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Eduard - Gabriel Munteanuaa46a7e2008-08-10 20:14:04 +03001 kmemtrace - Kernel Memory Tracer
2
3 by Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu
4 <eduard.munteanu@linux360.ro>
5
6I. Introduction
7===============
8
9kmemtrace helps kernel developers figure out two things:
101) how different allocators (SLAB, SLUB etc.) perform
112) how kernel code allocates memory and how much
12
13To do this, we trace every allocation and export information to the userspace
14through the relay interface. We export things such as the number of requested
15bytes, the number of bytes actually allocated (i.e. including internal
16fragmentation), whether this is a slab allocation or a plain kmalloc() and so
17on.
18
19The actual analysis is performed by a userspace tool (see section III for
20details on where to get it from). It logs the data exported by the kernel,
21processes it and (as of writing this) can provide the following information:
22- the total amount of memory allocated and fragmentation per call-site
23- the amount of memory allocated and fragmentation per allocation
24- total memory allocated and fragmentation in the collected dataset
25- number of cross-CPU allocation and frees (makes sense in NUMA environments)
26
27Moreover, it can potentially find inconsistent and erroneous behavior in
28kernel code, such as using slab free functions on kmalloc'ed memory or
29allocating less memory than requested (but not truly failed allocations).
30
31kmemtrace also makes provisions for tracing on some arch and analysing the
32data on another.
33
34II. Design and goals
35====================
36
37kmemtrace was designed to handle rather large amounts of data. Thus, it uses
38the relay interface to export whatever is logged to userspace, which then
39stores it. Analysis and reporting is done asynchronously, that is, after the
40data is collected and stored. By design, it allows one to log and analyse
41on different machines and different arches.
42
43As of writing this, the ABI is not considered stable, though it might not
44change much. However, no guarantees are made about compatibility yet. When
45deemed stable, the ABI should still allow easy extension while maintaining
46backward compatibility. This is described further in Documentation/ABI.
47
48Summary of design goals:
49 - allow logging and analysis to be done across different machines
50 - be fast and anticipate usage in high-load environments (*)
51 - be reasonably extensible
52 - make it possible for GNU/Linux distributions to have kmemtrace
53 included in their repositories
54
55(*) - one of the reasons Pekka Enberg's original userspace data analysis
56 tool's code was rewritten from Perl to C (although this is more than a
57 simple conversion)
58
59
60III. Quick usage guide
61======================
62
631) Get a kernel that supports kmemtrace and build it accordingly (i.e. enable
Pekka Enbergbf6803d2008-10-10 11:02:59 +030064CONFIG_KMEMTRACE).
Eduard - Gabriel Munteanuaa46a7e2008-08-10 20:14:04 +030065
662) Get the userspace tool and build it:
Matt Kraaiff2f5ff2009-06-04 21:43:10 -070067$ git clone git://repo.or.cz/kmemtrace-user.git # current repository
Eduard - Gabriel Munteanuaa46a7e2008-08-10 20:14:04 +030068$ cd kmemtrace-user/
69$ ./autogen.sh
70$ ./configure
71$ make
72
733) Boot the kmemtrace-enabled kernel if you haven't, preferably in the
74'single' runlevel (so that relay buffers don't fill up easily), and run
75kmemtrace:
76# '$' does not mean user, but root here.
77$ mount -t debugfs none /sys/kernel/debug
78$ mount -t proc none /proc
79$ cd path/to/kmemtrace-user/
80$ ./kmemtraced
81Wait a bit, then stop it with CTRL+C.
82$ cat /sys/kernel/debug/kmemtrace/total_overruns # Check if we didn't
83 # overrun, should
84 # be zero.
85$ (Optionally) [Run kmemtrace_check separately on each cpu[0-9]*.out file to
86 check its correctness]
87$ ./kmemtrace-report
88
89Now you should have a nice and short summary of how the allocator performs.
90
91IV. FAQ and known issues
92========================
93
94Q: 'cat /sys/kernel/debug/kmemtrace/total_overruns' is non-zero, how do I fix
95this? Should I worry?
96A: If it's non-zero, this affects kmemtrace's accuracy, depending on how
97large the number is. You can fix it by supplying a higher
98'kmemtrace.subbufs=N' kernel parameter.
99---
100
101Q: kmemtrace_check reports errors, how do I fix this? Should I worry?
102A: This is a bug and should be reported. It can occur for a variety of
103reasons:
104 - possible bugs in relay code
105 - possible misuse of relay by kmemtrace
106 - timestamps being collected unorderly
107Or you may fix it yourself and send us a patch.
108---
109
110Q: kmemtrace_report shows many errors, how do I fix this? Should I worry?
111A: This is a known issue and I'm working on it. These might be true errors
112in kernel code, which may have inconsistent behavior (e.g. allocating memory
113with kmem_cache_alloc() and freeing it with kfree()). Pekka Enberg pointed
114out this behavior may work with SLAB, but may fail with other allocators.
115
116It may also be due to lack of tracing in some unusual allocator functions.
117
118We don't want bug reports regarding this issue yet.
119---
120
121V. See also
122===========
123
124Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
125Documentation/ABI/testing/debugfs-kmemtrace
126