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