linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/4] tracing: add event trace infrastructure

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Message-ID: <20090225084000.GB9322@elte.hu>
Date:	Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:40:00 +0100
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Cc:	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>,
	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>,
	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>,
	Pekka Paalanen <pq@....fi>,
	Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...hat.com>,
	Jason Baron <jbaron@...hat.com>,
	Martin Bligh <mbligh@...gle.com>,
	Mathieu Desnoyers <compudj@...stal.dyndns.org>,
	"Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@...hat.com>,
	KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>,
	Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@...cle.com>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...hat.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <srostedt@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/4] tracing: add event trace infrastructure

* Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:

> But we don't do that, because userspace is hard, because we 
> don't have a delivery process.  But nobody has even tried! 
> [...]

Actually, you can do it right now, with the current model:

  echo raw > /debug/tracing/trace_options
  echo bin > /debug/tracing/trace_options

Reality is that rarely does anyone use it because obviously 
self-sufficient kernel instrumentation is very convenient to 
kernel developers, to testers and to bugreporters alike. 
(Processing kernel details in user-space is also often slower 
and duplicates code that the kernel already has like symbol 
lookups.)

_Maybe_ some of it (but certainly not all) could be done via 
klibc - but that got nacked. If you can convince Linus to take 
klibc and to allow a userspace 'halo' of utilities that are 
intimate with kernel details into the kernel proper then maybe 
we could start providing such tools in the kernel proper.

	Ingo
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