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[lttv.git] / tags / lttv-0.11.3-23102008 / QUICKSTART
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13ab9fcb 1Linux Trace Toolkit Quickstart
2------------------------------
3Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005
4Last update : July 31, 2008
5
6
7This document is made of four parts : the first one explains how to install
8LTTng and LTTV from Debian and RPM binary packages, the second one explains how
9to install LTTng and LTTV from sources and the third one describes the steps
10to follow to trace a system and view it. The fourth and last part explains
11briefly how to add a new trace point to the kernel and to user space
12applications.
13
14What you will typically want is to read sections 2 and 3 : install LTTng from
15sources and use it.
16
17These operations are made for installing the LTTng 0.12 tracer on a linux 2.6.X
18kernel. You will also find instructions for installation of LTTV 0.8.x : the
19Linux Trace Toolkit Viewer.
20
21To see the list of compatibilities between LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV and
22markers-userspace, please refer to :
23http://ltt.polymtl.ca > LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility
24
25
26
27The following lttng patch is necessary to have the tracing hooks in the kernel.
28The following ltt-control module controls the tracing.
29
30Required programs and libraries are assumed to be automatically installed in an
31installation with Debian or RPM packages. In the case of an installation from
32sources, the dependencies are listed.
33
34
35** Current development status **
36
37LTTng :
38supported architectures :
39Intel Pentium (UP/SMP) with TSC
40PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
41ARM
42x86_64
43C2 Microsystems (variant of MIPS)
44
45LTTV :
46supported architectures :
47Intel i386 and better
48Intel 64 bits
49PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
50
51
52***********************************************************
53** Section 1 * Installation from Debian or RPM packages **
54***********************************************************
55
56* Create custom LTTV Debian packages
57
58Use : dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
59
60You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
61
62* Create custom LTTng packages
63
64For building LTTng Debian packages :
65
66Get the build tree with patches applies as explained in section 2.
67
68make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
69make-kpkg kernel_image
70
71You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
72dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
73
74Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
75
76
77***********************************************************
78** Section 2 * Installation from sources **
79***********************************************************
80
81* Prerequisites
82
83Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
84
85o wget
86o bzip2
87o gzip
88o tar
89
90You have to install the standard development libraries and programs necessary
91to compile a kernel :
92
93(from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
94o Gnu C 2.95.3 # gcc --version
95o Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
96o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
97o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
98o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
99
100You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
101configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
102
103Prerequisites for LTTV 0.x.x installation are :
104
105gcc 3.2 or better
106gtk 2.4 or better development libraries
107 (Debian : libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
108 (Fedora : gtk2, gtk2-devel)
109 note : For Fedora users : this might require at least core 3 from Fedora,
110 or you might have to compile your own GTK2 library.
111glib 2.4 or better development libraries
112 (Debian : libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
113 (Fedora : glib2, glib2-devel)
114libpopt development libraries
115 (Debian : libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
116 (Fedora : popt)
117libpango development libraries
118 (Debian : libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
119 (Fedora : pango, pango-devel)
120libc6 development librairies
121 (Debian : libc6, libc6-dev)
122 (Fedora : glibc, glibc)
123
124
125* Getting the LTTng packages
126
127su -
128mkdir /usr/src/lttng
129cd /usr/src/lttng
130(see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
131wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2
132bzip2 -cd patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
133
134
135* Getting LTTng kernel sources
136
137su -
138cd /usr/src
139wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2
140bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
141cd linux-2.6.X
142- For LTTng 0.9.4- cat /usr/src/lttng/patch*-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx* | patch -p1
143- For LTTng 0.9.5+ apply the patches in the order specified in the series file,
144 or use quilt
145cd ..
146mv linux-2.6.X linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
147
148
149* Installing a LTTng kernel
150
151su -
152cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
153make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
154 Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
155 configuration.
156 Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
157 Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
158 Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
159 go to the "General setup" section
160 Select the following options :
161 [*] Activate tracepoints
162 [*] Activate markers
163 [*] Activate userspace markers ABI
164 <*> Compile generic tracing probes
165 Linux Trace Toolkit --->
166 [LTTng fine-grained-timestamping]
167 [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Instrumentation Support
168 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Relay+DebugFS Support
169 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Serializer
170 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Marker Control
171 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
172 It makes no difference for the rest of the procedure whether the Tracer
173 is compiled built-in or as a module.
174 activate :
175 [*] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
176 <M> Linux Trace Toolkit Netlink Controller
177 <M> Linux Trace Toolkit State Dump
178 your choice (see < Help >) :
179 [ ] Write heartbeat event to shrink traces
180 [ ] Support trace extraction from crash dump
181 Select <Exit>
182 Select <Exit>
183 Select <Yes>
184make
185make modules_install
186(if necessary, create a initrd with mkinitrd or your preferate alternative)
187(mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx)
188
189-- on X86, X86_64
190make install
191reboot
192Select the Linux 2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
193
194-- on PowerPC
195cp vmlinux.strip /boot/vmlinux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
196cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
197cp .config /boot/config-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
198depmod -ae -F /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
199mkinitrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
200(edit /etc/yaboot.conf to add a new entry pointing to your kernel : the entry
201that comes first is the default kernel)
202ybin
203select the right entry at the yaboot prompt (see choices : tab, select : type
204the kernel name followed by enter)
205Select the Linux 2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
206--
207
208
209
210* Editing the system wide configuration
211
212You must activate debugfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
213fstab such that it happens at boot time.
214
215If you have never used DebugFS before, these operation would do this for you :
216
217mkdir /mnt/debugfs
218cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
219echo "debugfs /mnt/debugfs debugfs rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
220
221then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate debugfs :
222
223mount /mnt/debugfs
224
225You need to load the LTT modules to be able to control tracing from user
226space. This is done by issuing the following commands. Note however
227these commands load all LTT modules. Depending on what options you chose to
228compile statically, you may not need to issue all these commands.
229
230modprobe ltt-control
231modprobe ltt-marker-control
232modprobe ltt-tracer
233modprobe ltt-serialize
234modprobe ltt-relay
235modprobe ipc-trace
236modprobe kernel-trace
237modprobe mm-trace
238modprobe net-trace
239modprobe fs-trace
240modprobe syscall-trace
241#if locking tracing is wanted, uncomment the following
242#modprobe lockdep-trace
243
244If you want to have complete information about the kernel state (including all
245the process names), you need to load the ltt-statedump module. This is done by
246issuing the command :
247
248modprobe ltt-statedump
249
250You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
251
252cp /etc/modules /etc/modules.bkp
253echo ltt-control >> /etc/modules
254echo ltt-marker-control >> /etc/modules
255echo ltt-tracer >> /etc/modules
256echo ltt-serialize >> /etc/modules
257echo ltt-relay >> /etc/modules
258echo ipc-trace >> /etc/modules
259echo kernel-trace >> /etc/modules
260echo mm-trace >> /etc/modules
261echo net-trace >> /etc/modules
262echo fs-trace >> /etc/modules
263#if locking tracing is wanted, uncomment the following
264#echo lockdep-trace >> /etc/modules
265
266
267* Getting and installing the ltt-control package (on the traced machine)
268(note : the ltt-control package contains lttd and lttctl. Although it has the
269same name as the ltt-control kernel module, they are *not* the same thing.)
270su -
271cd /usr/src
272wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz
273gzip -cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
274cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006
275(refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
276system)
277./configure
278make
279make install
280
281* Getting and installing the markers-userspace package for user space tracing
282See http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/markers-userspace-0.5.tar.bz2 or more recent.
283
284
285* Getting and installing the LTTV package (on the visualisation machine, same or
286 different from the visualisation machine)
287
288su -
289cd /usr/src
290wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008.tar.gz
291gzip -cd lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008.tar.gz | tar xvof -
292cd lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008
293(refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on your
294system)
295./configure
296make
297make install
298
299
300
301
302***********************************************************
303** Section 3 * Using LTTng and LTTV **
304***********************************************************
305
306* IMPORTANT : Arm Linux Kernel Markers after each boot
307
308ltt-armall
309
310* Use graphical LTTV to control tracing and analyse traces
311
312lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
313 - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
314 (it's a traffic light icon)
315 - enter the root password
316 - click "start"
317 - click "stop"
318 - Yes
319 * You should now see a trace
320
321* Use text mode LTTng to control tracing
322
323The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
324root).
325
326Start tracing :
327
328lttctl -n trace -d -l /mnt/debugfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace
329
330Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
331
332lttctl -n trace -R
333
334see lttctl --help for details.
335
336(note : to see if the buffers has been filled, look at the dmesg output after
337lttctl -R or after stopping tracing from the GUI, it will show an event lost
338count. If it is the case, try using larger buffers. See lttctl --help to learn
339how.)
340
341* Use text mode LTTV
342
343Feel free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
344graphical plugins available.
345
346For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
347
348lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
349
350see lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
351
352It is, in the current state of the project, very useful to use "grep" on the
353text output to filter by specific event fields. You can later copy the timestamp
354of the events to the clipboard and paste them in the GUI by clicking on the
355bottom right label "Current time". Support for this type of filtering should
356be added to the filter module soon.
357
358* Hybrid mode
359
360Starting from LTTng 0.5.105 and ltt-control 0.20, a new mode can be used :
361hybrid. It can be especially useful when studying big workloads on a long period
362of time.
363
364When using this mode, the most important, low rate control information will be
365recorded during all the trace by lttd (i.e. process creation/exit). The high
366rate information (i.e. interrupt/traps/syscall entry/exit) will be kept in a
367flight recorder buffer (now named flight-channelname_X).
368
369The following lttctl commands take an hybrid trace :
370
371Create trace channel, start lttd on normal channels, start tracing:
372lttctl -n tracename -d -l /mnt/debugfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace1 -m hybrid
373
374Stop tracing, start lttd on flight recorder channels, destroy trace channels :
375lttctl -n tracename -f -l /mnt/debugfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace1 -m hybrid
376
377
378We will need to tweak what we consider "important" medium rate events. For
379instance, thread branding events are actually considered a "high rate" event
380when it should be considered "medium rate". The same should apply for the
381state dump process enumeration.
382
383* Flight recorder mode
384
385The flight recorder mode writes data into overwritten buffers for all channels,
386including control channels, except for the facilities tracefiles.
387
388The following lttctl commands take a flight recorder trace :
389
390lttctl -n trace -c -m flight
391lttd -n -d -t /tmp/trace -c /mnt/debugfs/ltt/trace
392lttctl -n trace -s
393.. do stuff
394lttctl -n trace -q
395lttd -f -d -t /tmp/trace -c /mnt/debugfs/ltt/trace
396lttctl -m trace -r
397
398
399**************************************************************
400** Section 4 * Adding new instrumentations with the markers **
401**************************************************************
402
403See Documentation/markers.txt and Documentation/tracepoints.txt in your kernel
404tree.
405
406* Add new events to userspace programs with userspace markers
407http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/
408
409Get the latest markers-userspace-*.tar.bz2 and see the Makefile and examples. It
410allows inserting markers in executables and libraries, currently only on x86_32
411and x86_64.
412
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