[PATCH 5/5] tracing/Documentation: Start a document on how to debug with tracing

Steven Rostedt
2024-08-23T01:39:47Z

Add a new document Documentation/trace/debugging.rst that will hold
various ways to debug tracing.

This initial version mentions trace_printk and how to create persistent
buffers that can last across bootups.

Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
---
.../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 2 +
Documentation/trace/debugging.rst | 159 ++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 161 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/trace/debugging.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
index 9e507e6cb4c8..9bb50dc78338 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
@@ -6785,6 +6785,8 @@

reserve_mem=12M:4096:trace trace_instance=boot_map^traceoff^traceprintk@trace,sched,irq

+ See also Documentation/trace/debugging.rst
+

trace_options=[option-list]
[FTRACE] Enable or disable tracer options at boot.
diff --git a/Documentation/trace/debugging.rst b/Documentation/trace/debugging.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..54fb16239d70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/trace/debugging.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,159 @@
+==============================
+Using the tracer for debugging
+==============================
+
+Copyright 2024 Google LLC.
+
+:Author: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
+:License: The GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
+ (dual licensed under the GPL v2)
+
+- Written for: 6.12
+
+Introduction
+------------
+The tracing infrastructure can be very useful for debugging the Linux
+kernel. This document is a place to add various methods of using the tracer
+for debugging.
+
+First, make sure that the tracefs file system is mounted::
+
+ $ sudo mount -t tracefs tracefs /sys/kernel/tracing
+
+
+Using trace_printk()
+--------------------
+
+trace_printk() is a very lightweight utility that can be used in any context
+inside the kernel, with the exception of "noinstr" sections. It can be used
+in normal, softirq, interrupt and even NMI context. The trace data is
+written to the tracing ring buffer in a lockless way. To make it even
+lighter weight, when possible, it will only record the pointer to the format
+string, and save the raw arguments into the buffer. The format and the
+arguments will be post processed when the ring buffer is read. This way the
+trace_printk() format conversions are not done during the hot path, where
+the trace is being recorded.
+
+trace_printk() is meant only for debugging, and should never be added into
+a subsystem of the kernel. If you need debugging traces, add trace events
+instead. If a trace_printk() is found in the kernel, the following will
+appear in the dmesg::
+
+ **********************************************************
+ ** NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE **
+ ** **
+ ** trace_printk() being used. Allocating extra memory. **
+ ** **
+ ** This means that this is a DEBUG kernel and it is **
+ ** unsafe for production use. **
+ ** **
+ ** If you see this message and you are not debugging **
+ ** the kernel, report this immediately to your vendor! **
+ ** **
+ ** NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE **
+ **********************************************************
+
+Debugging kernel crashes
+------------------------
+There is various methods of acquiring the state of the system when a kernel
+crash occurs. This could be from the oops message in printk, or one could
+use kexec/kdump. But these just show what happened at the time of the crash.
+It can be very useful in knowing what happened up to the point of the crash.
+The tracing ring buffer, by default, is a circular buffer than will
+overwrite older events with newer ones. When a crash happens, the content of
+the ring buffer will be all the events that lead up to the crash.
+
+There are several kernel command line parameters that can be used to help in
+this. The first is "ftrace_dump_on_oops". This will dump the tracing ring
+buffer when a oops occurs to the console. This can be useful if the console
+is being logged somewhere. If a serial console is used, it may be prudent to
+make sure the ring buffer is relatively small, otherwise the dumping of the
+ring buffer may take several minutes to hours to finish. Here's an example
+of the kernel command line::
+
+ ftrace_dump_on_oops trace_buf_size=50K
+
+Note, the tracing buffer is made up of per CPU buffers where each of these
+buffers is broken up into sub-buffers that are by default PAGE_SIZE. The
+above trace_buf_size option above sets each of the per CPU buffers to 50K,
+so, on a machine with 8 CPUs, that's actually 400K total.
+
+Persistent buffers across boots
+-------------------------------
+If the system memory allows it, the tracing ring buffer can be specified at
+a specific location in memory. If the location is the same across boots and
+the memory is not modified, the tracing buffer can be retrieved from the
+following boot. There's two ways to reserve memory for the use of the ring
+buffer.
+
+The more reliable way (on x86) is to reserve memory with the "memmap" kernel
+command line option and then use that memory for the trace_instance. This
+requires a bit of knowledge of the physical memory layout of the system. The
+advantage of using this method, is that the memory for the ring buffer will
+always be the same::
+
+ memmap==12M$0x284500000 trace_instance=boot_map@0x284500000:12M
+
+The memmap above reserves 12 megabytes of memory at the physical memory
+location 0x284500000. Then the trace_instance option will create a trace
+instance "boot_map" at that same location with the same amount of memory
+reserved. As the ring buffer is broke up into per CPU buffers, the 12
+megabytes will be broken up evenly between those CPUs. If you have 8 CPUs,
+each per CPU ring buffer will be 1.5 megabytes in size. Note, that also
+includes meta data, so the amount of memory actually used by the ring buffer
+will be slightly smaller.
+
+Another more generic but less robust way to allocate a ring buffer mapping
+at boot is with the "reserve_mem" option::
+
+ reserve_mem=12M:4096:trace trace_instance=boot_map@trace
+
+The reserve_mem option above will find 12 megabytes that are available at
+boot up, and align it by 4096 bytes. It will label this memory as "trace"
+that can be used by later command line options.
+
+The trace_instance option creates a "boot_map" instance and will use the
+memory reserved by reserve_mem that was labeled as "trace". This method is
+more generic but may not be as reliable. Due to KASLR, the memory reserved
+by reserve_mem may not be located at the same location. If this happens,
+then the ring buffer will not be from the previous boot and will be reset.
+
+Sometimes, by using a larger alignment, it can keep KASLR from moving things
+around in such a way that it will move the location of the reserve_mem. By
+using a larger alignment, you may find better that the buffer is more
+consistent to where it is placed::
+
+ reserve_mem=12M:0x2000000:trace trace_instance=boot_map@trace
+
+On boot up, the memory reserved for the ring buffer is validated. It will go
+through a series of tests to make sure that the ring buffer contains valid
+data. If it is, it will then set it up to be available to read from the
+instance. If it fails any of the tests, it will clear the entire ring buffer
+and initialize it as new.
+
+The layout of this mapped memory may not be consistent from kernel to
+kernel, so only the same kernel is guaranteed to work if the mapping is
+preserved. Switching to a different kernel version may find a different
+layout and mark the buffer as invalid.
+
+Using trace_printk() in the boot instance
+-----------------------------------------
+By default, the content of trace_printk() goes into the top level tracing
+instance. But this instance is never preserved across boots. To have the
+trace_printk() content, and some other internal tracing go to the preserved
+buffer (like dump stacks), either set the instance to be the trace_printk()
+destination from the kernel command line, or set it after boot up via the
+trace_printk_dest option.
+
+After boot up::
+
+ echo 1 > /sys/kernel/tracing/instances/boot_map/options/trace_printk_dest
+
+From the kernel command line::
+
+ reserve_mem=12M:4096:trace trace_instance=boot_map^traceprintk^traceoff@trace
+
+If setting it from the kernel command line, it is recommended to also
+disable tracing with the "traceoff" flag, and enable tracing after boot up.
+Otherwise the trace from the most recent boot will be mixed with the trace
+from the previous boot, and may make it confusing to read.
--
2.43.0