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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2025-08-01 10:29:36 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2025-08-01 10:29:36 -0700
commitd6f38c12396397e48092ad9e8a4d7be4de51b942 (patch)
tree4f93db9a9a78a96f9f403ffeab48b14770bdc22e /Documentation/trace
parent5172a777248e56dbae22b55231d24c7ecc6393f9 (diff)
parent623526ba8984cafdffa0eba7ee424f2e40c8a219 (diff)
Merge tag 'trace-v6.17' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace
Pull tracing updates from Steven Rostedt: - Deprecate auto-mounting tracefs to /sys/kernel/debug/tracing When tracefs was first introduced back in 2014, the directory /sys/kernel/tracing was added and is the designated location to mount tracefs. To keep backward compatibility, tracefs was auto-mounted in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing as well. All distros now mount tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing. Having it seen in two different locations has lead to various issues and inconsistencies. The VFS folks have to also maintain debugfs_create_automount() for this single user. It's been over 10 years. Tooling and scripts should start replacing the debugfs location with the tracefs one. The reason tracefs was created in the first place was to allow access to the tracing facilities without the need to configure debugfs into the kernel. Using tracefs should now be more robust. A new config is created: CONFIG_TRACEFS_AUTOMOUNT_DEPRECATED which is default y, so that the kernel is still built with the automount. This config allows those that want to remove the automount from debugfs to do so. When tracefs is accessed from /sys/kernel/debug/tracing, the following printk is triggerd: pr_warn("NOTICE: Automounting of tracing to debugfs is deprecated and will be removed in 2030\n"); This gives users another 5 years to fix their scripts. - Use queue_rcu_work() instead of call_rcu() for freeing event filters The number of filters to be free can be many depending on the number of events within an event system. Freeing them from softirq context can potentially cause undesired latency. Use the RCU workqueue to free them instead. - Remove pointless memory barriers in latency code Memory barriers were added to some of the latency code a long time ago with the idea of "making them visible", but that's not what memory barriers are for. They are to synchronize access between different variables. There was no synchronization here making them pointless. - Remove "__attribute__()" from the type field of event format When LLVM is used to compile the kernel with CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF=y and PAHOLE_HAS_BTF_TAG=y, some of the format fields get expanded with the following: field:const char * filename; offset:24; size:8; signed:0; Turns into: field:const char __attribute__((btf_type_tag("user"))) * filename; offset:24; size:8; signed:0; This confuses parsers. Add code to strip these tags from the strings. - Add eprobe config option CONFIG_EPROBE_EVENTS Eprobes were added back in 5.15 but were only enabled when another probe was enabled (kprobe, fprobe, uprobe, etc). The eprobes had no config option of their own. Add one as they should be a separate entity. It's default y to keep with the old kernels but still has dependencies on TRACING and HAVE_REGS_AND_STACK_ACCESS_API. - Add eprobe documentation When eprobes were added back in 5.15 no documentation was added to describe them. This needs to be rectified. - Replace open coded cpumask_next_wrap() in move_to_next_cpu() - Have preemptirq_delay_run() use off-stack CPU mask - Remove obsolete comment about pelt_cfs event DECLARE_TRACE() appends "_tp" to trace events now, but the comment above pelt_cfs still mentioned appending it manually. - Remove EVENT_FILE_FL_SOFT_MODE flag The SOFT_MODE flag was required when the soft enabling and disabling of trace events was first introduced. But there was a bug with this approach as it only worked for a single instance. When multiple users required soft disabling and disabling the code was changed to have a ref count. The SOFT_MODE flag is now set iff the ref count is non zero. This is redundant and just reading the ref count is good enough. - Fix typo in comment * tag 'trace-v6.17' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace: Documentation: tracing: Add documentation about eprobes tracing: Have eprobes have their own config option tracing: Remove "__attribute__()" from the type field of event format tracing: Deprecate auto-mounting tracefs in debugfs tracing: Fix comment in trace_module_remove_events() tracing: Remove EVENT_FILE_FL_SOFT_MODE flag tracing: Remove pointless memory barriers tracing/sched: Remove obsolete comment on suffixes kernel: trace: preemptirq_delay_test: use offstack cpu mask tracing: Use queue_rcu_work() to free filters tracing: Replace opencoded cpumask_next_wrap() in move_to_next_cpu()
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/trace')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/trace/eprobetrace.rst269
-rw-r--r--Documentation/trace/index.rst1
2 files changed, 270 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/trace/eprobetrace.rst b/Documentation/trace/eprobetrace.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..89b5157cfab8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/trace/eprobetrace.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,269 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+==================================
+Eprobe - Event-based Probe Tracing
+==================================
+
+:Author: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
+
+- Written for v6.17
+
+Overview
+========
+
+Eprobes are dynamic events that are placed on existing events to either
+dereference a field that is a pointer, or simply to limit what fields are
+recorded in the trace event.
+
+Eprobes depend on kprobe events so to enable this feature, build your kernel
+with CONFIG_EPROBE_EVENTS=y.
+
+Eprobes are created via the /sys/kernel/tracing/dynamic_events file.
+
+Synopsis of eprobe_events
+-------------------------
+::
+
+ e[:[EGRP/][EEVENT]] GRP.EVENT [FETCHARGS] : Set a probe
+ -:[EGRP/][EEVENT] : Clear a probe
+
+ EGRP : Group name of the new event. If omitted, use "eprobes" for it.
+ EEVENT : Event name. If omitted, the event name is generated and will
+ be the same event name as the event it attached to.
+ GRP : Group name of the event to attach to.
+ EVENT : Event name of the event to attach to.
+
+ FETCHARGS : Arguments. Each probe can have up to 128 args.
+ $FIELD : Fetch the value of the event field called FIELD.
+ @ADDR : Fetch memory at ADDR (ADDR should be in kernel)
+ @SYM[+|-offs] : Fetch memory at SYM +|- offs (SYM should be a data symbol)
+ $comm : Fetch current task comm.
+ +|-[u]OFFS(FETCHARG) : Fetch memory at FETCHARG +|- OFFS address.(\*3)(\*4)
+ \IMM : Store an immediate value to the argument.
+ NAME=FETCHARG : Set NAME as the argument name of FETCHARG.
+ FETCHARG:TYPE : Set TYPE as the type of FETCHARG. Currently, basic types
+ (u8/u16/u32/u64/s8/s16/s32/s64), hexadecimal types
+ (x8/x16/x32/x64), VFS layer common type(%pd/%pD), "char",
+ "string", "ustring", "symbol", "symstr" and "bitfield" are
+ supported.
+
+Types
+-----
+The FETCHARGS above is very similar to the kprobe events as described in
+Documentation/trace/kprobetrace.rst.
+
+The difference between eprobes and kprobes FETCHARGS is that eprobes has a
+$FIELD command that returns the content of the event field of the event
+that is attached. Eprobes do not have access to registers, stacks and function
+arguments that kprobes has.
+
+If a field argument is a pointer, it may be dereferenced just like a memory
+address using the FETCHARGS syntax.
+
+
+Attaching to dynamic events
+---------------------------
+
+Eprobes may attach to dynamic events as well as to normal events. It may
+attach to a kprobe event, a synthetic event or a fprobe event. This is useful
+if the type of a field needs to be changed. See Example 2 below.
+
+Usage examples
+==============
+
+Example 1
+---------
+
+The basic usage of eprobes is to limit the data that is being recorded into
+the tracing buffer. For example, a common event to trace is the sched_switch
+trace event. That has a format of::
+
+ field:unsigned short common_type; offset:0; size:2; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned char common_flags; offset:2; size:1; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned char common_preempt_count; offset:3; size:1; signed:0;
+ field:int common_pid; offset:4; size:4; signed:1;
+
+ field:char prev_comm[16]; offset:8; size:16; signed:0;
+ field:pid_t prev_pid; offset:24; size:4; signed:1;
+ field:int prev_prio; offset:28; size:4; signed:1;
+ field:long prev_state; offset:32; size:8; signed:1;
+ field:char next_comm[16]; offset:40; size:16; signed:0;
+ field:pid_t next_pid; offset:56; size:4; signed:1;
+ field:int next_prio; offset:60; size:4; signed:1;
+
+The first four fields are common to all events and can not be limited. But the
+rest of the event has 60 bytes of information. It records the names of the
+previous and next tasks being scheduled out and in, as well as their pids and
+priorities. It also records the state of the previous task. If only the pids
+of the tasks are of interest, why waste the ring buffer with all the other
+fields?
+
+An eprobe can limit what gets recorded. Note, it does not help in performance,
+as all the fields are recorded in a temporary buffer to process the eprobe.
+::
+
+ # echo 'e:sched/switch sched.sched_switch prev=$prev_pid:u32 next=$next_pid:u32' >> /sys/kernel/tracing/dynamic_events
+ # echo 1 > /sys/kernel/tracing/events/sched/switch/enable
+ # cat /sys/kernel/tracing/trace
+
+ # tracer: nop
+ #
+ # entries-in-buffer/entries-written: 2721/2721 #P:8
+ #
+ # _-----=> irqs-off/BH-disabled
+ # / _----=> need-resched
+ # | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
+ # || / _--=> preempt-depth
+ # ||| / _-=> migrate-disable
+ # |||| / delay
+ # TASK-PID CPU# ||||| TIMESTAMP FUNCTION
+ # | | | ||||| | |
+ sshd-session-1082 [004] d..4. 5041.239906: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=1082 next=0
+ bash-1085 [001] d..4. 5041.240198: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=1085 next=141
+ kworker/u34:5-141 [001] d..4. 5041.240259: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=141 next=1085
+ <idle>-0 [004] d..4. 5041.240354: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=0 next=1082
+ bash-1085 [001] d..4. 5041.240385: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=1085 next=141
+ kworker/u34:5-141 [001] d..4. 5041.240410: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=141 next=1085
+ bash-1085 [001] d..4. 5041.240478: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=1085 next=0
+ sshd-session-1082 [004] d..4. 5041.240526: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=1082 next=0
+ <idle>-0 [001] d..4. 5041.247524: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=0 next=90
+ <idle>-0 [002] d..4. 5041.247545: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=0 next=16
+ kworker/1:1-90 [001] d..4. 5041.247580: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=90 next=0
+ rcu_sched-16 [002] d..4. 5041.247591: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=16 next=0
+ <idle>-0 [002] d..4. 5041.257536: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=0 next=16
+ rcu_sched-16 [002] d..4. 5041.257573: switch: (sched.sched_switch) prev=16 next=0
+
+Note, without adding the "u32" after the prev_pid and next_pid, the values
+would default showing in hexadecimal.
+
+Example 2
+---------
+
+If a specific system call is to be recorded but the syscalls events are not
+enabled, the raw_syscalls can still be used (syscalls are system call
+events are not normal events, but are created from the raw_syscalls events
+within the kernel). In order to trace the openat system call, one can create
+an event probe on top of the raw_syscalls event:
+::
+
+ # cd /sys/kernel/tracing
+ # cat events/raw_syscalls/sys_enter/format
+ name: sys_enter
+ ID: 395
+ format:
+ field:unsigned short common_type; offset:0; size:2; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned char common_flags; offset:2; size:1; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned char common_preempt_count; offset:3; size:1; signed:0;
+ field:int common_pid; offset:4; size:4; signed:1;
+
+ field:long id; offset:8; size:8; signed:1;
+ field:unsigned long args[6]; offset:16; size:48; signed:0;
+
+ print fmt: "NR %ld (%lx, %lx, %lx, %lx, %lx, %lx)", REC->id, REC->args[0], REC->args[1], REC->args[2], REC->args[3], REC->args[4], REC->args[5]
+
+From the source code, the sys_openat() has:
+::
+
+ int sys_openat(int dirfd, const char *path, int flags, mode_t mode)
+ {
+ return my_syscall4(__NR_openat, dirfd, path, flags, mode);
+ }
+
+The path is the second parameter, and that is what is wanted.
+::
+
+ # echo 'e:openat raw_syscalls.sys_enter nr=$id filename=+8($args):ustring' >> dynamic_events
+
+This is being run on x86_64 where the word size is 8 bytes and the openat
+system call __NR_openat is set at 257.
+::
+
+ # echo 'nr == 257' > events/eprobes/openat/filter
+
+Now enable the event and look at the trace.
+::
+
+ # echo 1 > events/eprobes/openat/enable
+ # cat trace
+
+ # tracer: nop
+ #
+ # entries-in-buffer/entries-written: 4/4 #P:8
+ #
+ # _-----=> irqs-off/BH-disabled
+ # / _----=> need-resched
+ # | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
+ # || / _--=> preempt-depth
+ # ||| / _-=> migrate-disable
+ # |||| / delay
+ # TASK-PID CPU# ||||| TIMESTAMP FUNCTION
+ # | | | ||||| | |
+ cat-1298 [003] ...2. 2060.875970: openat: (raw_syscalls.sys_enter) nr=0x101 filename=(fault)
+ cat-1298 [003] ...2. 2060.876197: openat: (raw_syscalls.sys_enter) nr=0x101 filename=(fault)
+ cat-1298 [003] ...2. 2060.879126: openat: (raw_syscalls.sys_enter) nr=0x101 filename=(fault)
+ cat-1298 [003] ...2. 2060.879639: openat: (raw_syscalls.sys_enter) nr=0x101 filename=(fault)
+
+The filename shows "(fault)". This is likely because the filename has not been
+pulled into memory yet and currently trace events cannot fault in memory that
+is not present. When an eprobe tries to read memory that has not been faulted
+in yet, it will show the "(fault)" text.
+
+To get around this, as the kernel will likely pull in this filename and make
+it present, attaching it to a synthetic event that can pass the address of the
+filename from the entry of the event to the end of the event, this can be used
+to show the filename when the system call returns.
+
+Remove the old eprobe::
+
+ # echo 1 > events/eprobes/openat/enable
+ # echo '-:openat' >> dynamic_events
+
+This time make an eprobe where the address of the filename is saved::
+
+ # echo 'e:openat_start raw_syscalls.sys_enter nr=$id filename=+8($args):x64' >> dynamic_events
+
+Create a synthetic event that passes the address of the filename to the
+end of the event::
+
+ # echo 's:filename u64 file' >> dynamic_events
+ # echo 'hist:keys=common_pid:f=filename if nr == 257' > events/eprobes/openat_start/trigger
+ # echo 'hist:keys=common_pid:file=$f:onmatch(eprobes.openat_start).trace(filename,$file) if id == 257' > events/raw_syscalls/sys_exit/trigger
+
+Now that the address of the filename has been passed to the end of the
+system call, create another eprobe to attach to the exit event to show the
+string::
+
+ # echo 'e:openat synthetic.filename filename=+0($file):ustring' >> dynamic_events
+ # echo 1 > events/eprobes/openat/enable
+ # cat trace
+
+ # tracer: nop
+ #
+ # entries-in-buffer/entries-written: 4/4 #P:8
+ #
+ # _-----=> irqs-off/BH-disabled
+ # / _----=> need-resched
+ # | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
+ # || / _--=> preempt-depth
+ # ||| / _-=> migrate-disable
+ # |||| / delay
+ # TASK-PID CPU# ||||| TIMESTAMP FUNCTION
+ # | | | ||||| | |
+ cat-1331 [001] ...5. 2944.787977: openat: (synthetic.filename) filename="/etc/ld.so.cache"
+ cat-1331 [001] ...5. 2944.788480: openat: (synthetic.filename) filename="/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6"
+ cat-1331 [001] ...5. 2944.793426: openat: (synthetic.filename) filename="/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive"
+ cat-1331 [001] ...5. 2944.831362: openat: (synthetic.filename) filename="trace"
+
+Example 3
+---------
+
+If syscall trace events are available, the above would not need the first
+eprobe, but it would still need the last one::
+
+ # echo 's:filename u64 file' >> dynamic_events
+ # echo 'hist:keys=common_pid:f=filename' > events/syscalls/sys_enter_openat/trigger
+ # echo 'hist:keys=common_pid:file=$f:onmatch(syscalls.sys_enter_openat).trace(filename,$file)' > events/syscalls/sys_exit_openat/trigger
+ # echo 'e:openat synthetic.filename filename=+0($file):ustring' >> dynamic_events
+ # echo 1 > events/eprobes/openat/enable
+
+And this would produce the same result as Example 2.
diff --git a/Documentation/trace/index.rst b/Documentation/trace/index.rst
index cc1dc5a087e8..b4a429dc4f7a 100644
--- a/Documentation/trace/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/trace/index.rst
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ the Linux kernel.
kprobes
kprobetrace
fprobetrace
+ eprobetrace
fprobe
ring-buffer-design