ltt/branches/poly/QUICKSTART

   1
   2 QUICKSTART
   3
   4 How to use LTTng and LTTV in a few lines :
   5
   6 This document is made of four parts : The first one explains how to install
   7 LTTng and LTTV from Debian and RPM binary packages, the second one explains how
   8 to install LTTng and LTTV from sources and the third one describes the steps
   9 to follow to trace a system and view it. The fourth and last part explains
  10 briefly how to add a new trace point to the kernel and to user space
  11 applications.
  12
  13 What you will typically want is to read sections 2 and 3 : install LTTng from
  14 sources and use it.
  15
  16 These operations are made for installing the LTTng 0.6.X tracer on a
  17 linux 2.6.X kernel. You will also find instructions for installation of
  18 LTTV 0.8.x : the Linux Trace Toolkit Viewer.
  19
  20 To see the list of compatibilities between LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV, genevent
  21 and ltt-usertrace, please refer to :
  22 http://ltt.polymtl.ca > LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility
  23
  24
  25
  26 The following lttng patch is necessary to have the tracing hooks in the kernel.
  27 The following ltt-control module controls the tracing.
  28
  29 Required programs and librairies are assumed to be automatically installed in an
  30 installation with Debian or RPM packages. In the case of an installation from
  31 sources, the dependencies are listed.
  32
  33
  34 ** Current development status **
  35
  36 LTTng :
  37 supported architectures :
  38 Intel Pentium (UP/SMP) with TSC
  39 PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
  40 ARM
  41 x86_64
  42 C2 Microsystems (variant of MIPS)
  43
  44 LTTV :
  45 supported architectures :
  46 Intel i386 and better
  47 Intel 64 bits
  48 PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
  49
  50
  51
  52 Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005
  53 Last update : May 30, 2006
  54
  55
  56 ***********************************************************
  57 ** Section 1 * Installation from Debian or RPM packages  **
  58 ***********************************************************
  59
  60 ** NOTE : RPM and debian packages are only made once a version has been
  61    thoroughly tested. If they do not exist at the moment, please install from
  62    sources (see section 2 below). To see the list of compatibilities between
  63    LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV, genevent and lttng-modules, please refer to
  64    http://ltt.polymtl.ca > LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility
  65
  66
  67 * Install from RPM packages on Fedora Core 4 :
  68
  69 Get LTTV RPM from :
  70
  71 http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/fedora/RPMS
  72
  73 LTTV RPM are ready.
  74
  75 LTTng kernel and lttng-modules RPM are available for some architectures (i586,
  76 i686). Feel free to help fix the spec files to have correct lttng-modules RPM
  77 package.
  78
  79
  80 * Install from Deb packages on Debian :
  81
  82 You can use the ltt.polymtl.ca apt source to get LTTV for Debian :
  83
  84 Add the following two sources to your /etc/apt/sources.list :
  85
  86 deb http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
  87 deb-src http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
  88
  89
  90 * Install from precompiled binary packages (LTTV compiled only for i386, and
  91   LTTng only for i686 smp), perform the following :
  92
  93 su -
  94 apt-get update
  95 apt-get install lttv lttv-doc
  96 apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
  97 apt-get install lttng-modules-modules-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
  98   * note : the packages are signed by myself. I am not considered a trusted
  99     Debian source yet, so warnings are normal.
 100
 101 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
 102
 103 * Create custom LTTV Debian packages
 104
 105 Binary packages are only available for i386. If you want to create your own LTTV
 106 packages for other platforms, do :
 107
 108 su -
 109 cd /usr/src
 110 apt-get source lttv
 111 cd lttv-0.6.9
 112 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
 113
 114 You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
 115
 116 * Create custom LTTng packages
 117
 118 For building LTTng Debian packages :
 119
 120 su -
 121 apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
 122 cd /usr/src
 123 bzip2 -cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
 124 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
 125 make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
 126 make-kpkg kernel_image
 127
 128 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
 129 dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
 130
 131 You will also need to create a package for the lttng-modules :
 132
 133 su -
 134 cd /usr/src
 135 apt-get source lttng-modules
 136 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
 137 make-kpkg --added_modules /usr/src/lttng-modules-0.3 modules_image
 138
 139 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
 140 dpkg -i /usr/src/lttng-modules-modules-(your version).deb
 141
 142
 143 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
 144
 145
 146 ***********************************************************
 147 ** Section 2 * Installation from sources                 **
 148 ***********************************************************
 149
 150 * Prerequisites
 151
 152 Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
 153
 154 o wget
 155 o bzip2
 156 o gzip
 157 o tar
 158
 159 You have to install the standard development librairies and programs necessary
 160 to compile a kernel :
 161
 162 (from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
 163 o  Gnu C                  2.95.3                  # gcc --version
 164 o  Gnu make               3.79.1                  # make --version
 165 o  binutils               2.12                    # ld -v
 166 o  util-linux             2.10o                   # fdformat --version
 167 o  module-init-tools      0.9.10                  # depmod -V
 168
 169 You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
 170 configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
 171
 172 Prerequisites for LTTV 0.x.x installation are :
 173
 174 gcc 3.2 or better
 175 gtk 2.4 or better development libraries
 176   (Debian : libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
 177   (Fedora : gtk2, gtk2-devel)
 178   note : For Fedora users : this might require at least core 3 from Fedora,
 179   or you might have to compile your own GTK2 library.
 180 glib 2.4 or better development libraries
 181   (Debian : libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
 182   (Fedora : glib2, glib2-devel)
 183 libpopt development libraries
 184   (Debian : libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
 185   (Fedora : popt)
 186 libpango development libraries
 187   (Debian : libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
 188   (Fedora : pango, pango-devel)
 189 libc6 development librairies
 190   (Debian : libc6, libc6-dev)
 191   (Fedora : glibc, glibc)
 192
 193
 194 * Getting the LTTng packages
 195
 196 su -
 197 mkdir /usr/src/lttng
 198 cd /usr/src/lttng
 199 (see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
 200 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2
 201 bzip2 -cd patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
 202
 203
 204 * Getting LTTng kernel sources
 205
 206 su -
 207 cd /usr/src
 208 wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2
 209 bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
 210 cd linux-2.6.X
 211 cat /usr/src/lttng/patch*-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx* | patch -p1
 212 cd ..
 213 mv linux-2.6.X linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
 214
 215
 216 * Installing a LTTng kernel
 217
 218 su -
 219 cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
 220 make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
 221     Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
 222     configuration.
 223     Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
 224     Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
 225     Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
 226   go to the "Instrumentation Support" section
 227     Select the following options :
 228     [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Instrumentation Support
 229     <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
 230       <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Relay+DebugFS Support
 231         It makes no difference for the rest of the procedure whether the Tracer
 232         is compiled built-in or as a module.
 233     activate :
 234        [*] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
 235        [*] Allow tracing from userspace
 236        <M> Linux Trace Toolkit Netlink Controller
 237        <M> Linux Trace Toolkit State Dump
 238     your choice (see < Help >) :
 239        [ ] Activate Linux Trace Toolkit Heartbeat Timer
 240     You may or may not decide to compile probes. Afterward, you will have to
 241     load the probe modules to enable tracing of their events. The probes
 242     automatically select the appropriate facilities.
 243     Static instrumentation is a more invasive type of instrumentation that gives
 244     the address taking a lock or doing a printk.
 245   Select <Exit>
 246   Select <Exit>
 247   Select <Yes>
 248 make
 249 make modules_install
 250 (if necessary, create a initrd with mkinitrd or your preferate alternative)
 251 (mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx)
 252
 253 -- on X86, X86_64
 254 make install
 255 reboot
 256 Select the Linux 2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
 257
 258 -- on PowerPC
 259 cp vmlinux.strip /boot/vmlinux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
 260 cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
 261 cp .config /boot/config-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
 262 depmod -ae -F /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
 263 mkinitrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
 264 (edit /etc/yaboot.conf to add a new entry pointing to your kernel : the entry
 265 that comes first is the default kernel)
 266 ybin
 267 select the right entry at the yaboot prompt (see choices : tab, select : type
 268 the kernel name followed by enter)
 269 Select the Linux 2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
 270 --
 271
 272
 273
 274 * Editing the system wide configuration
 275
 276 You must activate debugfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
 277 fstab such that it happens at boot time.
 278
 279 If you have never used DebugFS before, these operation would do this for you :
 280
 281 mkdir /mnt/debugfs
 282 cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
 283 echo "debugfs         /mnt/debugfs    debugfs rw              0       0"  >> /etc/fstab
 284
 285 then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate debugfs :
 286
 287 mount /mnt/debugfs
 288
 289 You need to load the LTT modules to be able to control tracing from user
 290 space. This is done by issuing the command :
 291
 292 modprobe ltt-control
 293 modprobe ltt-core
 294 modprobe ltt-relay
 295 modprobe ltt-tracer
 296 modprobe ltt-probe-mm
 297 modprobe ltt-probe-kernel
 298 modprobe ltt-probe-i386 (or x86_64, powerpc, ppc, arm, mips)
 299 modprobe ltt-probe-net
 300 modprobe ltt-probe-list
 301 modprobe ltt-probe-ipc
 302 modprobe ltt-probe-fs
 303
 304 If you want to have complete information about the kernel state (including all
 305 the process names), you need to load the ltt-statedump module. This is done by
 306 issuing the command :
 307
 308 modprobe ltt-statedump
 309
 310 You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
 311
 312 cp /etc/modules /etc/modules.bkp
 313 echo ltt-control >> /etc/modules
 314 echo ltt-core >> /etc/modules
 315 echo ltt-relay >> /etc/modules
 316 echo ltt-tracer >> /etc/modules
 317 echo ltt-probe-mm >> /etc/modules
 318 echo ltt-probe-kernel >> /etc/modules
 319 echo ltt-probe-i386 >> /etc/modules (or x86_64, powerpc, ppc, arm, mips)
 320 echo ltt-probe-net >> /etc/modules
 321 echo ltt-probe-list >> /etc/modules
 322 echo ltt-probe-ipc >> /etc/modules
 323 echo ltt-probe-fs >> /etc/modules
 324 echo ltt-statedump >> /etc/modules
 325
 326 (note : if you want to probe a marker which is within a module, make sure you
 327 load the probe _after_ the module, otherwise the probe will not be able to
 328 connect itself to the marker.)
 329
 330
 331 * Getting and installing the ltt-control package (on the traced machine)
 332 (note : the ltt-control package contains lttd and lttctl. Although it has the
 333 same name as the ltt-control kernel module, they are *not* the same thing.)
 334 su -
 335 cd /usr/src
 336 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz
 337 gzip -cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
 338 cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006
 339 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
 340 system)
 341 ./configure
 342 make
 343 make install
 344
 345 * Getting and installing the ltt-usertrace package for user space tracing
 346 See http://ltt.polymtl.ca/ > USERSPACE TRACING QUICKSTART
 347
 348
 349 * Getting and installing the LTTV package (on the visualisation machine, same or
 350   different from the visualisation machine)
 351
 352 su -
 353 cd /usr/src
 354 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006.tar.gz
 355 gzip -cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
 356 cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006
 357 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
 358 system)
 359 ./configure
 360 make
 361 make install
 362
 363
 364
 365
 366 ***********************************************************
 367 ** Section 3 * Using LTTng and LTTV                      **
 368 ***********************************************************
 369
 370 * Use graphical LTTV to control tracing and analyse traces
 371
 372 lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
 373   - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
 374       (it's a traffic light icon)
 375     - enter the root password
 376     - click "start"
 377     - click "stop"
 378     - Yes
 379       * You should now see a trace
 380
 381 * Use text mode LTTng to control tracing
 382
 383 The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
 384 root).
 385
 386 Start tracing :
 387
 388 lttctl -n trace -d -l /mnt/debugfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace
 389
 390 Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
 391
 392 lttctl -n trace -R
 393
 394 see lttctl --help for details.
 395
 396 (note : to see if the buffers has been filled, look at the dmesg output after
 397 lttctl -R or after stopping tracing from the GUI, it will show an event lost
 398 count. If it is the case, try using larger buffers. See lttctl --help to learn
 399 how.)
 400
 401 * Use text mode LTTV
 402
 403 Feel free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
 404 graphical plugins available.
 405
 406 For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
 407
 408 lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
 409
 410 see lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
 411
 412 It is, in the current state of the project, very useful to use "grep" on the
 413 text output to filter by specific event fields. You can later copy the timestamp
 414 of the events to the clipboard and paste them in the GUI by clicking on the
 415 bottom right label "Current time". Support for this type of filtering should
 416 be added to the filter module soon.
 417
 418
 419 ***********************************************************
 420 ** Section 4 * Adding new instrumentations with genevent **
 421 ***********************************************************
 422
 423 * Getting and installing genevent
 424
 425 su -
 426 cd /usr/src
 427 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/genevent-0.xx.tar.gz
 428 gzip -cd genevent-0.xx.tar.gz | tar xvof -
 429 cd genevent-0.xx
 430 make
 431 make install
 432
 433
 434 * Add new events to the kernel with genevent (deprecated in LTTng 0.9.x)
 435
 436 su -
 437 cd /usr/local/share/ltt-control/facilities
 438 cp process.xml yourfacility.xml
 439   * edit yourfacility.xml to fit your needs.
 440 cd /tmp
 441 /usr/local/bin/genevent /usr/local/share/ltt-control/facilities/yourfacility.xml
 442 cp ltt-facility-yourfacility.h ltt-facility-id-yourfacility.h \
 443          /usr/src/linux-2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx8/include/ltt
 444 cp ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.c ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.h \
 445          /usr/src/linux-2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx/ltt/facilities
 446   * edit the kernel file you want to instrument to add a marker to it. See
 447     include/linux/marker.h.
 448   * create a dynamically loadable probe. See ltt/probes for examples. The probe
 449     will be connected to your marker and will typically call the logging
 450     functions found in the header file you created with genevent.
 451
 452 * Add new kernel events
 453
 454 *Important* note : in its current state, LTTng and LTTV needs the programmer
 455 to keep the marker/probe format string and the XML description of the
 456 event data types in sync by hand. Failure to do so will result in errors in
 457 LTTV.
 458
 459 See the markers documentation to see how to describe the marker. You will need
 460 to clone probe modules found in ltt/probes to connect them to the markers so
 461 that the information can be recorded in the trace.
 462
 463 * Add new events to userspace programs with genevent
 464 See http://ltt.polymtl.ca/ > USERSPACE TRACING QUICKSTART
 465
 466 User-space tracing still uses genevent, which is subject to change in a near
 467 future.
 468
 469
 470