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.X tracer on a
17 linux 2.6.X kernel. You will also find instructions for installation of
18 LTTV 0.8.x : the Linux Trace Toolkit Viewer.
20 To see the list of compatibilities between LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV, genevent
21 and lttng-modules, please refer to :
22 http://ltt.polymtl.ca > LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility
26 The following lttng patch is necessary to have the tracing hooks in the kernel.
27 The following ltt-control module controls the tracing.
29 Required programs and librairies are assumed to be automatically installed in an
30 installation with Debian or RPM packages. In the case of an installation from
31 sources, the dependencies are listed.
34 ** Current development status **
37 supported architectures :
38 Intel Pentium (UP/SMP) with TSC
42 supported architectures :
49 Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005
50 Last update : March 13, 2006
53 ***********************************************************
54 ** Section 1 * Installation from Debian or RPM packages **
55 ***********************************************************
57 ** NOTE : RPM and debian packages are only made once a version has been
58 thoroughly tested. If they do not exist at the moment, please install from
59 sources (see section 2 below). To see the list of compatibilities between
60 LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV, genevent and lttng-modules, please refer to
61 http://ltt.polymtl.ca > LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility
64 * Install from RPM packages on Fedora Core 4 :
68 http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/fedora/RPMS
72 LTTng kernel and lttng-modules RPM are available for some architectures (i586,
73 i686). Feel free to help fix the spec files to have correct lttng-modules RPM
77 * Install from Deb packages on Debian :
79 You can use the ltt.polymtl.ca apt source to get LTTV for Debian :
81 Add the following two sources to your /etc/apt/sources.list :
83 deb http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
84 deb-src http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
87 * Install from precompiled binary packages (LTTV compiled only for i386, and
88 LTTng only for i686 smp), perform the following :
92 apt-get install lttv lttv-doc
93 apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
94 apt-get install lttng-modules-modules-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
95 * note : the packages are signed by myself. I am not considered a trusted
96 Debian source yet, so warnings are normal.
98 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
100 * Create custom LTTV Debian packages
102 Binary packages are only available for i386. If you want to create your own LTTV
103 packages for other platforms, do :
109 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
111 You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
113 * Create custom LTTng packages
115 For building LTTng Debian packages :
118 apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
120 bzip2 -cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
121 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
122 make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
123 make-kpkg kernel_image
125 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
126 dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
128 You will also need to create a package for the lttng-modules :
132 apt-get source lttng-modules
133 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
134 make-kpkg --added_modules /usr/src/lttng-modules-0.3 modules_image
136 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
137 dpkg -i /usr/src/lttng-modules-modules-(your version).deb
140 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
143 ***********************************************************
144 ** Section 2 * Installation from sources **
145 ***********************************************************
149 Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
156 You have to install the standard development librairies and programs necessary
157 to compile a kernel :
159 (from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
160 o Gnu C 2.95.3 # gcc --version
161 o Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
162 o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
163 o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
164 o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
166 You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
167 configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
169 Prerequisites for LTTV 0.x.x installation are :
172 gtk 2.4 or better development libraries
173 (Debian : libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
174 (Fedora : gtk2, gtk2-devel)
175 note : For Fedora users : this might require at least core 3 from Fedora,
176 or you might have to compile your own GTK2 library.
177 glib 2.4 or better development libraries
178 (Debian : libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
179 (Fedora : glib2, glib2-devel)
180 libpopt development libraries
181 (Debian : libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
183 libpango development libraries
184 (Debian : libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
185 (Fedora : pango, pango-devel)
186 libc6 development librairies
187 (Debian : libc6, libc6-dev)
188 (Fedora : glibc, glibc)
191 * Getting the LTTng packages
196 (see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
197 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/lttng-modules-0.5.tar.bz2
198 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2
199 bzip2 -cd lttng-modules-0.x.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
200 bzip2 -cd patch-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
203 * Getting LTTng kernel sources
207 wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/testing/linux-2.6.15.tar.bz2
208 bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.15.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
210 cat /usr/src/lttng/patch-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx* | patch -p1
212 mv linux-2.6.15 linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx
215 * Installing a LTTng kernel
218 cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx
219 make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
220 Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
222 Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
223 Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
224 Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
225 go to the "Instrumentation Support" section
226 Select the following options :
227 [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Instrumentation Support
228 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
229 It makes no difference for the rest of the procedure whether the Tracer
230 is compiled built-in or as a module.
232 [*] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
233 [*] Allow tracing from userspace
234 your choice (see < Help >) :
235 [ ] Activate Linux Trace Toolkit Heartbeat Timer
236 You may or may not activate instrumentation per facility. They are all
237 selected for logging by default. It can be used as a compile time filter to
238 enable/disable logging of events. It is useful to discard events with a
239 minimal impact on the system and especially useful for now, as the dynamic
240 filter has not been implemented yet.
250 Select the Linux 2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
253 * Install the ltt-modules
256 cd /usr/src/lttng/lttng-modules-0.xx
257 KERNELDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx make
258 KERNELDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx make modules_install
261 * Editing the system wide configuration
263 You must activate relayfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
264 fstab such that it happens at boot time.
266 If you have never used RelayFS before, these operation would do this for you :
269 cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
270 echo "relayfs /mnt/relayfs relayfs rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
272 then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate relayfs :
276 You need to load the ltt-control module to be able to control tracing from user
277 space. This is done by issuing the command :
281 If you want to have complete information about the kernel state (including all
282 the process names), you need to load the ltt-statedump module. This is done by
283 issuing the command :
285 modprobe ltt-statedump
287 You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
289 echo ltt-control >> /etc/modules
290 echo ltt-statedump >> /etc/modules
293 * Getting and installing the ltt-control package (on the traced machine)
297 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz
298 gzip -cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
299 cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006
300 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
307 * Getting and installing the LTTV package (on the visualisation machine, same or
308 different from the visualisation machine)
312 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006.tar.gz
313 gzip -cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
314 cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006
315 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
324 ***********************************************************
325 ** Section 3 * Using LTTng and LTTV **
326 ***********************************************************
328 * Use graphical LTTV to control tracing and analyse traces
330 lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
331 - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
332 (it's a traffic light icon)
333 - enter the root password
337 * You should now see a trace
339 * Use text mode LTTng to control tracing
341 The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
346 lttctl -n trace -d -l /mnt/relayfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace
348 Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
352 see lttctl --help for details.
357 Fell free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
358 graphical plugins available.
360 For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
362 lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
364 see lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
369 ***********************************************************
370 ** Section 4 * Adding new instrumentations with genevent **
371 ***********************************************************
373 * Getting and installing genevent
377 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/genevent-0.xx.tar.gz
378 gzip -cd genevent-0.xx.tar.gz | tar xvof -
384 * Add new events to the kernel with genevent
387 cd /usr/local/share/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer/facilities
388 cp process.xml yourfacility.xml
389 * edit yourfacility.xml to fit your needs.
391 /usr/local/bin/genevent /usr/local/share/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer/facilities/yourfacility.xml
392 cp ltt-facility-yourfacility.h ltt-facility-id-yourfacility.h \
393 /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx8/include/linux/ltt
394 cp ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.c ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.h \
395 /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx/ltt
396 * edit the kernel file you want to instrument
397 - Add #include <linux/ltt/ltt-facility-yourfacility.h> at the beginning
399 - Add a call to the tracing functions. See their names and parameters in
400 /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-lttng-0.x.xx/include/linux/ltt/ltt-facility-yourfacility.h