linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH tracing/kprobes 0/7] tracing/kprobes: kprobe-based event tracer update and perf support

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Message-Id: <1252698613.2470.6.camel@hermans.wildebeest.org>
Date:	Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:50:13 +0200
From:	Mark Wielaard <mjw@...hat.com>
To:	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>
Cc:	"Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@...hat.com>,
	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...hat.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli <ananth@...ibm.com>,
	Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Jason Baron <jbaron@...hat.com>,
	Jim Keniston <jkenisto@...ibm.com>,
	"K.Prasad" <prasad@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Lai Jiangshan <laijs@...fujitsu.com>,
	Li Zefan <lizf@...fujitsu.com>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Srikar Dronamraju <srikar@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Tom Zanussi <tzanussi@...il.com>,
	systemtap <systemtap@...rces.redhat.com>,
	DLE <dle-develop@...ts.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH tracing/kprobes 0/7] tracing/kprobes: kprobe-based 
 event tracer update and perf support

On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 15:06 -0400, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 03:03:35PM -0400, Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
> > Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com> writes:
> > 
> > > [...]  I'm really looking forward seeing this C expression-like
> > > kprobe creation tool.  It seems powerful enough to replace printk +
> > > kernel rebuild.  No need anymore to write some printk to debug,
> > > worrying, [...]
> > 
> > To a large extent, systemtap had delivered this already some years
> > ago, including the cushy ponies dancing in the sunlight.  While such
> > low-level machinery is fine, some of our experience indicates that it
> > is dramatically easier to use if high-level, symbolic, debugging data
> > is used to compute probe locations and variable names/types/locations.
> 
> No, systemtap has been for years failing to delivers this in a way that
> it could be usefully integrated into the kernel.

You are saying "No" to a claim Frank didn't even make.

>   Masami's patches are
> exactly the kind of low-level functionality we absolutely need in the
> kernel tree so that we can built more useful higherlevel tools ontop
> of this. 

And nobody is denying that either. I think everybody agrees that Masami
is doing some really wonderful work and improving the kprobes
foundations in a way that any higher level tracing tool will benefit
from it.

Cheers,

Mark

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