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c924c2c6 1<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
2<html>
3<head>
bc58079d 4 <title>Linux Trace Toolkit Next Generation User Documentation</title>
c924c2c6 5</head>
6 <body>
7
bc58079d 8<h1>Linux Trace Toolkit Next Generation User Documentation</h1>
c924c2c6 9
c924c2c6 10Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005<br>
24070967 11Last update : January 21st, 2009<br>
bc58079d 12(originally known as the LTTng QUICKSTART guide)
24070967 13
14<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
15<ul>
16
f9ff56f3 17<li><a href="#intro" name="TOCintro">Introduction</a></li>
24070967 18<li><a href="#section1" name="TOCsection1">Installing LTTng and LTTV from
19sources</a></li>
20<li><a href="#section2" name="TOCsection2">Using LTTng and LTTV</a></li>
21<li><a href="#section3" name="TOCsection3">Adding kernel and user-space
22tracepoints</a></li>
633bc4a3 23<li><a href="#section4" name="TOCsection4">Creating Debian and RPM packages
24from LTTV</a>
c924c2c6 25
f9ff56f3 26</ul>
27
28<hr />
29
b9e1fab1 30<h2><a href="#TOCintro" name="intro">Introduction</a></h2>
c924c2c6 31<p>
633bc4a3 32This document is made of four parts : the first one explains how
24070967 33to install LTTng and LTTV from sources, the second one describes the steps
633bc4a3 34to follow to trace a system and view it. The third part explains
c924c2c6 35briefly how to add a new trace point to the kernel and to user space
633bc4a3 36applications. The fourth and last part explains how to create Debian or RPM
37packages from the LTTng and LTTV sources.
c924c2c6 38<p>
24070967 39These operations are made for installing the LTTng 0.86 tracer on a linux 2.6.X
c924c2c6 40kernel. You will also find instructions for installation of LTTV 0.12.x : the
41Linux Trace Toolkit Viewer.
24070967 42To see the list of compatibilities between LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV, please
43refer to :
c924c2c6 44<a
45href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/svn/trunk/lttv/doc/developer/lttng-lttv-compatibility.html">LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility</a>
24070967 46The lttng patch is necessary to have the tracing hooks in the kernel.
c924c2c6 47
24070967 48<br>
49<br>
633bc4a3 50Supported architectures :
24070967 51<br>
c924c2c6 52LTTng :<br>
c924c2c6 53<li> x86 32/64 bits
54<li> PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
55<li> ARM (with limited timestamping precision, e.g. 1HZ. Need
56architecture-specific support for better precision)
57<li> MIPS
58<br>
24070967 59<br>
c924c2c6 60LTTV :<br>
c924c2c6 61<li> Intel 32/64 bits
62<li> PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
63<li> Possibly others. Takes care of endianness and type size difference between
64the LTTng traces and the LTTV analysis tool.
65
f9ff56f3 66<hr />
67
c924c2c6 68
89aa576c 69<h2><a href="#TOCsection1" name="section1">Installation from sources</a></h2>
633bc4a3 70<p>
c924c2c6 71
633bc4a3 72<li>Prerequisites</li>
73<ul>
74<p>
c924c2c6 75Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
76
633bc4a3 77<li>wget
78<li>bzip2
79<li>gzip
80<li>tar
c924c2c6 81
633bc4a3 82<p>
c924c2c6 83You have to install the standard development libraries and programs necessary
84to compile a kernel :
85
84cf5903 86<PRE>
c924c2c6 87(from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
84cf5903 88Gnu C 2.95.3 # gcc --version
89Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
90binutils 2.12 # ld -v
91util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
92module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
93</PRE>
c924c2c6 94
633bc4a3 95<p>
c924c2c6 96You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
97configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
98
633bc4a3 99<p>
c924c2c6 100Prerequisites for LTTV 0.x.x installation are :
101
84cf5903 102<PRE>
103gcc 3.2 or better
104gtk 2.4 or better development libraries
c924c2c6 105 (Debian : libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
106 (Fedora : gtk2, gtk2-devel)
107 note : For Fedora users : this might require at least core 3 from Fedora,
108 or you might have to compile your own GTK2 library.
84cf5903 109glib 2.4 or better development libraries
c924c2c6 110 (Debian : libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
111 (Fedora : glib2, glib2-devel)
84cf5903 112libpopt development libraries
c924c2c6 113 (Debian : libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
114 (Fedora : popt)
84cf5903 115libpango development libraries
c924c2c6 116 (Debian : libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
117 (Fedora : pango, pango-devel)
84cf5903 118libc6 development librairies
c924c2c6 119 (Debian : libc6, libc6-dev)
120 (Fedora : glibc, glibc)
84cf5903 121</PRE>
633bc4a3 122</ul>
c924c2c6 123
c8997124 124<li>Reminder</li>
c924c2c6 125
c8997124 126<p>
633bc4a3 127See the list of compatibilities between LTTng, ltt-control and LTTV at :
128<a
129href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/svn/trunk/lttv/doc/developer/lttng-lttv-compatibility.html">LTTng+LTTV
130versions compatibility</a>.
c924c2c6 131
132
c8997124 133<li>Getting the LTTng packages</li>
c924c2c6 134
c8997124 135<PRE>
c924c2c6 136su -
137mkdir /usr/src/lttng
138cd /usr/src/lttng
139(see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
140wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2
141bzip2 -cd patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
c8997124 142</PRE>
c924c2c6 143
144
c8997124 145<li>Getting LTTng kernel sources</li>
c924c2c6 146
c8997124 147<PRE>
c924c2c6 148su -
149cd /usr/src
150wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2
151bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
152cd linux-2.6.X
153- For LTTng 0.9.4- cat /usr/src/lttng/patch*-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx* | patch -p1
154- For LTTng 0.9.5+ apply the patches in the order specified in the series file,
155 or use quilt
156cd ..
157mv linux-2.6.X linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
c8997124 158</PRE>
c924c2c6 159
160
c8997124 161<li>Installing a LTTng kernel</li>
c924c2c6 162
c8997124 163<PRE>
c924c2c6 164su -
165cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
166make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
167 Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
168 configuration.
169 Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
170 Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
171 Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
172 go to the "General setup" section
173 Select the following options :
174 [*] Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers
175 [*] Activate markers
176 [*] Activate userspace markers ABI (experimental, optional)
177 [*] Immediate value optimization (optional)
178 [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Next Generation (LTTng) --->
179 <M> or <*> Compile lttng tracing probes
180 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit High-speed Lockless Data Relay
181 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Lock-Protected Data Relay
182 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Serializer
183 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Marker Control
184 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
185 [*] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
186 <M> or <*> Support logging events from userspace
187 [*] Support trace extraction from crash dump
188 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Trace Controller
189 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit State Dump
190 Select <Exit>
191 Select <Exit>
192 Select <Yes>
193make
194make modules_install
195(if necessary, create a initrd with mkinitrd or your preferate alternative)
196(mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx)
197
198-- on X86, X86_64
199make install
200reboot
201Select the Linux 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
202
203-- on PowerPC
204cp vmlinux.strip /boot/vmlinux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
205cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
206cp .config /boot/config-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
207depmod -ae -F /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
208mkinitrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
209(edit /etc/yaboot.conf to add a new entry pointing to your kernel : the entry
210that comes first is the default kernel)
211ybin
212select the right entry at the yaboot prompt (see choices : tab, select : type
213the kernel name followed by enter)
214Select the Linux 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
215--
c8997124 216</PRE>
c924c2c6 217
c8997124 218<li>Editing the system wide configuration</li>
c924c2c6 219
c8997124 220<p>
c924c2c6 221You must activate debugfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
c8997124 222fstab such that it happens at boot time. If you have never used DebugFS before,
223these operation would do this for you :
c924c2c6 224
c8997124 225<PRE>
c924c2c6 226mkdir /mnt/debugfs
227cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
228echo "debugfs /mnt/debugfs debugfs rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
c8997124 229</PRE>
c924c2c6 230
c8997124 231<p>
c924c2c6 232then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate debugfs :
c8997124 233<PRE>
c924c2c6 234mount /mnt/debugfs
c8997124 235</PRE>
c924c2c6 236
c8997124 237<p>
c924c2c6 238You need to load the LTT modules to be able to control tracing from user
239space. This is done by issuing the following commands. Note however
240these commands load all LTT modules. Depending on what options you chose to
241compile statically, you may not need to issue all these commands.
242
c8997124 243<PRE>
c924c2c6 244modprobe ltt-trace-control
245modprobe ltt-marker-control
246modprobe ltt-tracer
247modprobe ltt-serialize
248modprobe ltt-relay
249modprobe ipc-trace
250modprobe kernel-trace
251modprobe mm-trace
252modprobe net-trace
253modprobe fs-trace
254modprobe jbd2-trace
255modprobe ext4-trace
256modprobe syscall-trace
257modprobe trap-trace
258#if locking tracing is wanted, uncomment the following
259#modprobe lockdep-trace
c8997124 260</PRE>
c924c2c6 261
c8997124 262<p>
c924c2c6 263If you want to have complete information about the kernel state (including all
264the process names), you need to load the ltt-statedump module. This is done by
265issuing the command :
266
c8997124 267<PRE>
c924c2c6 268modprobe ltt-statedump
c8997124 269</PRE>
270<p>
c924c2c6 271You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
272
c8997124 273<PRE>
c924c2c6 274cp /etc/modules /etc/modules.bkp
275echo ltt-trace-control >> /etc/modules
276echo ltt-marker-control >> /etc/modules
277echo ltt-tracer >> /etc/modules
278echo ltt-serialize >> /etc/modules
279echo ltt-relay >> /etc/modules
280echo ipc-trace >> /etc/modules
281echo kernel-trace >> /etc/modules
282echo mm-trace >> /etc/modules
283echo net-trace >> /etc/modules
284echo fs-trace >> /etc/modules
285echo jbd2-trace >> /etc/modules
286echo ext4-trace >> /etc/modules
287echo syscall-trace >> /etc/modules
288echo trap-trace >> /etc/modules
289#if locking tracing is wanted, uncomment the following
290#echo lockdep-trace >> /etc/modules
c8997124 291</PRE>
c924c2c6 292
c8997124 293<li>Getting and installing the ltt-control package (on the traced machine)</li>
294<p>
c924c2c6 295(note : the ltt-control package contains lttd and lttctl. Although it has the
296same name as the ltt-control kernel module, they are *not* the same thing.)
c8997124 297
298<PRE>
c924c2c6 299su -
300cd /usr/src
301wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz
302gzip -cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2008.tar.gz | tar xvof -
303cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006
304(refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
305system)
306./configure
307make
308make install
c8997124 309</PRE>
c924c2c6 310
c8997124 311<li>Userspace tracing</li>
c924c2c6 312
c8997124 313<PRE>
c924c2c6 314Make sure you selected the kernel menuconfig option :
315 <M> or <*> Support logging events from userspace
316And that the ltt-userspace-event kernel module is loaded if selected as a
317module.
318
319Simple userspace tracing is available through
320echo "some text to record" > /mnt/debugfs/ltt/write_event
321
322It will appear in the trace under event :
323channel : userspace
324event name : event
c8997124 325</PRE>
c924c2c6 326
c8997124 327<li>Getting and installing the LTTV package (on the visualisation machine, same
328or different from the visualisation machine)</li>
c924c2c6 329
c8997124 330<PRE>
c924c2c6 331su -
332cd /usr/src
333wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008.tar.gz
334gzip -cd lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008.tar.gz | tar xvof -
335cd lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008
336(refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on your
337system)
338./configure
339make
340make install
13d7a628 341</PRE>
c924c2c6 342
c8997124 343<hr />
c924c2c6 344
c924c2c6 345
89aa576c 346<h2><a href="#TOCsection2" name="section2">Using LTTng and LTTV</a></h2>
c924c2c6 347
c8997124 348<li>IMPORTANT : Arm Linux Kernel Markers after each boot</li>
c8997124 349<PRE>
c924c2c6 350ltt-armall
c8997124 351</PRE>
c924c2c6 352
c8997124 353<li>Use graphical LTTV to control tracing and analyse traces</li>
c8997124 354<PRE>
c924c2c6 355lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
356 - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
357 (it's a traffic light icon)
358 - enter the root password
359 - click "start"
360 - click "stop"
361 - Yes
362 * You should now see a trace
c8997124 363</PRE>
c924c2c6 364
c8997124 365<li>Use text mode LTTng to control tracing</li>
c8997124 366<PRE>
c924c2c6 367The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
368root).
369
370Start tracing :
371
372lttctl -C -w /tmp/trace1 trace1
373
374Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
375
376lttctl -D trace1
377
378see lttctl --help for details.
df7f63ab 379</PRE>
c8997124 380<p>
c924c2c6 381(note : to see if the buffers has been filled, look at the dmesg output after
382lttctl -R or after stopping tracing from the GUI, it will show an event lost
383count. If it is the case, try using larger buffers. See lttctl --help to learn
384how. lttv now also shows event lost messages in the console when loading a trace
385with missing events or lost subbuffers.)
386
c8997124 387<li>Use text mode LTTV</li>
c8997124 388<p>
c924c2c6 389Feel free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
390graphical plugins available.
c8997124 391<p>
c924c2c6 392For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
c8997124 393<PRE>
c924c2c6 394lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
c8997124 395</PRE>
c8997124 396<p>
397See lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
c8997124 398<p>
c924c2c6 399It is, in the current state of the project, very useful to use "grep" on the
400text output to filter by specific event fields. You can later copy the timestamp
401of the events to the clipboard and paste them in the GUI by clicking on the
402bottom right label "Current time". Support for this type of filtering should
403be added to the filter module soon.
404
c8997124 405<li>Hybrid mode</li>
c8997124 406<p>
c924c2c6 407Starting from LTTng 0.5.105 and ltt-control 0.20, a new mode can be used :
408hybrid. It can be especially useful when studying big workloads on a long period
409of time.
c8997124 410<p>
c924c2c6 411When using this mode, the most important, low rate control information will be
412recorded during all the trace by lttd (i.e. process creation/exit). The high
413rate information (i.e. interrupt/traps/syscall entry/exit) will be kept in a
414flight recorder buffer (now named flight-channelname_X).
c8997124 415<p>
c924c2c6 416The following lttctl commands take an hybrid trace :
c8997124 417<p>
c924c2c6 418Create trace channel, start lttd on normal channels, start tracing:
c8997124 419<PRE>
c924c2c6 420lttctl -C -w /tmp/trace2 -o channel.kernel.overwrite=1 trace2
c8997124 421</PRE>
422<p>
c924c2c6 423Stop tracing, start lttd on flight recorder channels, destroy trace channels :
c8997124 424<PRE>
c924c2c6 425lttctl -D -w /tmp/trace2 trace2
c8997124 426</PRE>
427<p>
c924c2c6 428Each "overwrite" channel is flight recorder channel.
429
c8997124 430<li>Flight recorder mode</li>
c8997124 431<p>
c924c2c6 432The flight recorder mode writes data into overwritten buffers for all channels,
433including control channels, except for the facilities tracefiles. It consists of
434setting all channels to "overwrite".
c8997124 435<p>
c924c2c6 436The following lttctl commands take a flight recorder trace :
c8997124 437<PRE>
c924c2c6 438lttctl -C -w /tmp/trace3 -o channel.all.overwrite=1 trace3
439...
440lttctl -D -w /tmp/trace3 trace3
c8997124 441</PRE>
c924c2c6 442
89aa576c 443<hr />
444
445
446<h2><a href="#TOCsection3" name="section3">Adding new instrumentations with the
447markers</a></h2>
448<p>
c924c2c6 449
89aa576c 450<p>
c924c2c6 451See Documentation/markers.txt and Documentation/tracepoints.txt in your kernel
452tree.
453
2e4e30d7 454<li>Add new events to userspace programs with
455<a href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/">userspace markers packages</a></li>
c924c2c6 456
89aa576c 457<p>
c924c2c6 458Get the latest markers-userspace-*.tar.bz2 and see the Makefile and examples. It
459allows inserting markers in executables and libraries, currently only on x86_32
460and x86_64.
461
e01a1ce1 462See <a
463href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/markers-userspace-0.5.tar.bz2">markers-userspace-0.5.tar.bz2</a> or more recent.
464
465Note that a new design document for a 3rd generation of tracepoint/marker-based
466userspace tracing is available at <a
467href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/svn/trunk/lttv/doc/developer/ust.html">LTTng User-space Tracing
468Design"</a>.
469
89aa576c 470<hr />
633bc4a3 471
89aa576c 472<h2><a href="#TOCsection4" name="section4">Creating Debian or RPM packages</a></h2>
473<p>
633bc4a3 474
89aa576c 475<li>Create custom LTTV Debian packages</li>
633bc4a3 476
89aa576c 477<PRE>
478Use : dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
479</PRE>
480<p>
633bc4a3 481You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
482
89aa576c 483<li>Create custom LTTng packages</li>
484<p>
633bc4a3 485For building LTTng Debian packages :
89aa576c 486get the build tree with patches applies as explained in section 2.
633bc4a3 487
89aa576c 488<PRE>
633bc4a3 489make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
490make-kpkg kernel_image
89aa576c 491</PRE>
492<p>
633bc4a3 493You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
89aa576c 494<PRE>
633bc4a3 495dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
89aa576c 496</PRE>
497<p>
633bc4a3 498Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
499
500
501
c924c2c6 502 </body>
503</html>
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