[PATCH 3/3] ftrace: add ability to only trace swapper tasks

[Steven Rostedt]

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Andrew Morton wrote:

> On Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:26:41 -0500 Steven Rostedt <rostedt at goodmis.org> wrote:
> 
> > From: Steven Rostedt <srostedt at redhat.com>
> > 
> > Impact: New feature
> > 
> > This patch lets the swapper tasks of all CPUS be filtered by the
> > set_ftrace_pid file.
> 
> "filtered" is one of those nasty words.  It is unclear whether the
> filteree is included or excluded.
> 
> > If '0' is echoed into this file, then all the idle tasks (aka swapper)
> > is flagged to be traced.  This affects all CPU idle tasks.
> > 
> 
> s/is/are/

My English is much better before midnight.
But warning, it is worse before my first coffee. ;-)

> 
> > Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt at redhat.com>
> 
> What does this patch actually do?  Is swapper currently excluded from
> tracing for undisclosed reasons and this patch permits it to be traced?
> If so, why was swapper thus excluded?  Or am I totally off track?

Yes, it is excluded. For two reasons:

1) you can not get to the swapper task using struct pid
2) the swapper task is not part of the task link list. Well, the first
  swapper task may be, but not the ones for other CPUS.

In fork.c:

	if (likely(p->pid)) {
		[...]
		if (thread_group_leader(p)) {
			[...]
			list_add_tail_rcu(&p->tasks, &init_task.tasks);



> 
> > ---
> >  kernel/trace/ftrace.c |   74 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
> >  1 files changed, 63 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/kernel/trace/ftrace.c b/kernel/trace/ftrace.c
> > index 10b1d7c..eb57dc1 100644
> > --- a/kernel/trace/ftrace.c
> > +++ b/kernel/trace/ftrace.c
> > @@ -49,6 +49,7 @@ static int last_ftrace_enabled;
> >  
> >  /* set when tracing only a pid */
> >  struct pid *ftrace_pid_trace;
> > +static struct pid * const ftrace_swapper_pid = (struct pid *)1;
> 
> eh?

The swapper task has no pid structure, if we want to trace it, we
need to find it outside the pid code. But other parts of ftrace use the
ftrace_pid_trace to see if it it should only trace the tasks that have
the trace bit set. We have:

	if (ftrace_pid_trace)
		/* only trace this task if it is marked to trace */

But, I get your point. That line deserves a comment ;-)


> 
> >  /* Quick disabling of function tracer. */
> >  int function_trace_stop;
> > @@ -1678,7 +1679,9 @@ ftrace_pid_read(struct file *file, char __user *ubuf,
> >  	char buf[64];
> >  	int r;
> >  
> > -	if (ftrace_pid_trace)
> > +	if (ftrace_pid_trace == ftrace_swapper_pid)
> > +		r = sprintf(buf, "swapper tasks\n");
> > +	else if (ftrace_pid_trace)
> >  		r = sprintf(buf, "%u\n", pid_nr(ftrace_pid_trace));
> >  	else
> >  		r = sprintf(buf, "no pid\n");
> > @@ -1686,19 +1689,43 @@ ftrace_pid_read(struct file *file, char __user *ubuf,
> >  	return simple_read_from_buffer(ubuf, cnt, ppos, buf, r);
> >  }
> >  
> > -static void clear_ftrace_pid_task(struct pid **pid)
> > +static void clear_ftrace_swapper(void)
> >  {
> >  	struct task_struct *p;
> > +	int cpu;
> >  
> > -	do_each_pid_task(*pid, PIDTYPE_PID, p) {
> > +	get_online_cpus();
> > +	for_each_online_cpu(cpu) {
> > +		p = idle_task(cpu);
> >  		clear_tsk_trace_trace(p);
> > -	} while_each_pid_task(*pid, PIDTYPE_PID, p);
> > -	put_pid(*pid);
> > +	}
> > +	put_online_cpus();
> > +}
> >  
> > -	*pid = NULL;
> > +static void set_ftrace_swapper(void)
> > +{
> > +	struct task_struct *p;
> > +	int cpu;
> > +
> > +	get_online_cpus();
> > +	for_each_online_cpu(cpu) {
> > +		p = idle_task(cpu);
> > +		set_tsk_trace_trace(p);
> > +	}
> > +	put_online_cpus();
> >  }
> >  
> > -static void set_ftrace_pid_task(struct pid *pid)
> > +static void clear_ftrace_pid(struct pid *pid)
> > +{
> > +	struct task_struct *p;
> > +
> > +	do_each_pid_task(pid, PIDTYPE_PID, p) {
> > +		clear_tsk_trace_trace(p);
> > +	} while_each_pid_task(pid, PIDTYPE_PID, p);
> > +	put_pid(pid);
> > +}
> 
> What locking does this traversal need, and does this function have it?

No idea, I only did what Eric suggested.

And people wonder why we still stick to "task->pid"

-- Steve

> 
> > +static void set_ftrace_pid(struct pid *pid)
> >  {
> >  	struct task_struct *p;
> >  
> > @@ -1707,6 +1734,24 @@ static void set_ftrace_pid_task(struct pid *pid)
> >  	} while_each_pid_task(pid, PIDTYPE_PID, p);
> >  }
> >  
> > +static void clear_ftrace_pid_task(struct pid **pid)
> > +{
> > +	if (*pid == ftrace_swapper_pid)
> > +		clear_ftrace_swapper();
> > +	else
> > +		clear_ftrace_pid(*pid);
> > +
> > +	*pid = NULL;
> > +}
> > +
> > +static void set_ftrace_pid_task(struct pid *pid)
> > +{
> > +	if (pid == ftrace_swapper_pid)
> > +		set_ftrace_swapper();
> > +	else
> > +		set_ftrace_pid(pid);
> > +}
> > +
> >  static ssize_t
> >  ftrace_pid_write(struct file *filp, const char __user *ubuf,
> >  		   size_t cnt, loff_t *ppos)
> > @@ -1737,11 +1782,18 @@ ftrace_pid_write(struct file *filp, const char __user *ubuf,
> >  		clear_ftrace_pid_task(&ftrace_pid_trace);
> >  
> >  	} else {
> > -		pid = find_get_pid(val);
> > +		/* swapper task is special */
> > +		if (!val) {
> > +			pid = ftrace_swapper_pid;
> > +			if (pid == ftrace_pid_trace)
> > +				goto out;
> > +		} else {
> > +			pid = find_get_pid(val);
> >  
> > -		if (pid == ftrace_pid_trace) {
> > -			put_pid(pid);
> > -			goto out;
> > +			if (pid == ftrace_pid_trace) {
> > +				put_pid(pid);
> > +				goto out;
> > +			}
> >  		}
> >  
> >  		if (ftrace_pid_trace)
> 
> 
>