Linux Trace Toolkit Quickstart
------------------------------
-Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005
-Last update : July 31, 2008
+Document officially replaced by
+http://www.lttng.org/svn/trunk/lttv/LTTngManual.html
+as of January 31st, 2009.
-This document is made of four parts : the first one explains how to install
-LTTng and LTTV from Debian and RPM binary packages, the second one explains how
-to install LTTng and LTTV from sources and the third one describes the steps
-to follow to trace a system and view it. The fourth and last part explains
-briefly how to add a new trace point to the kernel and to user space
-applications.
-
-What you will typically want is to read sections 2 and 3 : install LTTng from
-sources and use it.
-
-These operations are made for installing the LTTng 0.12 tracer on a linux 2.6.X
-kernel. You will also find instructions for installation of LTTV 0.8.x : the
-Linux Trace Toolkit Viewer.
-
-To see the list of compatibilities between LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV and
-markers-userspace, please refer to :
-http://ltt.polymtl.ca > LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility
-
-
-
-The following lttng patch is necessary to have the tracing hooks in the kernel.
-The following ltt-control module controls the tracing.
-
-Required programs and libraries are assumed to be automatically installed in an
-installation with Debian or RPM packages. In the case of an installation from
-sources, the dependencies are listed.
-
-
-** Current development status **
-
-LTTng :
-supported architectures :
-Intel Pentium (UP/SMP) with TSC
-PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
-ARM
-x86_64
-C2 Microsystems (variant of MIPS)
-
-LTTV :
-supported architectures :
-Intel i386 and better
-Intel 64 bits
-PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
-
-
-***********************************************************
-** Section 1 * Installation from Debian or RPM packages **
-***********************************************************
-
-* Create custom LTTV Debian packages
-
-Use : dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
-
-You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
-
-* Create custom LTTng packages
-
-For building LTTng Debian packages :
-
-Get the build tree with patches applies as explained in section 2.
-
-make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
-make-kpkg kernel_image
-
-You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
-dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
-
-Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
-
-
-***********************************************************
-** Section 2 * Installation from sources **
-***********************************************************
-
-* Prerequisites
-
-Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
-
-o wget
-o bzip2
-o gzip
-o tar
-
-You have to install the standard development libraries and programs necessary
-to compile a kernel :
-
-(from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
-o Gnu C 2.95.3 # gcc --version
-o Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
-o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
-o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
-o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
-
-You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
-configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
-
-Prerequisites for LTTV 0.x.x installation are :
-
-gcc 3.2 or better
-gtk 2.4 or better development libraries
- (Debian : libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
- (Fedora : gtk2, gtk2-devel)
- note : For Fedora users : this might require at least core 3 from Fedora,
- or you might have to compile your own GTK2 library.
-glib 2.4 or better development libraries
- (Debian : libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
- (Fedora : glib2, glib2-devel)
-libpopt development libraries
- (Debian : libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
- (Fedora : popt)
-libpango development libraries
- (Debian : libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
- (Fedora : pango, pango-devel)
-libc6 development librairies
- (Debian : libc6, libc6-dev)
- (Fedora : glibc, glibc)
-
-
-* Getting the LTTng packages
-
-su -
-mkdir /usr/src/lttng
-cd /usr/src/lttng
-(see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
-wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2
-bzip2 -cd patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
-
-
-* Getting LTTng kernel sources
-
-su -
-cd /usr/src
-wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2
-bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
-cd linux-2.6.X
-- For LTTng 0.9.4- cat /usr/src/lttng/patch*-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx* | patch -p1
-- For LTTng 0.9.5+ apply the patches in the order specified in the series file,
- or use quilt
-cd ..
-mv linux-2.6.X linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
-
-
-* Installing a LTTng kernel
-
-su -
-cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
-make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
- Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
- configuration.
- Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
- Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
- Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
- go to the "General setup" section
- Select the following options :
- [*] Activate tracepoints
- [*] Activate markers
- [*] Activate userspace markers ABI
- <*> Compile generic tracing probes
- Linux Trace Toolkit --->
- [LTTng fine-grained-timestamping]
- [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Instrumentation Support
- <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Relay+DebugFS Support
- <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Serializer
- <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Marker Control
- <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
- It makes no difference for the rest of the procedure whether the Tracer
- is compiled built-in or as a module.
- activate :
- [*] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
- <M> Linux Trace Toolkit Netlink Controller
- <M> Linux Trace Toolkit State Dump
- your choice (see < Help >) :
- [ ] Write heartbeat event to shrink traces
- [ ] Support trace extraction from crash dump
- Select <Exit>
- Select <Exit>
- Select <Yes>
-make
-make modules_install
-(if necessary, create a initrd with mkinitrd or your preferate alternative)
-(mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx)
-
--- on X86, X86_64
-make install
-reboot
-Select the Linux 2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
-
--- on PowerPC
-cp vmlinux.strip /boot/vmlinux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
-cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
-cp .config /boot/config-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
-depmod -ae -F /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
-mkinitrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
-(edit /etc/yaboot.conf to add a new entry pointing to your kernel : the entry
-that comes first is the default kernel)
-ybin
-select the right entry at the yaboot prompt (see choices : tab, select : type
-the kernel name followed by enter)
-Select the Linux 2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
---
-
-
-
-* Editing the system wide configuration
-
-You must activate debugfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
-fstab such that it happens at boot time.
-
-If you have never used DebugFS before, these operation would do this for you :
-
-mkdir /mnt/debugfs
-cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
-echo "debugfs /mnt/debugfs debugfs rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
-
-then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate debugfs :
-
-mount /mnt/debugfs
-
-You need to load the LTT modules to be able to control tracing from user
-space. This is done by issuing the following commands. Note however
-these commands load all LTT modules. Depending on what options you chose to
-compile statically, you may not need to issue all these commands.
-
-modprobe ltt-control
-modprobe ltt-marker-control
-modprobe ltt-tracer
-modprobe ltt-serialize
-modprobe ltt-relay
-modprobe ipc-trace
-modprobe kernel-trace
-modprobe mm-trace
-modprobe net-trace
-modprobe fs-trace
-modprobe syscall-trace
-#if locking tracing is wanted, uncomment the following
-#modprobe lockdep-trace
-
-If you want to have complete information about the kernel state (including all
-the process names), you need to load the ltt-statedump module. This is done by
-issuing the command :
-
-modprobe ltt-statedump
-
-You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
-
-cp /etc/modules /etc/modules.bkp
-echo ltt-control >> /etc/modules
-echo ltt-marker-control >> /etc/modules
-echo ltt-tracer >> /etc/modules
-echo ltt-serialize >> /etc/modules
-echo ltt-relay >> /etc/modules
-echo ipc-trace >> /etc/modules
-echo kernel-trace >> /etc/modules
-echo mm-trace >> /etc/modules
-echo net-trace >> /etc/modules
-echo fs-trace >> /etc/modules
-#if locking tracing is wanted, uncomment the following
-#echo lockdep-trace >> /etc/modules
-
-
-* Getting and installing the ltt-control package (on the traced machine)
-(note : the ltt-control package contains lttd and lttctl. Although it has the
-same name as the ltt-control kernel module, they are *not* the same thing.)
-su -
-cd /usr/src
-wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz
-gzip -cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
-cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006
-(refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
-system)
-./configure
-make
-make install
-
-* Getting and installing the markers-userspace package for user space tracing
-See http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/markers-userspace-0.5.tar.bz2 or more recent.
-
-
-* Getting and installing the LTTV package (on the visualisation machine, same or
- different from the visualisation machine)
-
-su -
-cd /usr/src
-wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008.tar.gz
-gzip -cd lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008.tar.gz | tar xvof -
-cd lttv-0.x.xx-xxxx2008
-(refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on your
-system)
-./configure
-make
-make install
-
-
-
-
-***********************************************************
-** Section 3 * Using LTTng and LTTV **
-***********************************************************
-
-* IMPORTANT : Arm Linux Kernel Markers after each boot
-
-ltt-armall
-
-* Use graphical LTTV to control tracing and analyse traces
-
-lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
- - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
- (it's a traffic light icon)
- - enter the root password
- - click "start"
- - click "stop"
- - Yes
- * You should now see a trace
-
-* Use text mode LTTng to control tracing
-
-The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
-root).
-
-Start tracing :
-
-lttctl -n trace -d -l /mnt/debugfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace
-
-Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
-
-lttctl -n trace -R
-
-see lttctl --help for details.
-
-(note : to see if the buffers has been filled, look at the dmesg output after
-lttctl -R or after stopping tracing from the GUI, it will show an event lost
-count. If it is the case, try using larger buffers. See lttctl --help to learn
-how.)
-
-* Use text mode LTTV
-
-Feel free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
-graphical plugins available.
-
-For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
-
-lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
-
-see lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
-
-It is, in the current state of the project, very useful to use "grep" on the
-text output to filter by specific event fields. You can later copy the timestamp
-of the events to the clipboard and paste them in the GUI by clicking on the
-bottom right label "Current time". Support for this type of filtering should
-be added to the filter module soon.
-
-* Hybrid mode
-
-Starting from LTTng 0.5.105 and ltt-control 0.20, a new mode can be used :
-hybrid. It can be especially useful when studying big workloads on a long period
-of time.
-
-When using this mode, the most important, low rate control information will be
-recorded during all the trace by lttd (i.e. process creation/exit). The high
-rate information (i.e. interrupt/traps/syscall entry/exit) will be kept in a
-flight recorder buffer (now named flight-channelname_X).
-
-The following lttctl commands take an hybrid trace :
-
-Create trace channel, start lttd on normal channels, start tracing:
-lttctl -n tracename -d -l /mnt/debugfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace1 -m hybrid
-
-Stop tracing, start lttd on flight recorder channels, destroy trace channels :
-lttctl -n tracename -f -l /mnt/debugfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace1 -m hybrid
-
-
-We will need to tweak what we consider "important" medium rate events. For
-instance, thread branding events are actually considered a "high rate" event
-when it should be considered "medium rate". The same should apply for the
-state dump process enumeration.
-
-* Flight recorder mode
-
-The flight recorder mode writes data into overwritten buffers for all channels,
-including control channels, except for the facilities tracefiles.
-
-The following lttctl commands take a flight recorder trace :
-
-lttctl -n trace -c -m flight
-lttd -n -d -t /tmp/trace -c /mnt/debugfs/ltt/trace
-lttctl -n trace -s
-.. do stuff
-lttctl -n trace -q
-lttd -f -d -t /tmp/trace -c /mnt/debugfs/ltt/trace
-lttctl -m trace -r
-
-
-**************************************************************
-** Section 4 * Adding new instrumentations with the markers **
-**************************************************************
-
-See Documentation/markers.txt and Documentation/tracepoints.txt in your kernel
-tree.
-
-* Add new events to userspace programs with userspace markers
-http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/
-
-Get the latest markers-userspace-*.tar.bz2 and see the Makefile and examples. It
-allows inserting markers in executables and libraries, currently only on x86_32
-and x86_64.
-
+Mathieu Desnoyers
projects / lttv.git / blobdiff