| ========================== |
| Kprobe-based Event Tracing |
| ========================== |
| |
| :Author: Masami Hiramatsu |
| |
| Overview |
| -------- |
| These events are similar to tracepoint based events. Instead of Tracepoint, |
| this is based on kprobes (kprobe and kretprobe). So it can probe wherever |
| kprobes can probe (this means, all functions except those with |
| __kprobes/nokprobe_inline annotation and those marked NOKPROBE_SYMBOL). |
| Unlike the Tracepoint based event, this can be added and removed |
| dynamically, on the fly. |
| |
| To enable this feature, build your kernel with CONFIG_KPROBE_EVENTS=y. |
| |
| Similar to the events tracer, this doesn't need to be activated via |
| current_tracer. Instead of that, add probe points via |
| /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events, and enable it via |
| /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/<EVENT>/enable. |
| |
| You can also use /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/dynamic_events instead of |
| kprobe_events. That interface will provide unified access to other |
| dynamic events too. |
| |
| Synopsis of kprobe_events |
| ------------------------- |
| :: |
| |
| p[:[GRP/]EVENT] [MOD:]SYM[+offs]|MEMADDR [FETCHARGS] : Set a probe |
| r[MAXACTIVE][:[GRP/]EVENT] [MOD:]SYM[+0] [FETCHARGS] : Set a return probe |
| -:[GRP/]EVENT : Clear a probe |
| |
| GRP : Group name. If omitted, use "kprobes" for it. |
| EVENT : Event name. If omitted, the event name is generated |
| based on SYM+offs or MEMADDR. |
| MOD : Module name which has given SYM. |
| SYM[+offs] : Symbol+offset where the probe is inserted. |
| MEMADDR : Address where the probe is inserted. |
| MAXACTIVE : Maximum number of instances of the specified function that |
| can be probed simultaneously, or 0 for the default value |
| as defined in Documentation/kprobes.txt section 1.3.1. |
| |
| FETCHARGS : Arguments. Each probe can have up to 128 args. |
| %REG : Fetch register REG |
| @ADDR : Fetch memory at ADDR (ADDR should be in kernel) |
| @SYM[+|-offs] : Fetch memory at SYM +|- offs (SYM should be a data symbol) |
| $stackN : Fetch Nth entry of stack (N >= 0) |
| $stack : Fetch stack address. |
| $argN : Fetch the Nth function argument. (N >= 1) (\*1) |
| $retval : Fetch return value.(\*2) |
| $comm : Fetch current task comm. |
| +|-offs(FETCHARG) : Fetch memory at FETCHARG +|- offs address.(\*3) |
| NAME=FETCHARG : Set NAME as the argument name of FETCHARG. |
| FETCHARG:TYPE : Set TYPE as the type of FETCHARG. Currently, basic types |
| (u8/u16/u32/u64/s8/s16/s32/s64), hexadecimal types |
| (x8/x16/x32/x64), "string" and bitfield are supported. |
| |
| (\*1) only for the probe on function entry (offs == 0). |
| (\*2) only for return probe. |
| (\*3) this is useful for fetching a field of data structures. |
| |
| Types |
| ----- |
| Several types are supported for fetch-args. Kprobe tracer will access memory |
| by given type. Prefix 's' and 'u' means those types are signed and unsigned |
| respectively. 'x' prefix implies it is unsigned. Traced arguments are shown |
| in decimal ('s' and 'u') or hexadecimal ('x'). Without type casting, 'x32' |
| or 'x64' is used depends on the architecture (e.g. x86-32 uses x32, and |
| x86-64 uses x64). |
| These value types can be an array. To record array data, you can add '[N]' |
| (where N is a fixed number, less than 64) to the base type. |
| E.g. 'x16[4]' means an array of x16 (2bytes hex) with 4 elements. |
| Note that the array can be applied to memory type fetchargs, you can not |
| apply it to registers/stack-entries etc. (for example, '$stack1:x8[8]' is |
| wrong, but '+8($stack):x8[8]' is OK.) |
| String type is a special type, which fetches a "null-terminated" string from |
| kernel space. This means it will fail and store NULL if the string container |
| has been paged out. |
| The string array type is a bit different from other types. For other base |
| types, <base-type>[1] is equal to <base-type> (e.g. +0(%di):x32[1] is same |
| as +0(%di):x32.) But string[1] is not equal to string. The string type itself |
| represents "char array", but string array type represents "char * array". |
| So, for example, +0(%di):string[1] is equal to +0(+0(%di)):string. |
| Bitfield is another special type, which takes 3 parameters, bit-width, bit- |
| offset, and container-size (usually 32). The syntax is:: |
| |
| b<bit-width>@<bit-offset>/<container-size> |
| |
| Symbol type('symbol') is an alias of u32 or u64 type (depends on BITS_PER_LONG) |
| which shows given pointer in "symbol+offset" style. |
| For $comm, the default type is "string"; any other type is invalid. |
| |
| |
| Per-Probe Event Filtering |
| ------------------------- |
| Per-probe event filtering feature allows you to set different filter on each |
| probe and gives you what arguments will be shown in trace buffer. If an event |
| name is specified right after 'p:' or 'r:' in kprobe_events, it adds an event |
| under tracing/events/kprobes/<EVENT>, at the directory you can see 'id', |
| 'enable', 'format', 'filter' and 'trigger'. |
| |
| enable: |
| You can enable/disable the probe by writing 1 or 0 on it. |
| |
| format: |
| This shows the format of this probe event. |
| |
| filter: |
| You can write filtering rules of this event. |
| |
| id: |
| This shows the id of this probe event. |
| |
| trigger: |
| This allows to install trigger commands which are executed when the event is |
| hit (for details, see Documentation/trace/events.rst, section 6). |
| |
| Event Profiling |
| --------------- |
| You can check the total number of probe hits and probe miss-hits via |
| /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_profile. |
| The first column is event name, the second is the number of probe hits, |
| the third is the number of probe miss-hits. |
| |
| |
| Usage examples |
| -------------- |
| To add a probe as a new event, write a new definition to kprobe_events |
| as below:: |
| |
| echo 'p:myprobe do_sys_open dfd=%ax filename=%dx flags=%cx mode=+4($stack)' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events |
| |
| This sets a kprobe on the top of do_sys_open() function with recording |
| 1st to 4th arguments as "myprobe" event. Note, which register/stack entry is |
| assigned to each function argument depends on arch-specific ABI. If you unsure |
| the ABI, please try to use probe subcommand of perf-tools (you can find it |
| under tools/perf/). |
| As this example shows, users can choose more familiar names for each arguments. |
| :: |
| |
| echo 'r:myretprobe do_sys_open $retval' >> /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events |
| |
| This sets a kretprobe on the return point of do_sys_open() function with |
| recording return value as "myretprobe" event. |
| You can see the format of these events via |
| /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/<EVENT>/format. |
| :: |
| |
| cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/myprobe/format |
| name: myprobe |
| ID: 780 |
| 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:unsigned long __probe_ip; offset:12; size:4; signed:0; |
| field:int __probe_nargs; offset:16; size:4; signed:1; |
| field:unsigned long dfd; offset:20; size:4; signed:0; |
| field:unsigned long filename; offset:24; size:4; signed:0; |
| field:unsigned long flags; offset:28; size:4; signed:0; |
| field:unsigned long mode; offset:32; size:4; signed:0; |
| |
| |
| print fmt: "(%lx) dfd=%lx filename=%lx flags=%lx mode=%lx", REC->__probe_ip, |
| REC->dfd, REC->filename, REC->flags, REC->mode |
| |
| You can see that the event has 4 arguments as in the expressions you specified. |
| :: |
| |
| echo > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events |
| |
| This clears all probe points. |
| |
| Or, |
| :: |
| |
| echo -:myprobe >> kprobe_events |
| |
| This clears probe points selectively. |
| |
| Right after definition, each event is disabled by default. For tracing these |
| events, you need to enable it. |
| :: |
| |
| echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/myprobe/enable |
| echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/myretprobe/enable |
| |
| Use the following command to start tracing in an interval. |
| :: |
| |
| # echo 1 > tracing_on |
| Open something... |
| # echo 0 > tracing_on |
| |
| And you can see the traced information via /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace. |
| :: |
| |
| cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace |
| # tracer: nop |
| # |
| # TASK-PID CPU# TIMESTAMP FUNCTION |
| # | | | | | |
| <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286875: myprobe: (do_sys_open+0x0/0xd6) dfd=3 filename=7fffd1ec4440 flags=8000 mode=0 |
| <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286878: myretprobe: (sys_openat+0xc/0xe <- do_sys_open) $retval=fffffffffffffffe |
| <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286885: myprobe: (do_sys_open+0x0/0xd6) dfd=ffffff9c filename=40413c flags=8000 mode=1b6 |
| <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286915: myretprobe: (sys_open+0x1b/0x1d <- do_sys_open) $retval=3 |
| <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286969: myprobe: (do_sys_open+0x0/0xd6) dfd=ffffff9c filename=4041c6 flags=98800 mode=10 |
| <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286976: myretprobe: (sys_open+0x1b/0x1d <- do_sys_open) $retval=3 |
| |
| |
| Each line shows when the kernel hits an event, and <- SYMBOL means kernel |
| returns from SYMBOL(e.g. "sys_open+0x1b/0x1d <- do_sys_open" means kernel |
| returns from do_sys_open to sys_open+0x1b). |
| |