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author | Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu <eduard.munteanu@linux360.ro> | 2008-08-10 21:14:04 +0400 |
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committer | Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi> | 2008-12-29 16:34:02 +0300 |
commit | aa46a7e0228c0477708ce44a0c5621902b3c157c (patch) | |
tree | 5cb8fd755c14c2f46a2f83006173c3e4c5107548 /Documentation/ABI/testing | |
parent | b9ce08c01020eb28bfbfa6faf1c740281c5f418e (diff) | |
download | linux-aa46a7e0228c0477708ce44a0c5621902b3c157c.tar.xz |
kmemtrace: Additional documentation.
Documented kmemtrace's ABI, purpose and design. Also includes a short
usage guide, FAQ, as well as a link to the userspace application's Git
repository, which is currently hosted at repo.or.cz.
Signed-off-by: Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu <eduard.munteanu@linux360.ro>
Signed-off-by: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/ABI/testing')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/ABI/testing/debugfs-kmemtrace | 71 |
1 files changed, 71 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/ABI/testing/debugfs-kmemtrace b/Documentation/ABI/testing/debugfs-kmemtrace new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..a5ff9a64c9ee --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/debugfs-kmemtrace @@ -0,0 +1,71 @@ +What: /sys/kernel/debug/kmemtrace/ +Date: July 2008 +Contact: Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu <eduard.munteanu@linux360.ro> +Description: + +In kmemtrace-enabled kernels, the following files are created: + +/sys/kernel/debug/kmemtrace/ + cpu<n> (0400) Per-CPU tracing data, see below. (binary) + total_overruns (0400) Total number of bytes which were dropped from + cpu<n> files because of full buffer condition, + non-binary. (text) + abi_version (0400) Kernel's kmemtrace ABI version. (text) + +Each per-CPU file should be read according to the relay interface. That is, +the reader should set affinity to that specific CPU and, as currently done by +the userspace application (though there are other methods), use poll() with +an infinite timeout before every read(). Otherwise, erroneous data may be +read. The binary data has the following _core_ format: + + Event ID (1 byte) Unsigned integer, one of: + 0 - represents an allocation (KMEMTRACE_EVENT_ALLOC) + 1 - represents a freeing of previously allocated memory + (KMEMTRACE_EVENT_FREE) + Type ID (1 byte) Unsigned integer, one of: + 0 - this is a kmalloc() / kfree() + 1 - this is a kmem_cache_alloc() / kmem_cache_free() + 2 - this is a __get_free_pages() et al. + Event size (2 bytes) Unsigned integer representing the + size of this event. Used to extend + kmemtrace. Discard the bytes you + don't know about. + Sequence number (4 bytes) Signed integer used to reorder data + logged on SMP machines. Wraparound + must be taken into account, although + it is unlikely. + Caller address (8 bytes) Return address to the caller. + Pointer to mem (8 bytes) Pointer to target memory area. Can be + NULL, but not all such calls might be + recorded. + +In case of KMEMTRACE_EVENT_ALLOC events, the next fields follow: + + Requested bytes (8 bytes) Total number of requested bytes, + unsigned, must not be zero. + Allocated bytes (8 bytes) Total number of actually allocated + bytes, unsigned, must not be lower + than requested bytes. + Requested flags (4 bytes) GFP flags supplied by the caller. + Target CPU (4 bytes) Signed integer, valid for event id 1. + If equal to -1, target CPU is the same + as origin CPU, but the reverse might + not be true. + +The data is made available in the same endianness the machine has. + +Other event ids and type ids may be defined and added. Other fields may be +added by increasing event size, but see below for details. +Every modification to the ABI, including new id definitions, are followed +by bumping the ABI version by one. + +Adding new data to the packet (features) is done at the end of the mandatory +data: + Feature size (2 byte) + Feature ID (1 byte) + Feature data (Feature size - 4 bytes) + + +Users: + kmemtrace-user - git://repo.or.cz/kmemtrace-user.git + |