linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 4/6] trace: trace syscall in its handler not from ptrace handler

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Date:	Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:44:08 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	David Sharp <dhsharp@...gle.com>
CC:	Vaibhav Nagarnaik <vnagarnaik@...gle.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Justin Teravest <teravest@...gle.com>,
	Laurent Chavey <chavey@...gle.com>,
	Michael Davidson <md@...gle.com>, x86@...nel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/6] trace: trace syscall in its handler not from ptrace
 handler

On 03/29/2012 03:40 PM, David Sharp wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 1:06 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@...or.com> wrote:
>> I had a long discussion with Frederic over IRC earlier today.  We came
>> up with the following strawman:
>>
>> 1. A system call thunk (which could be enabled/disabled by patching the
>> syscall table.)  This provides an entry and exit hook, and also sets a
>> per-thread flag to capture userspace traffic.
> 
> Our goal is for syscall traces to be as fast as regular tracepoints.
> iirc, What we've found is that much of the extra overhead of syscall
> tracepoints as compared to regular tracepoints is due to that the code
> path for syscall tracing is bundled with checks for ptrace and other
> stuff (Vaibhav did all this characterization, he can jump in with
> details if wanted). How much work would this "thunk" have to do that
> is not either recording the trace or calling the syscall?

Nothing.  That IS what the thunk would do:

thunk:
	<record syscall entry>
	call real_syscall_table(syscall_number)
	<record syscall exit>
	ret

	-hpa
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