Documentation/trace/kprobetrace.rst

==========================
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.


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.
  $retval	: Fetch return value.(*)
  $comm		: Fetch current task comm.
  +|-offs(FETCHARG) : Fetch memory at FETCHARG +|- offs address.(**)
  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.

  (*) only for return probe.
  (**) 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

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).