Re: [PATCH v6 5/6] tracing: Show inode and device major:minor in deferred user space stacktrace

[Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>]

On Fri, 29 Aug 2025 17:45:39 -0700
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:

> But what it does *NOT* need is munmap() events.
> 
> What it does *NOT* need is translating each hash value for each entry
> by the kernel, when whoever treads the file can just remember and
> re-create it in user space.

If we are going to rely on mmap, then we might as well get rid of the
vma_lookup() altogether. The mmap event will have the mapping of the
file to the actual virtual address.

If we add a tracepoint at mmap that records the path and the address as
well as the permissions of the mapping, then the tracer could then
trace only those addresses that are executable.

To handle missed events, on start of tracing, trigger the mmap event
for every currently running tasks for their executable sections, and
that will allow the tracer to see where the files are mapped.

After that, the stack traces can go back to just showing the virtual
addresses of the user space stack without doing anything else. Let the
trace map the tasks memory to all the mmaps that happened and translate
it that way.

The downside is that there may be a lot of information to record. But
the tracer could choose which task maps to trace via filters and if it's
tracing all tasks, it just needs to make sure its buffer is big enough.

-- Steve