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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000
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+==========================
+Kprobe-based Event Tracing
+==========================
+
+:Author: Masami Hiramatsu
+
+Overview
+--------
+These events are similar to tracepoint based events. Instead of Tracepoint,
+this is based on kprobes (kprobe and kretprobe). So it can probe wherever
+kprobes can probe (this means, all functions except those with
+__kprobes/nokprobe_inline annotation and those marked NOKPROBE_SYMBOL).
+Unlike the Tracepoint based event, this can be added and removed
+dynamically, on the fly.
+
+To enable this feature, build your kernel with CONFIG_KPROBE_EVENTS=y.
+
+Similar to the events tracer, this doesn't need to be activated via
+current_tracer. Instead of that, add probe points via
+/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events, and enable it via
+/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/<EVENT>/enable.
+
+You can also use /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/dynamic_events instead of
+kprobe_events. That interface will provide unified access to other
+dynamic events too.
+
+Synopsis of kprobe_events
+-------------------------
+::
+
+ p[:[GRP/]EVENT] [MOD:]SYM[+offs]|MEMADDR [FETCHARGS] : Set a probe
+ r[MAXACTIVE][:[GRP/]EVENT] [MOD:]SYM[+0] [FETCHARGS] : Set a return probe
+ p:[GRP/]EVENT] [MOD:]SYM[+0]%return [FETCHARGS] : Set a return probe
+ -:[GRP/]EVENT : Clear a probe
+
+ GRP : Group name. If omitted, use "kprobes" for it.
+ EVENT : Event name. If omitted, the event name is generated
+ based on SYM+offs or MEMADDR.
+ MOD : Module name which has given SYM.
+ SYM[+offs] : Symbol+offset where the probe is inserted.
+ SYM%return : Return address of the symbol
+ MEMADDR : Address where the probe is inserted.
+ MAXACTIVE : Maximum number of instances of the specified function that
+ can be probed simultaneously, or 0 for the default value
+ as defined in Documentation/trace/kprobes.rst section 1.3.1.
+
+ FETCHARGS : Arguments. Each probe can have up to 128 args.
+ %REG : Fetch register REG
+ @ADDR : Fetch memory at ADDR (ADDR should be in kernel)
+ @SYM[+|-offs] : Fetch memory at SYM +|- offs (SYM should be a data symbol)
+ $stackN : Fetch Nth entry of stack (N >= 0)
+ $stack : Fetch stack address.
+ $argN : Fetch the Nth function argument. (N >= 1) (\*1)
+ $retval : Fetch return value.(\*2)
+ $comm : Fetch current task comm.
+ +|-[u]OFFS(FETCHARG) : Fetch memory at FETCHARG +|- OFFS address.(\*3)(\*4)
+ \IMM : Store an immediate value to the argument.
+ NAME=FETCHARG : Set NAME as the argument name of FETCHARG.
+ FETCHARG:TYPE : Set TYPE as the type of FETCHARG. Currently, basic types
+ (u8/u16/u32/u64/s8/s16/s32/s64), hexadecimal types
+ (x8/x16/x32/x64), "string", "ustring" and bitfield
+ are supported.
+
+ (\*1) only for the probe on function entry (offs == 0).
+ (\*2) only for return probe.
+ (\*3) this is useful for fetching a field of data structures.
+ (\*4) "u" means user-space dereference. See :ref:`user_mem_access`.
+
+Types
+-----
+Several types are supported for fetch-args. Kprobe tracer will access memory
+by given type. Prefix 's' and 'u' means those types are signed and unsigned
+respectively. 'x' prefix implies it is unsigned. Traced arguments are shown
+in decimal ('s' and 'u') or hexadecimal ('x'). Without type casting, 'x32'
+or 'x64' is used depends on the architecture (e.g. x86-32 uses x32, and
+x86-64 uses x64).
+These value types can be an array. To record array data, you can add '[N]'
+(where N is a fixed number, less than 64) to the base type.
+E.g. 'x16[4]' means an array of x16 (2bytes hex) with 4 elements.
+Note that the array can be applied to memory type fetchargs, you can not
+apply it to registers/stack-entries etc. (for example, '$stack1:x8[8]' is
+wrong, but '+8($stack):x8[8]' is OK.)
+String type is a special type, which fetches a "null-terminated" string from
+kernel space. This means it will fail and store NULL if the string container
+has been paged out. "ustring" type is an alternative of string for user-space.
+See :ref:`user_mem_access` for more info..
+The string array type is a bit different from other types. For other base
+types, <base-type>[1] is equal to <base-type> (e.g. +0(%di):x32[1] is same
+as +0(%di):x32.) But string[1] is not equal to string. The string type itself
+represents "char array", but string array type represents "char * array".
+So, for example, +0(%di):string[1] is equal to +0(+0(%di)):string.
+Bitfield is another special type, which takes 3 parameters, bit-width, bit-
+offset, and container-size (usually 32). The syntax is::
+
+ b<bit-width>@<bit-offset>/<container-size>
+
+Symbol type('symbol') is an alias of u32 or u64 type (depends on BITS_PER_LONG)
+which shows given pointer in "symbol+offset" style.
+For $comm, the default type is "string"; any other type is invalid.
+
+.. _user_mem_access:
+
+User Memory Access
+------------------
+Kprobe events supports user-space memory access. For that purpose, you can use
+either user-space dereference syntax or 'ustring' type.
+
+The user-space dereference syntax allows you to access a field of a data
+structure in user-space. This is done by adding the "u" prefix to the
+dereference syntax. For example, +u4(%si) means it will read memory from the
+address in the register %si offset by 4, and the memory is expected to be in
+user-space. You can use this for strings too, e.g. +u0(%si):string will read
+a string from the address in the register %si that is expected to be in user-
+space. 'ustring' is a shortcut way of performing the same task. That is,
++0(%si):ustring is equivalent to +u0(%si):string.
+
+Note that kprobe-event provides the user-memory access syntax but it doesn't
+use it transparently. This means if you use normal dereference or string type
+for user memory, it might fail, and may always fail on some archs. The user
+has to carefully check if the target data is in kernel or user space.
+
+Per-Probe Event Filtering
+-------------------------
+Per-probe event filtering feature allows you to set different filter on each
+probe and gives you what arguments will be shown in trace buffer. If an event
+name is specified right after 'p:' or 'r:' in kprobe_events, it adds an event
+under tracing/events/kprobes/<EVENT>, at the directory you can see 'id',
+'enable', 'format', 'filter' and 'trigger'.
+
+enable:
+ You can enable/disable the probe by writing 1 or 0 on it.
+
+format:
+ This shows the format of this probe event.
+
+filter:
+ You can write filtering rules of this event.
+
+id:
+ This shows the id of this probe event.
+
+trigger:
+ This allows to install trigger commands which are executed when the event is
+ hit (for details, see Documentation/trace/events.rst, section 6).
+
+Event Profiling
+---------------
+You can check the total number of probe hits and probe miss-hits via
+/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_profile.
+The first column is event name, the second is the number of probe hits,
+the third is the number of probe miss-hits.
+
+Kernel Boot Parameter
+---------------------
+You can add and enable new kprobe events when booting up the kernel by
+"kprobe_event=" parameter. The parameter accepts a semicolon-delimited
+kprobe events, which format is similar to the kprobe_events.
+The difference is that the probe definition parameters are comma-delimited
+instead of space. For example, adding myprobe event on do_sys_open like below
+
+ p:myprobe do_sys_open dfd=%ax filename=%dx flags=%cx mode=+4($stack)
+
+should be below for kernel boot parameter (just replace spaces with comma)
+
+ p:myprobe,do_sys_open,dfd=%ax,filename=%dx,flags=%cx,mode=+4($stack)
+
+
+Usage examples
+--------------
+To add a probe as a new event, write a new definition to kprobe_events
+as below::
+
+ echo 'p:myprobe do_sys_open dfd=%ax filename=%dx flags=%cx mode=+4($stack)' > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events
+
+This sets a kprobe on the top of do_sys_open() function with recording
+1st to 4th arguments as "myprobe" event. Note, which register/stack entry is
+assigned to each function argument depends on arch-specific ABI. If you unsure
+the ABI, please try to use probe subcommand of perf-tools (you can find it
+under tools/perf/).
+As this example shows, users can choose more familiar names for each arguments.
+::
+
+ echo 'r:myretprobe do_sys_open $retval' >> /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events
+
+This sets a kretprobe on the return point of do_sys_open() function with
+recording return value as "myretprobe" event.
+You can see the format of these events via
+/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/<EVENT>/format.
+::
+
+ cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/myprobe/format
+ name: myprobe
+ ID: 780
+ format:
+ field:unsigned short common_type; offset:0; size:2; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned char common_flags; offset:2; size:1; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned char common_preempt_count; offset:3; size:1;signed:0;
+ field:int common_pid; offset:4; size:4; signed:1;
+
+ field:unsigned long __probe_ip; offset:12; size:4; signed:0;
+ field:int __probe_nargs; offset:16; size:4; signed:1;
+ field:unsigned long dfd; offset:20; size:4; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned long filename; offset:24; size:4; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned long flags; offset:28; size:4; signed:0;
+ field:unsigned long mode; offset:32; size:4; signed:0;
+
+
+ print fmt: "(%lx) dfd=%lx filename=%lx flags=%lx mode=%lx", REC->__probe_ip,
+ REC->dfd, REC->filename, REC->flags, REC->mode
+
+You can see that the event has 4 arguments as in the expressions you specified.
+::
+
+ echo > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/kprobe_events
+
+This clears all probe points.
+
+Or,
+::
+
+ echo -:myprobe >> kprobe_events
+
+This clears probe points selectively.
+
+Right after definition, each event is disabled by default. For tracing these
+events, you need to enable it.
+::
+
+ echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/myprobe/enable
+ echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/kprobes/myretprobe/enable
+
+Use the following command to start tracing in an interval.
+::
+
+ # echo 1 > tracing_on
+ Open something...
+ # echo 0 > tracing_on
+
+And you can see the traced information via /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace.
+::
+
+ cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace
+ # tracer: nop
+ #
+ # TASK-PID CPU# TIMESTAMP FUNCTION
+ # | | | | |
+ <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286875: myprobe: (do_sys_open+0x0/0xd6) dfd=3 filename=7fffd1ec4440 flags=8000 mode=0
+ <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286878: myretprobe: (sys_openat+0xc/0xe <- do_sys_open) $retval=fffffffffffffffe
+ <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286885: myprobe: (do_sys_open+0x0/0xd6) dfd=ffffff9c filename=40413c flags=8000 mode=1b6
+ <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286915: myretprobe: (sys_open+0x1b/0x1d <- do_sys_open) $retval=3
+ <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286969: myprobe: (do_sys_open+0x0/0xd6) dfd=ffffff9c filename=4041c6 flags=98800 mode=10
+ <...>-1447 [001] 1038282.286976: myretprobe: (sys_open+0x1b/0x1d <- do_sys_open) $retval=3
+
+
+Each line shows when the kernel hits an event, and <- SYMBOL means kernel
+returns from SYMBOL(e.g. "sys_open+0x1b/0x1d <- do_sys_open" means kernel
+returns from do_sys_open to sys_open+0x1b).