Currently, RCU tracepoints save only a pointer to strings in the
ring buffer. When displayed via the /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace file
they are referenced like the printf "%s" that looks at the address
in the ring buffer and prints out the string it points too. This requires
that the strings are constant and persistent in the kernel.
The problem with this is for tools like trace-cmd and perf that read the
binary data from the buffers but have no access to the kernel memory to
find out what string is represented by the address in the buffer.
By using the tracepoint_string infrastructure, the RCU tracepoint strings
can be exported such that userspace tools can map the addresses to
the strings.
# cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/printk_formats
0xffffffff81a4a0e8 : "rcu_preempt"
0xffffffff81a4a0f4 : "rcu_bh"
0xffffffff81a4a100 : "rcu_sched"
0xffffffff818437a0 : "cpuqs"
0xffffffff818437a6 : "rcu_sched"
0xffffffff818437a0 : "cpuqs"
0xffffffff818437b0 : "rcu_bh"
0xffffffff818437b7 : "Start context switch"
0xffffffff818437cc : "End context switch"
0xffffffff818437a0 : "cpuqs"
[...]
Now userspaces tools can display:
rcu_utilization: Start context switch
rcu_dyntick: Start 1 0
rcu_utilization: End context switch
rcu_batch_start: rcu_preempt CBs=0/5 bl=10
rcu_dyntick: End 0 140000000000000
rcu_invoke_callback: rcu_preempt rhp=0xffff880071c0d600 func=proc_i_callback
rcu_invoke_callback: rcu_preempt rhp=0xffff880077b5b230 func=__d_free
rcu_dyntick: Start 140000000000000 0
rcu_invoke_callback: rcu_preempt rhp=0xffff880077563980 func=file_free_rcu
rcu_batch_end: rcu_preempt CBs-invoked=3 idle=>c<>c<>c<>c<
rcu_utilization: End RCU core
rcu_grace_period: rcu_preempt 9741 start
rcu_dyntick: Start 1 0
rcu_dyntick: End 0 140000000000000
rcu_dyntick: Start 140000000000000 0
Instead of:
rcu_utilization: ffffffff81843110
rcu_future_grace_period: ffffffff81842f1d 9939 9939 9940 0 0 3 ffffffff81842f32
rcu_batch_start: ffffffff81842f1d CBs=0/4 bl=10
rcu_future_grace_period: ffffffff81842f1d 9939 9939 9940 0 0 3 ffffffff81842f3c
rcu_grace_period: ffffffff81842f1d 9939 ffffffff81842f80
rcu_invoke_callback: ffffffff81842f1d rhp=0xffff88007888aac0 func=file_free_rcu
rcu_grace_period: ffffffff81842f1d 9939 ffffffff81842f95
rcu_invoke_callback: ffffffff81842f1d rhp=0xffff88006aeb4600 func=proc_i_callback
rcu_future_grace_period: ffffffff81842f1d 9939 9939 9940 0 0 3 ffffffff81842f32
rcu_future_grace_period: ffffffff81842f1d 9939 9939 9940 0 0 3 ffffffff81842f3c
rcu_invoke_callback: ffffffff81842f1d rhp=0xffff880071cb9fc0 func=__d_free
rcu_grace_period: ffffffff81842f1d 9939 ffffffff81842f80
rcu_invoke_callback: ffffffff81842f1d rhp=0xffff88007888ae80 func=file_free_rcu
rcu_batch_end: ffffffff81842f1d CBs-invoked=4 idle=>c<>c<>c<>c<
rcu_utilization: ffffffff8184311f
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
f7f7bac9cb