20–24 Sept 2021
US/Pacific timezone

LTTng as a fast system call tracer

22 Sept 2021, 09:00
25m
Microconference1/Virtual-Room (LPC Virtual)

Microconference1/Virtual-Room

LPC Virtual

150
Tracing MC Tracing MC

Speaker

Mathieu Desnoyers (EfficiOS Inc.)

Description

Upstreaming the LTTng kernel tracer [1] (originally created in 2005) into the Linux kernel has been a long-term goal of the LTTng project.

Today, various tracing technologies are available in the Linux kernel: instrumentation with tracepoints, kprobes, kretprobes, function tracing, performance counters through perf, as well as user-visible ABIs, namely Ftrace, Perf, and eBPF. There are however areas in which the LTTng kernel tracer has unique capabilities which other tracers lack.

Efficiently tracing system call entry/exit while fetching system call input/output parameters from user-space is a use-case the LTTng kernel tracer can cover, thanks to its ring buffer design which allows preemption.

Discuss the challenges and establish a roadmap towards upstreaming the pieces of the LTTng kernel tracer required to trace system calls into the Linux kernel.

[1] https://lttng.org

I agree to abide by the anti-harassment policy I agree

Primary author

Mathieu Desnoyers (EfficiOS Inc.)

Presentation materials

Diamond Sponsor

Platinum Sponsor

Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

Speaker Gift Sponsor

T-Shirt Sponsor

Conference Services provided by