linux-kernel - [RFC] system-wide in-kernel syscall tracing

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Date:	Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:17:17 -0400
From:	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...ymtl.ca>
To:	"Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@...hat.com>
Cc:	Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@...il.com>, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [RFC] system-wide in-kernel syscall tracing

* Mathieu Desnoyers (mathieu.desnoyers@...ymtl.ca) wrote:
> > >
> > > Those which are close enough to system call boundary are essentially
> > > strace(1).
> > 
> > Those may not sound worthwhile to put a marker for, BUT, you're
> > ignoring the huge differences of impact and scope.  A system-wide
> > marker-based trace (filtered a la systemtap if desired) can be done
> > with a tiny fraction of system load and none of the disruption caused
> > by an strace of all the processes.
> > 
> 
> I agree with both ;) Actually we need a low-overhead hook in
> syscall_trace(), so we can perform efficient system-wide tracing of
> system calls. I'll dig in this as soon as I find time.
> 
> Basic ideas :
> 
> - I already have the TIF_KERNEL_TRACE thread flag added to all
>   architectures in another patchset.
> - We add a function called on TIF_KERNEL_TRACE, from do_syscall_trace(),
>   which is architecture-specific. It's basically a big switch() for all
>   system calls. syscalls which takes similar types could be grouped
>   together, but I don't think it would be useful at all. It might be
>   better just to add a trace_mark for each so we extract the syscall
>   fields in the marker string.
> - We perform the page fault (caused by strings and structures) reads on
>   the spot, because we prefer not to do this in atomic context.
> - We put a marker, e.g., for x86_32, a pseudo-code like :
> 
> syscall_trace_enter()
> {
>   ...
>   if (test_thread_flag(TIF_KERNEL_TRACE))
>     do_marker_syscall_trace();
>   ...
> }
> 
> do_marker_syscall_trace()
> {
>   char *tmpbuf;
> 
>   switch(regs->orig_ax) {
> 
>   case SYS_OPEN:
>     tmpbuf = vmalloc(4096); /* what size is needed ? */
>     copy_from_user(tmpbuf, regs->bx);
>     trace_mark(sys_open, "filename %p flags %d mode %d",

Actually, I meant :
     trace_mark(sys_open, "filename %s flags %d mode %d",

and it would be even better to pass the __user pointer directly to the
probe to eliminate the copy. I think this could be done by making sure
the memory is faulted-in and locked when we call the trace_mark. It
could require to think of a way to specify a weird format string type
though, so an automated tracer would use strncpy_from_user in atomic and
al instead of trying to dereference the userspace pointer directly.

Mathieu

>       tmpbuf, regs->cx, regs->dx);
>     vfree(tmpbuf);
>     break;
>   }
> }
> 
> Modulo some optimization, what do you think of this ? If someone is
> willing to implement this, I can provide the patchset for
> TIF_KERNEL_TRACE.
> 

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
Computer Engineering Ph.D. Student, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
OpenPGP key fingerprint: 8CD5 52C3 8E3C 4140 715F  BA06 3F25 A8FE 3BAE 9A68
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