01 00:00:00.000000000 +0000
+++ linux-2.6-lttng/Documentation/markers/src/probe-example.c 2007-09-07 09:18:55.000000000 -0400
@@ -0,0 +1,98 @@
+/* probe-example.c
+ *
+ * Connects two functions to marker call sites.
+ *
+ * (C) Copyright 2007 Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>
+ *
+ * This file is released under the GPLv2.
+ * See the file COPYING for more details.
+ */
+
+#include <linux/sched.h>
+#include <linux/kernel.h>
+#include <linux/module.h>
+#include <linux/marker.h>
+#include <asm/atomic.h>
+
+struct probe_data {
+ const char *name;
+ const char *format;
+ marker_probe_func *probe_func;
+};
+
+void probe_subsystem_event(const struct __mark_marker *mdata,
+ void *private, const char *format, ...)
+{
+ va_list ap;
+ /* Declare args */
+ unsigned int value;
+ const char *mystr;
+
+ /* Assign args */
+ va_start(ap, format);
+ value = va_arg(ap, typeof(value));
+ mystr = va_arg(ap, typeof(mystr));
+
+ /* Call printk */
+ printk("Value %u, string %s\n", value, mystr);
+
+ /* or count, check rights, serialize data in a buffer */
+
+ va_end(ap);
+}
+
+atomic_t eventb_count = ATOMIC_INIT(0);
+
+void probe_subsystem_eventb(const struct __mark_marker *mdata,
+ void *private, const char *format, ...)
+{
+ /* Increment counter */
+ atomic_inc(&eventb_count);
+}
+
+static struct probe_data probe_array[] =
+{
+ { .name = "subsystem_event",
+ .format = "%d %s",
+ .probe_func = probe_subsystem_event },
+ { .name = "subsystem_eventb",
+ .format = MARK_NOARGS,
+ .probe_func = probe_subsystem_eventb },
+};
+
+static int __init probe_init(void)
+{
+ int result;
+ int i;
+
+ for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(probe_array); i++) {
+ result = marker_probe_register(probe_array[i].name,
+ probe_array[i].format,
+ probe_array[i].probe_func, &probe_array[i]);
+ if (result)
+ printk(KERN_INFO "Unable to register probe %s\n",
+ probe_array[i].name);
+ result = marker_arm(probe_array[i].name);
+ if (result)
+ printk(KERN_INFO "Unable to arm probe %s\n",
+ probe_array[i].name);
+ }
+ return 0;
+}
+
+static void __exit probe_fini(void)
+{
+ int i;
+
+ for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(probe_array); i++) {
+ marker_probe_unregister(probe_array[i].name);
+ }
+ printk("Number of event b : %u\n", atomic_read(&eventb_count));
+}
+
+module_init(probe_init);
+module_exit(probe_fini);
+
+MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
+MODULE_AUTHOR("Mathieu Desnoyers");
+MODULE_DESCRIPTION("SUBSYSTEM Probe");