4 How to use LTTng and LTTV in a few lines :
6 This document is made of four parts : The first one explains how to install
7 LTTng and LTTV from Debian and RPM binary packages, the second one explains how
8 to install LTTng and LTTV from sources and the third one describes the steps
9 to follow to trace a system and view it. The fourth and last part explains
10 briefly how to add a new trace point to the kernel.
12 What you will typically want is to read sections 1 and 3 : install LTTng from
13 binary packages and use it. If there are no packages ready for your system, you
14 will have to install from sources (section 2) instead.
16 These operations are made for installing the LTTng 0.5.18 tracer on a
17 linux 2.6.15 kernel. You will also find instructions for installation of
18 LTTV 0.8.x : the Linux Trace Toolkit Viewer.
20 The following lttng patch is necessary to have the tracing hooks in the kernel.
21 The following ltt-control module controls the tracing.
23 Required programs and librairies are assumed to be automatically installed in an
24 installation with Debian or RPM packages. In the case of an installation from
25 sources, the dependencies are listed.
28 ** Current development status **
31 supported architectures :
32 Intel Pentium (UP/SMP) with TSC
35 supported architectures :
42 Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005
43 Last update : February 10, 2006
46 ***********************************************************
47 ** Section 1 * Installation from Debian or RPM packages **
48 ***********************************************************
50 ** NOTE : RPM and debian packages are only made once a version has been
51 thoroughly tested. If they do not exist at the moment, please install from
52 sources (see section 2 below). To see the list of compatibilities between
53 LTTng, LTTv, genevent and lttng-modules, please refer to
54 http://ltt.polymtl.ca > LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility
57 * Install from RPM packages on Fedora Core 4 :
61 http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/fedora/RPMS
65 LTTng kernel and lttng-modules RPM are available for some architectures (i586,
66 i686). Feel free to help fix the spec files to have correct lttng-modules RPM
70 * Install from Deb packages on Debian :
72 You can use the ltt.polymtl.ca apt source to get LTTV for Debian :
74 Add the following two sources to your /etc/apt/sources.list :
76 deb http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
77 deb-src http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
80 * Install from precompiled binary packages (LTTV compiled only for i386, and
81 LTTng only for i686 smp), perform the following :
85 apt-get install lttv lttv-doc
86 apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
87 apt-get install lttng-modules-modules-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
88 * note : the packages are signed by myself. I am not considered a trusted
89 Debian source yet, so warnings are normal.
91 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
93 * Create custom LTTV Debian packages
95 Binary packages are only available for i386. If you want to create your own LTTV
96 packages for other platforms, do :
102 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
104 You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
106 * Create custom LTTng packages
108 For building LTTng Debian packages :
111 apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
113 bzip2 -cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
114 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
115 make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
116 make-kpkg kernel_image
118 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
119 dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
121 You will also need to create a package for the lttng-modules :
125 apt-get source lttng-modules
126 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
127 make-kpkg --added_modules /usr/src/lttng-modules-0.3 modules_image
129 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
130 dpkg -i /usr/src/lttng-modules-modules-(your version).deb
133 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
136 ***********************************************************
137 ** Section 2 * Installation from sources **
138 ***********************************************************
142 Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
149 You have to install the standard development librairies and programs necessary
150 to compile a kernel :
152 (from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
153 o Gnu C 2.95.3 # gcc --version
154 o Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
155 o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
156 o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
157 o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
159 You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
160 configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
162 Prerequisites for LTTV 0.6.x installation are :
165 gtk 2.4 or better development libraries
166 (Debian : libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
167 (Fedora : gtk2, gtk2-devel)
168 note : For Fedora users : this might require at least core 3 from Fedora,
169 or you might have to compile your own GTK2 library.
170 glib 2.4 or better development libraries
171 (Debian : libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
172 (Fedora : glib2, glib2-devel)
173 libpopt development libraries
174 (Debian : libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
176 libpango development libraries
177 (Debian : libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
178 (Fedora : pango, pango-devel)
179 libc6 development librairies
180 (Debian : libc6, libc6-dev)
181 (Fedora : glibc, glibc)
184 * Getting the LTTng packages
189 (see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
190 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/lttng-modules-0.5.tar.bz2
191 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18.tar.bz2
192 bzip2 -cd lttng-modules-0.5.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
193 bzip2 -cd patch-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
196 * Getting LTTng kernel sources
200 wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/testing/linux-2.6.15.tar.bz2
201 bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.15.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
203 cat /usr/src/lttng/patch-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18* | patch -p1
205 mv linux-2.6.15 linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18
208 * Installing a LTTng kernel
211 cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18
212 make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
213 Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
215 Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
216 Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
217 Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
218 go to the "Instrumentation Support" section
219 Select the following options :
220 [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Instrumentation Support
221 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
222 It makes no difference for the rest of the procedure whether the Tracer
223 is compiled built-in or as a module.
225 [*] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
226 do NOT activate (not ready yet) :
227 [ ] Activate Linux Trace Toolkit Heartbeat Timer
228 You may or may not activate instrumentation per facility. They are all
229 selected for logging by default. It can be used as a compile time filter to
230 enable/disable logging of events. It is useful to discard events with a
231 minimal impact on the system and especially useful for now, as the dynamic
232 filter has not been implemented yet.
242 Select the Linux 2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18 kernel in your boot loader.
245 * Install the ltt-modules
248 cd /usr/src/lttng/lttng-modules-0.5
249 KERNELDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18 make
250 KERNELDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18 make modules_install
253 * Editing the system wide configuration
255 You must activate relayfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
256 fstab such that it happens at boot time.
258 If you have never used RelayFS before, these operation would do this for you :
261 cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
262 echo "relayfs /mnt/relayfs relayfs rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
264 then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate relayfs :
268 You need to load the ltt-control module to be able to control tracing from user
269 space. This is done by issuing the command :
273 If you want to have complete information about the kernel state (including all
274 the process names), you need to load the ltt-statedump module. This is done by
275 issuing the command :
277 modprobe ltt-statedump
279 You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
281 echo ltt-control >> /etc/modules
282 echo ltt-statedump >> /etc/modules
285 * Getting and installing the ltt-control package (on the traced machine)
289 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/ltt-control-0.1-11032006.tar.gz
290 gzip -cd ltt-control-0.1-11032006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
291 cd ltt-control-0.1-11032006
292 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
299 * Getting and installing the LTTV package (on the visualisation machine, same or
300 different from the visualisation machine)
304 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.8.31-11032006.tar.gz
305 gzip -cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.8.31-11032006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
306 cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.8.31-11032006
307 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
316 ***********************************************************
317 ** Section 3 * Using LTTng and LTTV **
318 ***********************************************************
320 * Use graphical LTTV to control tracing and analyse traces
322 lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
323 - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
324 (it's a traffic light icon)
325 - enter the root password
329 * You should now see a trace
331 * Use text mode LTTng to control tracing
333 The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
338 lttctl -n trace -d -l /mnt/relayfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace
340 Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
344 see lttctl --help for details.
349 Fell free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
350 graphical plugins available.
352 For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
354 lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
356 see lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
361 ***********************************************************
362 ** Section 4 * Adding new instrumentations with genevent **
363 ***********************************************************
365 * Getting and installing genevent
369 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/genevent-0.6.tar.gz
370 gzip -cd genevent-0.8.tar.gz | tar xvof -
376 * Add new events to the kernel with genevent
379 cd /usr/local/share/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer/facilities
380 cp process.xml yourfacility.xml
381 * edit yourfacility.xml to fit your needs.
383 /usr/local/bin/genevent /usr/local/share/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer/facilities/yourfacility.xml
384 cp ltt-facility-yourfacility.h ltt-facility-id-yourfacility.h \
385 /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18/include/linux/ltt
386 cp ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.c ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.h \
387 /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18/ltt
388 * edit the kernel file you want to instrument
389 - Add #include <linux/ltt/ltt-facility-yourfacility.h> at the beginning
391 - Add a call to the tracing functions. See their names and parameters in
392 /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.5.18/include/linux/ltt/ltt-facility-yourfacility.h