tracing: Document the event tracing system

[mirror_ubuntu-zesty-kernel.git] / Documentation / trace / events.txt

			     Event Tracing

		Documentation written by Theodore Ts'o

Introduction
============

Tracepoints (see Documentation/trace/tracepoints.txt) can be used
without creating custom kernel modules to register probe functions
using the event tracing infrastructure.

Not all tracepoints can be traced using the event tracing system;
the kernel developer must provide code snippets which define how the
tracing information is saved into the tracing buffer, and how the
the tracing information should be printed.

Using Event Tracing
===================

The events which are available for tracing can be found in the file
/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/available_events.

To enable a particular event, such as 'sched_wakeup', simply echo it
to /sys/debug/tracing/set_event. For example:

	# echo sched_wakeup > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/set_event

[ Note: events can also be enabled/disabled via the 'enabled' toggle
  found in the /sys/kernel/tracing/events/ hierarchy of directories. ]

To disable an event, echo the event name to the set_event file prefixed
with an exclamation point:

	# echo '!sched_wakeup' >> /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/set_event

To disable events, echo an empty line to the set_event file:

	# echo > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/set_event

The events are organized into subsystems, such as ext4, irq, sched,
etc., and a full event name looks like this: <subsystem>:<event>.  The
subsystem name is optional, but it is displayed in the available_events
file.  All of the events in a subsystem can be specified via the syntax
"<subsystem>:*"; for example, to enable all irq events, you can use the
command:

	# echo 'irq:*' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/set_event

Defining an event-enabled tracepoint
------------------------------------

A kernel developer which wishes to define an event-enabled tracepoint
must declare the tracepoint using TRACE_EVENT instead of DECLARE_TRACE.
This is done via two header files in include/trace.  For example, to
event-enable the jbd2 subsystem, we must create two files,
include/trace/jbd2.h and include/trace/jbd2_event_types.h.  The
include/trace/jbd2.h file should be included by kernel source files that
will have a tracepoint inserted, and might look like this:

#ifndef _TRACE_JBD2_H
#define _TRACE_JBD2_H

#include <linux/jbd2.h>
#include <linux/tracepoint.h>

#include <trace/jbd2_event_types.h>

#endif

In a file that utilizes a jbd2 tracepoint, this header file would be
included.  Note that you still have to use DEFINE_TRACE().  So for
example, if fs/jbd2/commit.c planned to use the jbd2_start_commit
tracepoint, it would have the following near the beginning of the file:

#include <trace/jbd2.h>

DEFINE_TRACE(jbd2_start_commit);

Then in the function that would call the tracepoint, it would call the
tracepoint function.  (For more information, please see the tracepoint
documentation in Documentation/trace/tracepoints.txt):

	trace_jbd2_start_commit(journal, commit_transaction);

The code snippets which allow jbd2_start_commit to be an event-enabled
tracepoint are placed in the file include/trace/jbd2_event_types.h:

/* use <trace/jbd2.h> instead */
#ifndef TRACE_EVENT
# error Do not include this file directly.
# error Unless you know what you are doing.
#endif

#undef TRACE_SYSTEM
#define TRACE_SYSTEM jbd2

#include <linux/jbd2.h>

TRACE_EVENT(jbd2_start_commit,
	TP_PROTO(journal_t *journal, transaction_t *commit_transaction),
	TP_ARGS(journal, commit_transaction),
	TP_STRUCT__entry(
		__array(	char,	devname, BDEVNAME_SIZE+24 )
		__field(	int,	transaction		  )
	),
	TP_fast_assign(
		memcpy(__entry->devname, journal->j_devname, BDEVNAME_SIZE+24);
		__entry->transaction	= commit_transaction->t_tid;
	),
	TP_printk("dev %s transaction %d",
		  __entry->devname, __entry->transaction)
);

The TP_PROTO and TP_ARGS are unchanged from DECLARE_TRACE.  The new
arguments to TRACE_EVENT are TP_STRUCT__entry, TP_fast_assign, and
TP_printk.

TP_STRUCT__entry defines the data structure which will be stored in the
trace buffer.  Normally, fields in __entry will be arrays or simple
types.  It is possible to place data structures in __entry --- however,
pointers in the data structure can not be trusted, since they will be
accessed sometime later by TP_printk, and if the data structure contains
fields that will not or cannot be used by TP_printk, this will waste
space in the trace buffer.  In general, data structures should be
avoided, unless they do only contain non-pointer types and all of the
fields will be used by TP_printk.

TP_fast_assign defines the code snippet which saves information into the
__entry data structure, using the passed-in arguments defined in
TP_PROTO and TP_ARGS.

Finally, TP_printk will print the __entry data structure.  At the time
when the code snippet defined by TP_printk is executed, it will not have
access to the TP_ARGS arguments; it can only use the information saved
in the __entry data structure.