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Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:29:37 +0900
From: Masami Hiramatsu <masami.hiramatsu.pt@hitachi.com>
Organization: Systems Development Lab., Hitachi, Ltd., Japan
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To: Srikar Dronamraju <srikar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
        Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@infradead.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 3.0-rc2-tip 20/22] 20: perf: perf interface for uprobes
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(2011/06/13 17:41), Srikar Dronamraju wrote:
> Hey Masami,
> [ I have restricted the number of people in CC to those people who are
> closely following perf. Please feel free to add people].
> 
> Thanks for the review.
> 
>>> Enhances perf probe to user space executables and libraries.
>>> Provides very basic support for uprobes.
>>>
>>> [ Probing a function in the executable using function name  ]
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>>> [root@localhost ~]# perf probe -u zfree@/bin/zsh
>>
>> Hmm, here, I have concern about the interface inconsistency
>> of the probe point syntax.
>>
>> Since perf probe already supports debuginfo analysis,
>> it accepts following syntax;
>>
>> [EVENT=]FUNC[@SRC][:RLN|+OFFS|%return|;PTN] [ARG ...]
>>
>> Thus, The "@" should take a source file path, not binary path.
>>
> 
> All the discussions in this forum happened with respect to
> <function>@<executable> form (esp since we started with the inode based
> uprobes approach). Thats why I chose the
> perf probe -u func@execfile. This also gave us a flexibility to define 
> two probes in two different executables in the same session/command.
> Something like 
> perf probe -u func1@exec1 func2@exec2.

I see, and sorry for changing my mind, but I think '-u execname symbol'
style finally be good also for uprobe users when perf probe -u supports
debuginfo, since they don't need to learn a different syntax.

> 
> However I am okay to change to your suggested syntax which is 
> "perf probe -u /bin/zsh -a zfree"

Thanks!

> 
>> I think -u option should have a path of the target binary, as below
>>
>> # perf probe -u /bin/zsh -a zfree
> 
> Will --uprobe work as the long name option for -u or do you suggest
> something else?

Hmm, good question. Maybe we can use -x|--exec to define a uprobe event,
because there is no need to give an executable file for kprobes events.
# so that -x implies user space event on given execfile


>> This will allow perf-probe to support user-space debuginfo
>> analysis. With it, we can do as below;
>>
> 
> While we discuss this I would also like to get your thoughts on couple
> of issues.
> 
> 1. Its okay to use a switch like "-u" that restricts the probe
> definition session to just the user space tracing. i.e We wont be able
> to define a probe in user space executable and also a kernel probe in
> one single session.

I'm OK for that. The usage of perf probe is different from systemtap;
perf probe do one thing at a time, systemtap do everything at a time.

If someone want to define various probes in the kernel, they may have
to call perf probe several times. And I'm OK for that, because all probe
definition should be done before recording.

So with perf probe, tracing is done following below 3 steps.
1. Definition
2. Recording
3. Analysis

And each phase is done separately.

> 2. Its okay to have just "target" and a flag to identify if the session
> is a userspace probing session, instead of having separate fields for
> userspace executable path and the module name.
> 	i.e you are okay with patch "perf: rename target_module to target"

Ah, that's good to me. Actually, I'm now trying to expand "target_module"
to receive a path of offline module. It'll be better for that too.:-)

> 3. Currently perf_probe_point has one field "file" that was only used to
> refer to source file. Uprobes overrides it to use it for executable file
> too. One approach would be to add another field something like
> "execfile" that we use to refer to executable files and use the current
> field "file" for source files. 
> 	Also do you suggest that we rename the current
> file field to "srcfile?

Ah, I see. From the viewpoint of implementation, we just introduce
a bool flag, which indicates user-probe, and a union, which has
a "char *module" and "char *exec". :)

However, Maybe we'd better look this more carefully. Here, we have
a problem with listing userspace probes (I mean how perf probe can
list up the probes which is on a user app)

Currently, it just ignores module name if a probe on a module.
  probe:fuse_do_open   (on fuse_do_open@ksrc/linux-2.6/fs/fuse/file.c with isdir)

One possible solution is to show the module name right before the
symbol as same as the kernel does.

  probe:fuse_do_open   (on fuse:fuse_do_open@ksrc/linux-2.6/fs/fuse/file.c with
isdir)

It seems that current your proposal doing same thing

  probe_zsh:zfree      (on /bin/zsh:0x45400)

Another way is to show it more verbosely, like below.

  probe:fuse_do_open   (at fuse_do_open@ksrc/linux-2.6/fs/fuse/file.c with isdir
on fuse)
  probe_zsh:zfree      (at 0x45400 on /bin/zsh)

Any thought?


> 
> Based on the outcomes of this discussion, I will modify the code and
> Documentation.
> 

Thank you!


-- 
Masami HIRAMATSU
Software Platform Research Dept. Linux Technology Center
Hitachi, Ltd., Yokohama Research Laboratory
E-mail: masami.hiramatsu.pt@hitachi.com
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