trace doc: convert trace/uprobetracer.txt to rst format

This converts the plain text documentation to reStructuredText format and
add it into Sphinx TOC tree. No essential content change.

Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Signed-off-by: Changbin Du <changbin.du@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

1 files changed, 173 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/trace/uprobetracer.rst b/Documentation/trace/uprobetracer.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..98d3f692957a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/trace/uprobetracer.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+=========================================
+Uprobe-tracer: Uprobe-based Event Tracing
+=========================================
+
+:Author: Srikar Dronamraju
+
+
+Overview
+--------
+Uprobe based trace events are similar to kprobe based trace events.
+To enable this feature, build your kernel with CONFIG_UPROBE_EVENTS=y.
+
+Similar to the kprobe-event tracer, this doesn't need to be activated via
+current_tracer. Instead of that, add probe points via
+/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/uprobe_events, and enable it via
+/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/uprobes/<EVENT>/enabled.
+
+However unlike kprobe-event tracer, the uprobe event interface expects the
+user to calculate the offset of the probepoint in the object.
+
+Synopsis of uprobe_tracer
+-------------------------
+::
+
+  p[:[GRP/]EVENT] PATH:OFFSET [FETCHARGS] : Set a uprobe
+  r[:[GRP/]EVENT] PATH:OFFSET [FETCHARGS] : Set a return uprobe (uretprobe)
+  -:[GRP/]EVENT                           : Clear uprobe or uretprobe event
+
+  GRP           : Group name. If omitted, "uprobes" is the default value.
+  EVENT         : Event name. If omitted, the event name is generated based
+                  on PATH+OFFSET.
+  PATH          : Path to an executable or a library.
+  OFFSET        : Offset where the probe is inserted.
+
+  FETCHARGS     : Arguments. Each probe can have up to 128 args.
+   %REG         : Fetch register REG
+   @ADDR	: Fetch memory at ADDR (ADDR should be in userspace)
+   @+OFFSET	: Fetch memory at OFFSET (OFFSET from same file as PATH)
+   $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. Uprobe 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).
+String type is a special type, which fetches a "null-terminated" string from
+user space.
+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>
+
+For $comm, the default type is "string"; any other type is invalid.
+
+
+Event Profiling
+---------------
+You can check the total number of probe hits and probe miss-hits via
+/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/uprobe_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
+--------------
+ * Add a probe as a new uprobe event, write a new definition to uprobe_events
+   as below (sets a uprobe at an offset of 0x4245c0 in the executable /bin/bash)::
+
+    echo 'p /bin/bash:0x4245c0' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/uprobe_events
+
+ * Add a probe as a new uretprobe event::
+
+    echo 'r /bin/bash:0x4245c0' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/uprobe_events
+
+ * Unset registered event::
+
+    echo '-:p_bash_0x4245c0' >> /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/uprobe_events
+
+ * Print out the events that are registered::
+
+    cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/uprobe_events
+
+ * Clear all events::
+
+    echo > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/uprobe_events
+
+Following example shows how to dump the instruction pointer and %ax register
+at the probed text address. Probe zfree function in /bin/zsh::
+
+    # cd /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/
+    # cat /proc/`pgrep zsh`/maps | grep /bin/zsh | grep r-xp
+    00400000-0048a000 r-xp 00000000 08:03 130904 /bin/zsh
+    # objdump -T /bin/zsh | grep -w zfree
+    0000000000446420 g    DF .text  0000000000000012  Base        zfree
+
+0x46420 is the offset of zfree in object /bin/zsh that is loaded at
+0x00400000. Hence the command to uprobe would be::
+
+    # echo 'p:zfree_entry /bin/zsh:0x46420 %ip %ax' > uprobe_events
+
+And the same for the uretprobe would be::
+
+    # echo 'r:zfree_exit /bin/zsh:0x46420 %ip %ax' >> uprobe_events
+
+.. note:: User has to explicitly calculate the offset of the probe-point
+	in the object.
+
+We can see the events that are registered by looking at the uprobe_events file.
+::
+
+    # cat uprobe_events
+    p:uprobes/zfree_entry /bin/zsh:0x00046420 arg1=%ip arg2=%ax
+    r:uprobes/zfree_exit /bin/zsh:0x00046420 arg1=%ip arg2=%ax
+
+Format of events can be seen by viewing the file events/uprobes/zfree_entry/format.
+::
+
+    # cat events/uprobes/zfree_entry/format
+    name: zfree_entry
+    ID: 922
+    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:int common_padding;                 offset:8;  size:4; signed:1;
+
+         field:unsigned long __probe_ip;           offset:12; size:4; signed:0;
+         field:u32 arg1;                           offset:16; size:4; signed:0;
+         field:u32 arg2;                           offset:20; size:4; signed:0;
+
+    print fmt: "(%lx) arg1=%lx arg2=%lx", REC->__probe_ip, REC->arg1, REC->arg2
+
+Right after definition, each event is disabled by default. For tracing these
+events, you need to enable it by::
+
+    # echo 1 > events/uprobes/enable
+
+Lets disable the event after sleeping for some time.
+::
+
+    # sleep 20
+    # echo 0 > events/uprobes/enable
+
+And you can see the traced information via /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace.
+::
+
+    # cat trace
+    # tracer: nop
+    #
+    #           TASK-PID    CPU#    TIMESTAMP  FUNCTION
+    #              | |       |          |         |
+                 zsh-24842 [006] 258544.995456: zfree_entry: (0x446420) arg1=446420 arg2=79
+                 zsh-24842 [007] 258545.000270: zfree_exit:  (0x446540 <- 0x446420) arg1=446540 arg2=0
+                 zsh-24842 [002] 258545.043929: zfree_entry: (0x446420) arg1=446420 arg2=79
+                 zsh-24842 [004] 258547.046129: zfree_exit:  (0x446540 <- 0x446420) arg1=446540 arg2=0
+
+Output shows us uprobe was triggered for a pid 24842 with ip being 0x446420
+and contents of ax register being 79. And uretprobe was triggered with ip at
+0x446540 with counterpart function entry at 0x446420.