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1<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
2<html>
3<head>
4 <title>Linux Trace Toolkit Next Generation Manual</title>
5</head>
6 <body>
7
8<h1>Linux Trace Toolkit Next Generation Manual</h1>
9
10Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005<br>
11Last update : January 21st, 2009<br>
12(originally known as the LTTng QUICKSTART guide)
13
14<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
15
16<ul>
17<li><a href="#intro" name="TOCintro">Introduction</a></li>
18<ul>
19<li><a href="#arch" name="TOCarch">Supported architectures</a></li>
20</ul>
21
22<li><a href="#section1" name="TOCsection1">Installing LTTng and LTTV from
23sources</a></li>
24<ul>
25<li><a href="#prerequisites" name="TOCprerequisites">Prerequisistes</li>
26<li><a href="#getlttng" name="TOCgetlttng">Getting the LTTng packages</li>
27<li><a href="#getlttngsrc" name="TOCgetlttngsrc">Getting the LTTng kernel sources</li>
28<li><a href="#installlttng" name="TOCinstalllttng">Installing a LTTng kernel</li>
29<li><a href="#editconfig" name="TOCeditconfig">Editing the system wide
30configuration</a>
31<li><a href="#getlttctl" name="TOCgetlttctl">Getting and installing the
32ltt-control package</li>
33<li><a href="#userspacetracing" name="TOCuserspacetracing">Userspace Tracing</li>
34<li><a href="#getlttv" name="TOCgetlttv">Getting and installing the LTTV package</ul>
35
36<li><a href="#section2" name="TOCsection2">Using LTTng and LTTV</a></li>
37<ul>
38<li><a href="#uselttvgui" name="TOCuselttvgui">Use graphical LTTV to control
39tracing and analyse traces</a></li>
40<li><a href="#uselttngtext" name="TOCuselttngtext">Use text mode LTTng to
41control tracing</a></li>
42<li><a href="#uselttvtext" name="TOCuselttvtext">Use text mode LTTV</a></li>
43<li><a href="#hybrid" name="TOChybrid">Tracing in "Hybrid" mode</a></li>
44<li><a href="#flight" name="TOCflight">Tracing in flight recorder mode</a></li>
45</ul>
46
47<li><a href="#section3" name="TOCsection3">Adding kernel and user-space
48instrumentation</a>
49<ul>
50<li><a href="#kerneltp" name="TOCkerneltp">Adding kernel instrumentation</a></li>
51<li><a href="#usertp" name="TOCusertp">Adding userspace instrumentation</a></li>
52</ul>
53
54<li><a href="#section4" name="TOCsection4">Creating Debian and RPM packages
55from LTTV</a></li>
56<ul>
57<li><a href="#pkgdebian" name="TOCpkgdebian">Create custom LTTV Debian
58<li><a href="#pkglttng" name="TOCpkglttng">Create custom LTTng packages</a></li>
59</ul>
60
61</ul>
62
63<hr />
64
65<h2><a href="#TOCintro" name="intro">Introduction</a></h2>
66<p>
67This document is made of five parts : the first one explains how
68to install LTTng and LTTV from sources, the second one describes the steps
69to follow to trace a system and view it. The third part explains
70briefly how to add a new trace point to the kernel and to user space
71applications. The fourth and last part explains how to create Debian or RPM
72packages from the LTTng and LTTV sources.
73<p>
74These operations are made for installing the LTTng 0.86 tracer on a linux 2.6.X
75kernel. You will also find instructions for installation of LTTV 0.12.x : the
76Linux Trace Toolkit Viewer.
77To see the list of compatibilities between LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV, please
78refer to :
79<a
80href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/svn/trunk/lttv/doc/developer/lttng-lttv-compatibility.html">LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility</a>
81
82The ongoing work had the Linux Kernel Markers integrated in the mainline Linux
83kernel since Linux 2.6.24 and the Tracepoints since 2.6.28. In its current
84state, the lttng patchset is necessary to have the trace clocksource, the
85instrumentation and the LTTng high-speed data extraction mechanism added to the
86kernel.
87
88<br>
89<br>
90<h3><a href="#TOCarch" name="arch">Supported architectures</a></h3>
91<br>
92LTTng :<br>
93<br>
94<li> x86 32/64 bits
95<li> PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
96<li> ARMv7 OMAP3
97<li> Other ARM (with limited timestamping precision, e.g. 1HZ. Need
98architecture-specific support for better precision)
99<li> MIPS
100<li> sh (partial architecture-specific instrumentation)
101<li> sparc64 (partial architecture-specific instrumentation)
102<li> s390 (partial architecture-specific instrumentation)
103<li> Other architectures supported without architecture-specific instrumentation
104and with low-resolution timestamps.<br>
105<br>
106<br>
107LTTV :<br>
108<br>
109<li> Intel 32/64 bits
110<li> PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
111<li> Possibly others. Takes care of endianness and type size difference between
112the LTTng traces and the LTTV analysis tool.
113
114<hr />
115
116
117<h2><a href="#TOCsection1" name="section1">Installation from sources</a></h2>
118<p>
119
120<h3><a href="#TOCprerequisites" name="prerequisites">Prerequisites</a></h3>
121<ul>
122<p>
123Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
124
125<li>wget
126<li>bzip2
127<li>gzip
128<li>tar
129
130<p>
131You have to install the standard development libraries and programs necessary
132to compile a kernel :
133
134<PRE>
135(from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
136Gnu C 2.95.3 # gcc --version
137Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
138binutils 2.12 # ld -v
139util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
140module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
141</PRE>
142
143<p>
144You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
145configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
146
147<p>
148Prerequisites for LTTV 0.x.x installation are :
149
150<PRE>
151gcc 3.2 or better
152gtk 2.4 or better development libraries
153 (Debian : libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
154 (Fedora : gtk2, gtk2-devel)
155 note : For Fedora users : this might require at least core 3 from Fedora,
156 or you might have to compile your own GTK2 library.
157glib 2.4 or better development libraries
158 (Debian : libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
159 (Fedora : glib2, glib2-devel)
160libpopt development libraries
161 (Debian : libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
162 (Fedora : popt)
163libpango development libraries
164 (Debian : libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
165 (Fedora : pango, pango-devel)
166libc6 development librairies
167 (Debian : libc6, libc6-dev)
168 (Fedora : glibc, glibc)
169</PRE>
170</ul>
171
172<li>Reminder</li>
173
174<p>
175See the list of compatibilities between LTTng, ltt-control and LTTV at :
176<a
177href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/svn/trunk/lttv/doc/developer/lttng-lttv-compatibility.html">LTTng+LTTV
178versions compatibility</a>.
179
180
181<h3><a href="#TOCgetlttng" name="getlttng">Getting the LTTng packages</a></h3>
182
183<PRE>
184su -
185mkdir /usr/src/lttng
186cd /usr/src/lttng
187(see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
188wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2
189bzip2 -cd patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
190</PRE>
191
192
193<h3><a href="#TOCgetlttngsrc" name="getlttngsrc">Getting LTTng kernel sources</a></h3>
194
195<PRE>
196su -
197cd /usr/src
198wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2
199bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
200cd linux-2.6.X
201- For LTTng 0.9.4- cat /usr/src/lttng/patch*-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx* | patch -p1
202- For LTTng 0.9.5+ apply the patches in the order specified in the series file,
203 or use quilt
204cd ..
205mv linux-2.6.X linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
206</PRE>
207
208
209<h3><a href="#TOCinstalllttng" name="installlttng">Installing a LTTng kernel</a></h3>
210
211<PRE>
212su -
213cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
214make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
215 Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
216 configuration.
217 Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
218 Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
219 Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
220 go to the "General setup" section
221 Select the following options :
222 [*] Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers
223 [*] Activate markers
224 [*] Activate userspace markers ABI (experimental, optional)
225 [*] Immediate value optimization (optional)
226 [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Next Generation (LTTng) --->
227 <M> or <*> Compile lttng tracing probes
228 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit High-speed Lockless Data Relay
229 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Lock-Protected Data Relay
230 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Serializer
231 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Marker Control
232 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
233 [*] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
234 <M> or <*> Support logging events from userspace
235 [*] Support trace extraction from crash dump
236 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Trace Controller
237 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit State Dump
238 Select <Exit>
239 Select <Exit>
240 Select <Yes>
241make
242make modules_install
243(if necessary, create a initrd with mkinitrd or your preferate alternative)
244(mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx)
245
246-- on X86, X86_64
247make install
248reboot
249Select the Linux 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
250
251-- on PowerPC
252cp vmlinux.strip /boot/vmlinux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
253cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
254cp .config /boot/config-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
255depmod -ae -F /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
256mkinitrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
257(edit /etc/yaboot.conf to add a new entry pointing to your kernel : the entry
258that comes first is the default kernel)
259ybin
260select the right entry at the yaboot prompt (see choices : tab, select : type
261the kernel name followed by enter)
262Select the Linux 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
263--
264</PRE>
265
266<h3><a href="#TOCeditconfig" name="editconfig">Editing the system wide
267configuration</a></h3>
268
269<p>
270You must activate debugfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
271fstab such that it happens at boot time. If you have never used DebugFS before,
272these operation would do this for you :
273
274<PRE>
275mkdir /mnt/debugfs
276cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
277echo "debugfs /mnt/debugfs debugfs rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
278</PRE>
279
280<p>
281then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate debugfs :
282<PRE>
283mount /mnt/debugfs
284</PRE>
285
286<p>
287You need to load the LTT modules to be able to control tracing from user
288space. This is done by issuing the following commands. Note however
289these commands load all LTT modules. Depending on what options you chose to
290compile statically, you may not need to issue all these commands.
291
292<PRE>
293modprobe ltt-trace-control
294modprobe ltt-marker-control
295modprobe ltt-tracer
296modprobe ltt-serialize
297modprobe ltt-relay
298modprobe ipc-trace
299modprobe kernel-trace
300modprobe mm-trace
301modprobe net-trace
302modprobe fs-trace
303modprobe jbd2-trace
304modprobe ext4-trace
305modprobe syscall-trace
306modprobe trap-trace
307#if locking tracing is wanted, uncomment the following
308#modprobe lockdep-trace
309</PRE>
310
311<p>
312If you want to have complete information about the kernel state (including all
313the process names), you need to load the ltt-statedump module. This is done by
314issuing the command :
315
316<PRE>
317modprobe ltt-statedump
318</PRE>
319<p>
320You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
321
322<PRE>
323cp /etc/modules /etc/modules.bkp
324echo ltt-trace-control >> /etc/modules
325echo ltt-marker-control >> /etc/modules
326echo ltt-tracer >> /etc/modules
327echo ltt-serialize >> /etc/modules
328echo ltt-relay >> /etc/modules
329echo ipc-trace >> /etc/modules
330echo kernel-trace >> /etc/modules
331echo mm-trace >> /etc/modules
332echo net-trace >> /etc/modules
333echo fs-trace >> /etc/modules
334echo jbd2-trace >> /etc/modules
335echo ext4-trace >> /etc/modules
336echo syscall-trace >> /etc/modules
337echo trap-trace >> /etc/modules
338#if locking tracing is wanted, uncomment the following
339#echo lockdep-trace >> /etc/modules
340</PRE>
341
342
343<h3><a href="#TOCgetlttctl" name="getlttctl">Getting and installing the
344ltt-control package (on the traced machine)</a></h3>
345<p>
346(note : the ltt-control package contains lttd and lttctl. Although it has the
347same name as the ltt-control kernel module, they are *not* the same thing.)
348
349<PRE>
350su -
351cd /usr/src
352wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz
353gzip -cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2008.tar.gz | tar xvof -
354cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006
355(refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
356system)
357./configure
358make
359make install
360# (run ldconfig to ensure new shared objects are taken into account)
361ldconfig
362</PRE>
363
364<h3><a href="#TOCuserspacetracing" name="userspacetracing">Userspace tracing</a></h3>
365
366<PRE>
367Make sure you selected the kernel menuconfig option :
368 <M> or <*> Support logging events from userspace
369And that the ltt-userspace-event kernel module is loaded if selected as a
370module.
371
372Simple userspace tracing is available through
373echo "some text to record" > /mnt/debugfs/ltt/write_event
374
375It will appear in the trace under event :
376channel : userspace
377event name : event
378</PRE>
379
380<h3><a href="#TOCgetlttv" name="getlttv">Getting and installing the LTTV package
381(on the visualisation machine, same
382or different from the visualisation machine)</a></h3>
383
384<PRE>
385su -
386cd /usr/src
387wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008.tar.gz
388gzip -cd lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008.tar.gz | tar xvof -
389cd lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008
390(refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on your
391system)
392./configure
393make
394make install
395# (run ldconfig to ensure new shared objects are taken into account)
396ldconfig
397</PRE>
398
399<hr />
400
401
402<h2><a href="#TOCsection2" name="section2">Using LTTng and LTTV</a></h2>
403
404<li><b>IMPORTANT : Arm Linux Kernel Markers after each boot before tracing</b></li>
405<PRE>
406ltt-armall
407</PRE>
408
409<h3><a href="#TOCuselttvgui" name="uselttvgui">Use graphical LTTV to control
410tracing and analyse traces</a></h3>
411<PRE>
412lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
413 - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
414 (it's a traffic light icon)
415 - enter the root password
416 - click "start"
417 - click "stop"
418 - Yes
419 * You should now see a trace
420</PRE>
421
422<h3><a href="#TOCuselttngtext" name="uselttngtext">Use text mode LTTng to control tracing</a></h3>
423<PRE>
424The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
425root).
426
427Start tracing :
428
429lttctl -C -w /tmp/trace1 trace1
430
431Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
432
433lttctl -D trace1
434
435see lttctl --help for details.
436</PRE>
437<p>
438(note : to see if the buffers has been filled, look at the dmesg output after
439lttctl -D or after stopping tracing from the GUI, it will show an event lost
440count. If it is the case, try using larger buffers. See lttctl --help to learn
441how. lttv now also shows event lost messages in the console when loading a trace
442with missing events or lost subbuffers.)
443
444<h3><a href="#TOCuselttvtext" name="uselttvtext">Use text mode LTTV</a></h3>
445<p>
446Feel free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
447graphical plugins available.
448<p>
449For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
450<PRE>
451lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
452</PRE>
453<p>
454See lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
455<p>
456It is, in the current state of the project, very useful to use "grep" on the
457text output to filter by specific event fields. You can later copy the timestamp
458of the events to the clipboard and paste them in the GUI by clicking on the
459bottom right label "Current time". Support for this type of filtering should
460be added to the filter module soon.
461
462<h3><a href="#TOChybrid" name="hybrid">Tracing in "Hybrid" mode</a></h3>
463<p>
464Starting from LTTng 0.5.105 and ltt-control 0.20, a new mode can be used :
465hybrid. It can be especially useful when studying big workloads on a long period
466of time.
467<p>
468When using this mode, the most important, low rate control information will be
469recorded during all the trace by lttd (i.e. process creation/exit). The high
470rate information (i.e. interrupt/traps/syscall entry/exit) will be kept in a
471flight recorder buffer (now named flight-channelname_X).
472<p>
473The following lttctl commands take an hybrid trace :
474<p>
475Create trace channel, start lttd on normal channels, start tracing:
476<PRE>
477lttctl -C -w /tmp/trace2 -o channel.kernel.overwrite=1 trace2
478</PRE>
479<p>
480Stop tracing, start lttd on flight recorder channels, destroy trace channels :
481<PRE>
482lttctl -D -w /tmp/trace2 trace2
483</PRE>
484<p>
485Each "overwrite" channel is flight recorder channel.
486
487
488<h3><a href="#TOCflight" name="flight">Tracing in flight recorder mode</a></h3>
489<li>Flight recorder mode</li>
490<p>
491The flight recorder mode writes data into overwritten buffers for all channels,
492including control channels, except for the facilities tracefiles. It consists of
493setting all channels to "overwrite".
494<p>
495The following lttctl commands take a flight recorder trace :
496<PRE>
497lttctl -C -w /tmp/trace3 -o channel.all.overwrite=1 trace3
498...
499lttctl -D -w /tmp/trace3 trace3
500</PRE>
501
502<hr />
503
504
505<h2><a href="#TOCsection3" name="section3">Adding new instrumentations with the
506markers</a></h2>
507<p>
508
509<h3><a href="#TOCkerneltp" name="kerneltp">Adding kernel
510instrumentation</a></h3>
511
512<p>
513See <a
514href="http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/compudj/linux-2.6-lttng.git;a=blob;f=Documentation/markers.txt">Documentation/markers.txt</a>
515and <a
516href="http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/compudj/linux-2.6-lttng.git;a=blob;f=Documentation/trace/tracepoints.txt">Documentation/trace/tracepoints.txt</a> in your kernel
517tree.
518<p>
519Also see <a
520href="http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/compudj/linux-2.6-lttng.git;a=tree;f=ltt/probes">ltt/probes/</a>
521for LTTng probe examples.
522
523<h3><a href="#TOCusertp" name="usertp">Adding userspace instrumentation</a></h3>
524
525Add new events to userspace programs with
526<a href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/">userspace markers packages</a>.
527Get the latest markers-userspace-*.tar.bz2 and see the Makefile and examples. It
528allows inserting markers in executables and libraries, currently only on x86_32
529and x86_64.
530See <a
531href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/markers-userspace-0.5.tar.bz2">markers-userspace-0.5.tar.bz2</a> or more recent.
532
533<p>
534Note that a new design document for a 3rd generation of tracepoint/marker-based
535userspace tracing is available at <a
536href="http://ltt.polymtl.ca/svn/trunk/lttv/doc/developer/ust.html">LTTng User-space Tracing
537Design</a>. This new infrastructure is not yet implemented.
538
539<p>
540The easy quick-and-dirty way to perform userspace tracing is currently to write
541an string to /mnt/debugfs/ltt/write_event. See <a
542href="#userspacetracing">Userspace tracing</a> in the
543installation for sources section of this document.
544
545<hr />
546
547<h2><a href="#TOCsection4" name="section4">Creating Debian or RPM packages</a></h2>
548<p>
549
550<h3><a href="#TOCpkgdebian" name="pkgdebian">Create custom LTTV Debian packages</a></h3>
551
552<PRE>
553Use : dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
554</PRE>
555<p>
556You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
557
558<h3><a href="#TOCpkglttng" name="pkglttng">Create custom LTTng packages</a></h3>
559<p>
560For building LTTng Debian packages :
561get the build tree with patches applies as explained in section 2.
562
563<PRE>
564make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
565make-kpkg kernel_image
566</PRE>
567<p>
568You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
569<PRE>
570dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
571</PRE>
572<p>
573Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
574
575<hr />
576
577 </body>
578</html>
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