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 0.4.1 tracer on a
17 linux 2.6.12-rc4-mm2 kernel. You will also find instructions for installtion of
18 LTTV 0.6.x : the Linux Trace Toolkit Viewer.
20 At this point, the -mm tree of the kernel is used because it has RelayFS support
21 in it. In a nearby future, a vanilla kernel 2.6.14 will be used, as RelayFS has
22 been integrated in the linux 2.6.14-rc series.
24 The following lttng patch is necessary to have the tracing hooks in the kernel.
25 The following ltt-control module controls the tracing.
27 Required programs and librairies are assumed to be automatically installed in an
28 installation with Debian or RPM packages. In the case of an installation from
29 sources, the dependencies are listed.
32 ** Current development status **
35 supported architectures :
36 Intel Pentium (UP/SMP) with TSC
39 supported architectures :
45 Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005
49 ***********************************************************
50 ** Section 1 * Installation from Debian or RPM packages **
51 ***********************************************************
53 No RPM packages are ready yet.
55 You can use the ltt.polymtl.ca apt source to get LTTV for Debian :
57 Add the following two sources to your /etc/apt/sources.list :
59 deb http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
60 deb-src http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
63 * Install from precompiled binary packages (LTTV compiled only for i386, and
64 LTTng only for i686 smp), perform the following :
68 apt-get install lttv lttv-doc
69 apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1
70 apt-get install lttng-modules-modules-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1
71 * note : the packages are signed by myself. I am not considered a trusted
72 Debian source yet, so warnings are normal.
74 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
76 * Create custom LTTV Debian packages
78 Binary packages are only available for i386. If you want to create your own LTTV
79 packages for other platforms, do :
85 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
87 You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
89 * Create custom LTTng packages
91 For building LTTng Debian packages :
94 apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1
96 bzip2 -cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
97 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1
98 make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
99 make-kpkg kernel_image
101 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
102 dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
104 You will also need to create a package for the lttng-modules :
108 apt-get source lttng-modules
109 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1
110 make-kpkg --added_modules /usr/src/lttng-modules-0.3 modules_image
112 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
113 dpkg -i /usr/src/lttng-modules-modules-(your version).deb
116 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
119 ***********************************************************
120 ** Section 2 * Installation from sources **
121 ***********************************************************
125 Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
132 You have to install the standard development librairies and programs necessary
133 to compile a kernel :
135 (from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
136 o Gnu C 2.95.3 # gcc --version
137 o Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
138 o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
139 o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
140 o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
142 You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
143 configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
145 Prerequisites for LTTV 0.6.x installation are :
147 gtk 2.4 or better development libraries (libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
148 glib 2.4 or better development libraries (libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
149 libpopt development libraries (libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
150 libpango development libraries (libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
151 libc6 development librairies (libc6, libc6-dev)
154 * Getting the LTTng packages
159 (see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
160 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/lttng-modules-0.3.tar.bz2
161 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1.bz2
162 bzip2 -cd lttng-modules-0.3.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
165 * Getting LTTng kernel sources
169 wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/testing/linux-2.6.12-rc4.tar.bz2
170 wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/patches/2.6/2.6.12-rc4/2.6.12-rc4-mm2/2.6.12-rc4-mm2.bz2
171 bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.12-rc4.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
173 bzip2 -cd ../2.6.12-rc4-mm2.bz2 | patch -p1
174 bzip2 -cd /usr/src/lttng/patch-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1.bz2 | patch -p1
176 mv linux-2.6.12-rc4 linux-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1
179 * Installing a LTTng kernel
182 cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1
183 make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
184 Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
186 Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
187 Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
188 Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
189 go to the "General setup" section
190 Select the following options :
191 [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Instrumentation Support
192 [M] or [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
193 It makes no difference for the rest of the procedure whether the Tracer
194 is compiled built-in or as a module.
195 do NOT activate (not ready yet) :
196 [ ] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
197 [ ] Activate Linux Trace Toolkit Heartbeat Timer
198 IMPORTANT : This is enabled by default : you must disable it!
208 Select the Linux 2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1 kernel in your boot loader.
211 * Install the ltt-modules
214 cd /usr/src/lttng/lttng-modules-0.3
215 KERNELDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1 make
216 KERNELDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1 make modules_install
219 * Editing the system wide configuration
221 You must activate relayfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
222 fstab such that it happens at boot time.
224 If you have never used RelayFS before, these operation would do this for you :
227 cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
228 echo "relayfs /mnt/relayfs relayfs rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
230 then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate relayfs :
234 You need to load the ltt-control module to be able to control tracing from user
235 space. This is done by issuing the command :
239 You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
241 echo ltt-control >> /etc/modules
244 * Getting and installing the LTTV package
248 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.6.5-21092005.tar.gz
249 gzip -cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.6.5-21092005.tar.gz | tar xvof -
250 cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.6.5-21092005
251 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
260 ***********************************************************
261 ** Section 3 * Using LTTng and LTTV **
262 ***********************************************************
264 * Use graphical LTTV to control tracing and analyse traces
266 lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
267 - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
268 (it's a traffic light icon)
269 - enter the root password
273 * You should now see a trace
275 * Use text mode LTTng to control tracing
277 The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
282 lttctl -n trace -d -l /mnt/relayfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace
284 Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
288 see lttctl --help for details.
293 Fell free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
294 graphical plugins available.
296 For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
298 lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
300 see lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
305 ***********************************************************
306 ** Section 4 * Adding new instrumentations with genevent **
307 ***********************************************************
309 * Getting and installing genevent
313 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/genevent-0.2.tar.gz
314 gzip -cd genevent-0.2.tar.gz | tar xvof -
320 * Add new events to the kernel with genevent
323 cd /usr/local/share/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer/facilities
324 cp process.xml yourfacility.xml
325 * edit yourfacility.xml to fit your needs.
327 /usr/local/bin/genevent /usr/local/share/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer/yourfacility.xml
328 cp ltt-facility-yourfacility.h ltt-facility-id-yourfacility.h \
329 /usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1/include/linux/ltt
330 cp ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.c ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.h \
331 /usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1/ltt
332 * edit the kernel file you want to instrument
333 - Add #include <linux/ltt/ltt-facility-yourfacility.h> at the beginning
335 - Add a call to the tracing functions. See their names and parameters in
336 /usr/src/linux-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.1/include/linux/ltt/ltt-facility-yourfacility.h