1. Build with the 'simple' trace backend:
- ./configure --trace-backend=simple
+ ./configure --enable-trace-backend=simple
make
-2. Enable trace events you are interested in:
+2. Create a file with the events you want to trace:
- $EDITOR trace-events # remove "disable" from events you want
+ echo bdrv_aio_readv > /tmp/events
+ echo bdrv_aio_writev >> /tmp/events
3. Run the virtual machine to produce a trace file:
- qemu ... # your normal QEMU invocation
+ qemu -trace events=/tmp/events ... # your normal QEMU invocation
4. Pretty-print the binary trace file:
file. Each trace event declaration names the event, its arguments, and the
format string which can be used for pretty-printing:
- qemu_malloc(size_t size, void *ptr) "size %zu ptr %p"
- qemu_free(void *ptr) "ptr %p"
+ qemu_vmalloc(size_t size, void *ptr) "size %zu ptr %p"
+ qemu_vfree(void *ptr) "ptr %p"
The "trace-events" file is processed by the "tracetool" script during build to
generate code for the trace events. Trace events are invoked directly from
#include "trace.h" /* needed for trace event prototype */
- void *qemu_malloc(size_t size)
+ void *qemu_vmalloc(size_t size)
{
void *ptr;
- if (!size && !allow_zero_malloc()) {
- abort();
+ size_t align = QEMU_VMALLOC_ALIGN;
+
+ if (size < align) {
+ align = getpagesize();
}
- ptr = oom_check(malloc(size ? size : 1));
- trace_qemu_malloc(size, ptr); /* <-- trace event */
+ ptr = qemu_memalign(align, size);
+ trace_qemu_vmalloc(size, ptr);
return ptr;
}
cannot include all user-defined struct declarations and it is therefore
necessary to use void * for pointers to structs.
- Pointers (including char *) cannot be dereferenced easily (or at all) in
- some trace backends. If pointers are used, ensure they are meaningful by
- themselves and do not assume the data they point to will be traced. Do
- not pass in string arguments.
-
* For everything else, use primitive scalar types (char, int, long) with the
appropriate signedness.
Format strings should reflect the types defined in the trace event. Take
special care to use PRId64 and PRIu64 for int64_t and uint64_t types,
-respectively. This ensures portability between 32- and 64-bit platforms. Note
-that format strings must begin and end with double quotes. When using
-portability macros, ensure they are preceded and followed by double quotes:
-"value %"PRIx64"".
+respectively. This ensures portability between 32- and 64-bit platforms.
=== Hints for adding new trace events ===
4. Name trace events after their function. If there are multiple trace events
in one function, append a unique distinguisher at the end of the name.
-5. Declare trace events with the "disable" property. Some trace events can
- produce a lot of output and users are typically only interested in a subset
- of trace events. Marking trace events disabled by default saves the user
- from having to manually disable noisy trace events.
+== Generic interface and monitor commands ==
+
+You can programmatically query and control the dynamic state of trace events
+through a backend-agnostic interface:
+
+* trace_print_events
+
+* trace_event_set_state
+ Enables or disables trace events at runtime inside QEMU.
+ The function returns "true" if the state of the event has been successfully
+ changed, or "false" otherwise:
+
+ #include "trace/control.h"
+
+ trace_event_set_state("virtio_irq", true); /* enable */
+ [...]
+ trace_event_set_state("virtio_irq", false); /* disable */
+
+Note that some of the backends do not provide an implementation for this
+interface, in which case QEMU will just print a warning.
+
+This functionality is also provided through monitor commands:
+
+* info trace-events
+ View available trace events and their state. State 1 means enabled, state 0
+ means disabled.
+
+* trace-event NAME on|off
+ Enable/disable a given trace event or a group of events having common prefix
+ through wildcard.
+
+The "-trace events=<file>" command line argument can be used to enable the
+events listed in <file> from the very beginning of the program. This file must
+contain one event name per line.
+
+A basic wildcard matching is supported in both the monitor command "trace
+-event" and the events list file. That means you can enable/disable the events
+having a common prefix in a batch. For example, virtio-blk trace events could
+be enabled using:
+ trace-event virtio_blk_* on
== Trace backends ==
can optimize out trace events completely. This is the default and imposes no
performance penalty.
+Note that regardless of the selected trace backend, events with the "disable"
+property will be generated with the "nop" backend.
+
=== Stderr ===
The "stderr" backend sends trace events directly to standard error. This
trace backends but it is portable. This is the recommended trace backend
unless you have specific needs for more advanced backends.
+The "simple" backend currently does not capture string arguments, it simply
+records the char* pointer value instead of the string that is pointed to.
+
==== Monitor commands ====
* info trace
flushed and emptied. This means the 'info trace' will display few or no
entries if the buffer has just been flushed.
-* info trace-events
- View available trace events and their state. State 1 means enabled, state 0
- means disabled.
-
-* trace-event NAME on|off
- Enable/disable a given trace event.
-
* trace-file on|off|flush|set <path>
Enable/disable/flush the trace file or set the trace file name.
-==== Enabling/disabling trace events programmatically ====
-
-The st_change_trace_event_state() function can be used to enable or disable trace
-events at runtime inside QEMU:
-
- #include "trace.h"
-
- st_change_trace_event_state("virtio_irq", true); /* enable */
- [...]
- st_change_trace_event_state("virtio_irq", false); /* disable */
-
==== Analyzing trace files ====
The "simple" backend produces binary trace files that can be formatted with the
--target-type system \
--target-arch x86_64 \
<trace-events >qemu.stp
+
+== Trace event properties ==
+
+Each event in the "trace-events" file can be prefixed with a space-separated
+list of zero or more of the following event properties.
+
+=== "disable" ===
+
+If a specific trace event is going to be invoked a huge number of times, this
+might have a noticeable performance impact even when the event is
+programmatically disabled.
+
+In this case you should declare such event with the "disable" property. This
+will effectively disable the event at compile time (by using the "nop" backend),
+thus having no performance impact at all on regular builds (i.e., unless you
+edit the "trace-events" file).
+
+In addition, there might be cases where relatively complex computations must be
+performed to generate values that are only used as arguments for a trace
+function. In these cases you can use the macro 'TRACE_${EVENT_NAME}_ENABLED' to
+guard such computations and avoid its compilation when the event is disabled:
+
+ #include "trace.h" /* needed for trace event prototype */
+
+ void *qemu_vmalloc(size_t size)
+ {
+ void *ptr;
+ size_t align = QEMU_VMALLOC_ALIGN;
+
+ if (size < align) {
+ align = getpagesize();
+ }
+ ptr = qemu_memalign(align, size);
+ if (TRACE_QEMU_VMALLOC_ENABLED) { /* preprocessor macro */
+ void *complex;
+ /* some complex computations to produce the 'complex' value */
+ trace_qemu_vmalloc(size, ptr, complex);
+ }
+ return ptr;
+ }
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