When performing a non-consuming read, a synchronize_sched() is
performed once for every cpu which is actively tracing.
This is very expensive, and can make it take several seconds to open
up the 'trace' file with lots of cpus.
Only one synchronize_sched() call is actually necessary. What is
desired is for all cpus to see the disabling state change. So we
transform the existing sequence:
for_each_cpu() {
ring_buffer_read_start();
}
where each ring_buffer_start() call performs a synchronize_sched(),
into the following:
for_each_cpu() {
ring_buffer_read_prepare();
}
ring_buffer_read_prepare_sync();
for_each_cpu() {
ring_buffer_read_start();
}
wherein only the single ring_buffer_read_prepare_sync() call needs to
do the synchronize_sched().
The first phase, via ring_buffer_read_prepare(), allocates the 'iter'
memory and increments ->record_disabled.
In the second phase, ring_buffer_read_prepare_sync() makes sure this
->record_disabled state is visible fully to all cpus.
And in the final third phase, the ring_buffer_read_start() calls reset
the 'iter' objects allocated in the first phase since we now know that
none of the cpus are adding trace entries any more.
This makes openning the 'trace' file nearly instantaneous on a
sparc64 Niagara2 box with 128 cpus tracing.
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
LKML-Reference: <20100420.154711.11246950.davem@davemloft.net>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Currently, when the ring buffer drops events, it does not record
the fact that it did so. It does inform the writer that the event
was dropped by returning a NULL event, but it does not put in any
place holder where the event was dropped.
This is not a trivial thing to add because the ring buffer mostly
runs in overwrite (flight recorder) mode. That is, when the ring
buffer is full, new data will overwrite old data.
In a produce/consumer mode, where new data is simply dropped when
the ring buffer is full, it is trivial to add the placeholder
for dropped events. When there's more room to write new data, then
a special event can be added to notify the reader about the dropped
events.
But in overwrite mode, any new write can overwrite events. A place
holder can not be inserted into the ring buffer since there never
may be room. A reader could also come in at anytime and miss the
placeholder.
Luckily, the way the ring buffer works, the read side can find out
if events were lost or not, and how many events. Everytime a write
takes place, if it overwrites the header page (the next read) it
updates a "overrun" variable that keeps track of the number of
lost events. When a reader swaps out a page from the ring buffer,
it can record this number, perfom the swap, and then check to
see if the number changed, and take the diff if it has, which would be
the number of events dropped. This can be stored by the reader
and returned to callers of the reader.
Since the reader page swap will fail if the writer moved the head
page since the time the reader page set up the swap, this gives room
to record the overruns without worrying about races. If the reader
sets up the pages, records the overrun, than performs the swap,
if the swap succeeds, then the overrun variable has not been
updated since the setup before the swap.
For binary readers of the ring buffer, a flag is set in the header
of each sub page (sub buffer) of the ring buffer. This flag is embedded
in the size field of the data on the sub buffer, in the 31st bit (the size
can be 32 or 64 bits depending on the architecture), but only 27
bits needs to be used for the actual size (less actually).
We could add a new field in the sub buffer header to also record the
number of events dropped since the last read, but this will change the
format of the binary ring buffer a bit too much. Perhaps this change can
be made if the information on the number of events dropped is considered
important enough.
Note, the notification of dropped events is only used by consuming reads
or peeking at the ring buffer. Iterating over the ring buffer does not
keep this information because the necessary data is only available when
a page swap is made, and the iterator does not swap out pages.
Cc: Robert Richter <robert.richter@amd.com>
Cc: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org>
Cc: Li Zefan <lizf@cn.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
Cc: "Luis Claudio R. Goncalves" <lclaudio@uudg.org>
Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Since the ability to swap the cpu buffers adds a small overhead to
the recording of a trace, we only want to add it when needed.
Only the irqsoff and preemptoff tracers use this feature, and both are
not recommended for production kernels. This patch disables its use
when neither irqsoff nor preemptoff is configured.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
The function ring_buffer_event_discard can be used on any item in the
ring buffer, even after the item was committed. This function provides
no safety nets and is very race prone.
An item may be safely removed from the ring buffer before it is committed
with the ring_buffer_discard_commit.
Since there are currently no users of this function, and because this
function is racey and error prone, this patch removes it altogether.
Note, removing this function also allows the counters to ignore
all discarded events (patches will follow).
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
This patch converts the ring buffers into a completely lockless
buffer recording system. The read side still takes locks since
we still serialize readers. But the writers are the ones that
must be lockless (those can happen in NMIs).
The main change is to the "head_page" pointer. We write to the
tail, and read from the head. The "head_page" pointer in the cpu
buffer is now just a reference to where to look. The real head
page is now kept in the head_page->list->prev->next pointer.
That is, in the list head of the previous page we set flags.
The list pages are allocated to be aligned such that the lowest
significant bits are always zero pointing to the list. This gives
us play to put in flags to their pointers.
bit 0: set when the page is a head page
bit 1: set when the writer is moving the page (for overwrite mode)
cmpxchg is used to update the pointer.
When the writer wraps the buffer and the tail meets the head,
in overwrite mode, the writer must move the head page forward.
It first uses cmpxchg to change the pointer flag from 1 to 2.
Once this is done, the reader on another CPU will not take the
page from the buffer.
The writers need to protect against interrupts (we don't bother with
disabling interrupts because NMIs are allowed to write too).
After the writer sets the pointer flag to 2, it takes care to
manage interrupts coming in. This is discribed in detail within the
comments of the code.
Changes in version 2:
- Let reader reset entries value of header page.
- Fix tail page passing commit page on reader page test.
- Always increment entries and write counter in rb_tail_page_update
- Add safety check in rb_set_commit_to_write to break out of infinite loop
- add mask in rb_is_reader_page
[ Impact: lock free writing to the ring buffer ]
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
This gets rid of a heap of false-positive warnings from the tracer
code due to the use of bitfields.
[rebased for mainline inclusion]
Signed-off-by: Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@gmail.com>
On Sun, 7 Jun 2009, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> Testing tracer sched_switch: <6>Starting ring buffer hammer
> PASSED
> Testing tracer sysprof: PASSED
> Testing tracer function: PASSED
> Testing tracer irqsoff:
> =============================================
> PASSED
> Testing tracer preemptoff: PASSED
> Testing tracer preemptirqsoff: [ INFO: possible recursive locking detected ]
> PASSED
> Testing tracer branch: 2.6.30-rc8-tip-01972-ge5b9078-dirty #5760
> ---------------------------------------------
> rb_consumer/431 is trying to acquire lock:
> (&cpu_buffer->reader_lock){......}, at: [<c109eef7>] ring_buffer_reset_cpu+0x37/0x70
>
> but task is already holding lock:
> (&cpu_buffer->reader_lock){......}, at: [<c10a019e>] ring_buffer_consume+0x7e/0xc0
>
> other info that might help us debug this:
> 1 lock held by rb_consumer/431:
> #0: (&cpu_buffer->reader_lock){......}, at: [<c10a019e>] ring_buffer_consume+0x7e/0xc0
The ring buffer is a generic structure, and can be used outside of
ftrace. If ftrace traces within the use of the ring buffer, it can produce
false positives with lockdep.
This patch passes in a static lock key into the allocation of the ring
buffer, so that different ring buffers will have their own lock class.
Reported-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
LKML-Reference: <1244477919.13761.9042.camel@twins>
[ store key in ring buffer descriptor ]
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
The WARN_ON in the ring buffer when a commit is preempted and the
buffer is filled by preceding writes can happen in normal operations.
The WARN_ON makes it look like a bug, not to mention, because
it does not stop tracing and calls printk which can also recurse, this
is prone to deadlock (the WARN_ON is not in a position to recurse).
This patch removes the WARN_ON and replaces it with a counter that
can be retrieved by a tracer. This counter is called commit_overrun.
While at it, I added a nmi_dropped counter to count any time an NMI entry
is dropped because the NMI could not take the spinlock.
[ Impact: prevent deadlock by printing normal case warning ]
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
RB_MAX_SMALL_DATA = 28bytes is too small for most tracers, it wastes
an 'u32' to save the actually length for events which data size > 28.
This fix uses compressed event header and enlarges RB_MAX_SMALL_DATA.
[ Impact: saves about 0%-12.5%(depends on tracer) memory in ring_buffer ]
Signed-off-by: Lai Jiangshan <laijs@cn.fujitsu.com>
LKML-Reference: <49F13189.3090000@cn.fujitsu.com>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Currently, every thing needed to read the binary output from the
ring buffers is available, with the exception of the way the ring
buffers handles itself internally.
This patch creates two special files in the debugfs/tracing/events
directory:
# cat /debug/tracing/events/header_page
field: u64 timestamp; offset:0; size:8;
field: local_t commit; offset:8; size:8;
field: char data; offset:16; size:4080;
# cat /debug/tracing/events/header_event
type : 2 bits
len : 3 bits
time_delta : 27 bits
array : 32 bits
padding : type == 0
time_extend : type == 1
data : type == 3
This is to allow a userspace app to see if the ring buffer format changes
or not.
[ Impact: allow userspace apps to know of ringbuffer format changes ]
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
The ring_buffer_discard_commit is similar to ring_buffer_event_discard
but it can only be done on an event that has yet to be commited.
Unpredictable results can happen otherwise.
The main difference between ring_buffer_discard_commit and
ring_buffer_event_discard is that ring_buffer_discard_commit will try
to free the data in the ring buffer if nothing has addded data
after the reserved event. If something did, then it acts almost the
same as ring_buffer_event_discard followed by a
ring_buffer_unlock_commit.
Note, either ring_buffer_commit_discard and ring_buffer_unlock_commit
can be called on an event, not both.
This commit also exports both discard functions to be usable by
GPL modules.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
This patch overloads RINGBUF_TYPE_PADDING to provide a way to discard
events from the ring buffer, for the event-filtering mechanism
introduced in a subsequent patch.
I did the initial version but thanks to Steven Rostedt for adding
the parts that actually made it work. ;-)
Signed-off-by: Tom Zanussi <tzanussi@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
This patch adds a new function called ring_buffer_set_clock that
allows a tracer to assign its own clock source to the buffer.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
Impact: cleanup
The functions tracing_start/tracing_stop have been moved to kernel.h.
These are not the functions a developer most likely wants to use
when they want to insert a place to stop tracing and restart it from
user space.
tracing_start/tracing_stop was created to work with things like
suspend to ram, where even calling smp_processor_id() can crash the
system. The tracing_start/tracing_stop was used to stop the tracer from
doing anything. These are still light weight functions, but add a bit
more overhead to be able to stop the tracers. They also have no interface
back to userland. That is, if the kernel calls tracing_stop, userland
can not start tracing.
What a developer most likely wants to use is tracing_on/tracing_off.
These are very light weight functions (simply sets or clears a bit).
These functions just stop recording into the ring buffer. The tracers
don't even know that this happens except that they would receive NULL
from the ring_buffer_lock_reserve function.
Also, there's a way for the user land to enable or disable this bit.
In debugfs/tracing/tracing_on, a user may echo "0" (same as tracing_off())
or echo "1" (same as tracing_on()) into this file. This becomes handy when
a kernel developer is debugging and wants tracing to turn off when it
hits an anomaly. Then the developer can examine the trace, and restart
tracing if they want to try again (echo 1 > tracing_on).
This patch moves the prototypes for tracing_on/tracing_off to kernel.h
and comments their use, so that a kernel developer will know how
to use them.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
The ring_buffer_read_page was broken if it were to only copy part
of the page. This patch fixes that up as well as adds a parameter
to allow a length field, in order to only copy part of the buffer page.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
tracing_off() is the fastest way to stop recording to the ring buffers.
This may be used in places like panic and die, just before the
ftrace_dump is called.
This patch adds the appropriate CPP conditionals to make it a stub
function when the ring buffer is not configured it.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
These functions are not yet in ring_buffer.h though they seems to be
part of the API.
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Signed-off-by: Robert Richter <robert.richter@amd.com>
Impact: new API to ring buffer
This patch adds a new interface into the ring buffer that allows a
page to be read from the ring buffer on a given CPU. For every page
read, one must also be given to allow for a "swap" of the pages.
rpage = ring_buffer_alloc_read_page(buffer);
if (!rpage)
goto err;
ret = ring_buffer_read_page(buffer, &rpage, cpu, full);
if (!ret)
goto empty;
process_page(rpage);
ring_buffer_free_read_page(rpage);
The caller of these functions must handle any waits that are
needed to wait for new data. The ring_buffer_read_page will simply
return 0 if there is no data, or if "full" is set and the writer
is still on the current page.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Impact: feature to permanently disable ring buffer
This patch adds a API to the ring buffer code that will permanently
disable the ring buffer from ever recording. This should only be
called when some serious anomaly is detected, and the system
may be in an unstable state. When that happens, shutting down the
recording to the ring buffers may be appropriate.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Impact: enable/disable ring buffer recording API added
Several kernel developers have requested that there be a way to stop
recording into the ring buffers with a simple switch that can also
be enabled from userspace. This patch addes a new kernel API to the
ring buffers called:
tracing_on()
tracing_off()
When tracing_off() is called, all ring buffers will not be able to record
into their buffers.
tracing_on() will enable the ring buffers again.
These two act like an on/off switch. That is, there is no counting of the
number of times tracing_off or tracing_on has been called.
A new file is added to the debugfs/tracing directory called
tracing_on
This allows for userspace applications to also flip the switch.
echo 0 > debugfs/tracing/tracing_on
disables the tracing.
echo 1 > /debugfs/tracing/tracing_on
enables it.
Note, this does not disable or enable any tracers. It only sets or clears
a flag that needs to be set in order for the ring buffers to write to
their buffers. It is a global flag, and affects all ring buffers.
The buffers start out with tracing_on enabled.
There are now three flags that control recording into the buffers:
tracing_on: which affects all ring buffer tracers.
buffer->record_disabled: which affects an allocated buffer, which may be set
if an anomaly is detected, and tracing is disabled.
cpu_buffer->record_disabled: which is set by tracing_stop() or if an
anomaly is detected. tracing_start can not reenable this if
an anomaly occurred.
The userspace debugfs/tracing/tracing_enabled is implemented with
tracing_stop() but the user space code can not enable it if the kernel
called tracing_stop().
Userspace can enable the tracing_on even if the kernel disabled it.
It is just a switch used to stop tracing if a condition was hit.
tracing_on is not for protecting critical areas in the kernel nor is
it for stopping tracing if an anomaly occurred. This is because userspace
can reenable it at any time.
Side effect: With this patch, I discovered a dead variable in ftrace.c
called tracing_on. This patch removes it.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
The old "lock always" scheme had issues with lockdep, and was not very
efficient anyways.
This patch does a new design to be partially lockless on writes.
Writes will add new entries to the per cpu pages by simply disabling
interrupts. When a write needs to go to another page than it will
grab the lock.
A new "read page" has been added so that the reader can pull out a page
from the ring buffer to read without worrying about the writer writing over
it. This allows us to not take the lock for all reads. The lock is
now only taken when a read needs to go to a new page.
This is far from lockless, and interrupts still need to be disabled,
but it is a step towards a more lockless solution, and it also
solves a lot of the issues that were noticed by the first conversion
of ftrace to the ring buffers.
Note: the ring_buffer_{un}lock API has been removed.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
This is a unified tracing buffer that implements a ring buffer that
hopefully everyone will eventually be able to use.
The events recorded into the buffer have the following structure:
struct ring_buffer_event {
u32 type:2, len:3, time_delta:27;
u32 array[];
};
The minimum size of an event is 8 bytes. All events are 4 byte
aligned inside the buffer.
There are 4 types (all internal use for the ring buffer, only
the data type is exported to the interface users).
RINGBUF_TYPE_PADDING: this type is used to note extra space at the end
of a buffer page.
RINGBUF_TYPE_TIME_EXTENT: This type is used when the time between events
is greater than the 27 bit delta can hold. We add another
32 bits, and record that in its own event (8 byte size).
RINGBUF_TYPE_TIME_STAMP: (Not implemented yet). This will hold data to
help keep the buffer timestamps in sync.
RINGBUF_TYPE_DATA: The event actually holds user data.
The "len" field is only three bits. Since the data must be
4 byte aligned, this field is shifted left by 2, giving a
max length of 28 bytes. If the data load is greater than 28
bytes, the first array field holds the full length of the
data load and the len field is set to zero.
Example, data size of 7 bytes:
type = RINGBUF_TYPE_DATA
len = 2
time_delta: <time-stamp> - <prev_event-time-stamp>
array[0..1]: <7 bytes of data> <1 byte empty>
This event is saved in 12 bytes of the buffer.
An event with 82 bytes of data:
type = RINGBUF_TYPE_DATA
len = 0
time_delta: <time-stamp> - <prev_event-time-stamp>
array[0]: 84 (Note the alignment)
array[1..14]: <82 bytes of data> <2 bytes empty>
The above event is saved in 92 bytes (if my math is correct).
82 bytes of data, 2 bytes empty, 4 byte header, 4 byte length.
Do not reference the above event struct directly. Use the following
functions to gain access to the event table, since the
ring_buffer_event structure may change in the future.
ring_buffer_event_length(event): get the length of the event.
This is the size of the memory used to record this
event, and not the size of the data pay load.
ring_buffer_time_delta(event): get the time delta of the event
This returns the delta time stamp since the last event.
Note: Even though this is in the header, there should
be no reason to access this directly, accept
for debugging.
ring_buffer_event_data(event): get the data from the event
This is the function to use to get the actual data
from the event. Note, it is only a pointer to the
data inside the buffer. This data must be copied to
another location otherwise you risk it being written
over in the buffer.
ring_buffer_lock: A way to lock the entire buffer.
ring_buffer_unlock: unlock the buffer.
ring_buffer_alloc: create a new ring buffer. Can choose between
overwrite or consumer/producer mode. Overwrite will
overwrite old data, where as consumer producer will
throw away new data if the consumer catches up with the
producer. The consumer/producer is the default.
ring_buffer_free: free the ring buffer.
ring_buffer_resize: resize the buffer. Changes the size of each cpu
buffer. Note, it is up to the caller to provide that
the buffer is not being used while this is happening.
This requirement may go away but do not count on it.
ring_buffer_lock_reserve: locks the ring buffer and allocates an
entry on the buffer to write to.
ring_buffer_unlock_commit: unlocks the ring buffer and commits it to
the buffer.
ring_buffer_write: writes some data into the ring buffer.
ring_buffer_peek: Look at a next item in the cpu buffer.
ring_buffer_consume: get the next item in the cpu buffer and
consume it. That is, this function increments the head
pointer.
ring_buffer_read_start: Start an iterator of a cpu buffer.
For now, this disables the cpu buffer, until you issue
a finish. This is just because we do not want the iterator
to be overwritten. This restriction may change in the future.
But note, this is used for static reading of a buffer which
is usually done "after" a trace. Live readings would want
to use the ring_buffer_consume above, which will not
disable the ring buffer.
ring_buffer_read_finish: Finishes the read iterator and reenables
the ring buffer.
ring_buffer_iter_peek: Look at the next item in the cpu iterator.
ring_buffer_read: Read the iterator and increment it.
ring_buffer_iter_reset: Reset the iterator to point to the beginning
of the cpu buffer.
ring_buffer_iter_empty: Returns true if the iterator is at the end
of the cpu buffer.
ring_buffer_size: returns the size in bytes of each cpu buffer.
Note, the real size is this times the number of CPUs.
ring_buffer_reset_cpu: Sets the cpu buffer to empty
ring_buffer_reset: sets all cpu buffers to empty
ring_buffer_swap_cpu: swaps a cpu buffer from one buffer with a
cpu buffer of another buffer. This is handy when you
want to take a snap shot of a running trace on just one
cpu. Having a backup buffer, to swap with facilitates this.
Ftrace max latencies use this.
ring_buffer_empty: Returns true if the ring buffer is empty.
ring_buffer_empty_cpu: Returns true if the cpu buffer is empty.
ring_buffer_record_disable: disable all cpu buffers (read only)
ring_buffer_record_disable_cpu: disable a single cpu buffer (read only)
ring_buffer_record_enable: enable all cpu buffers.
ring_buffer_record_enabl_cpu: enable a single cpu buffer.
ring_buffer_entries: The number of entries in a ring buffer.
ring_buffer_overruns: The number of entries removed due to writing wrap.
ring_buffer_time_stamp: Get the time stamp used by the ring buffer
ring_buffer_normalize_time_stamp: normalize the ring buffer time stamp
into nanosecs.
I still need to implement the GTOD feature. But we need support from
the cpu frequency infrastructure. But this can be done at a later
time without affecting the ring buffer interface.
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
David Miller