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 and to user space
13 What you will typically want is to read sections 2 and 3 : install LTTng from
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 ltt-usertrace, 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
39 PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
42 C2 Microsystems (variant of MIPS)
45 supported architectures :
48 PowerPC 32 and 64 bits
52 Author : Mathieu Desnoyers, September 2005
53 Last update : May 30, 2006
56 ***********************************************************
57 ** Section 1 * Installation from Debian or RPM packages **
58 ***********************************************************
60 ** NOTE : RPM and debian packages are only made once a version has been
61 thoroughly tested. If they do not exist at the moment, please install from
62 sources (see section 2 below). To see the list of compatibilities between
63 LTTng, ltt-control, LTTV, genevent and lttng-modules, please refer to
64 http://ltt.polymtl.ca > LTTng+LTTV versions compatibility
67 * Install from RPM packages on Fedora Core 4 :
71 http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/fedora/RPMS
75 LTTng kernel and lttng-modules RPM are available for some architectures (i586,
76 i686). Feel free to help fix the spec files to have correct lttng-modules RPM
80 * Install from Deb packages on Debian :
82 You can use the ltt.polymtl.ca apt source to get LTTV for Debian :
84 Add the following two sources to your /etc/apt/sources.list :
86 deb http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
87 deb-src http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/debian experimental main
90 * Install from precompiled binary packages (LTTV compiled only for i386, and
91 LTTng only for i686 smp), perform the following :
95 apt-get install lttv lttv-doc
96 apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
97 apt-get install lttng-modules-modules-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
98 * note : the packages are signed by myself. I am not considered a trusted
99 Debian source yet, so warnings are normal.
101 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
103 * Create custom LTTV Debian packages
105 Binary packages are only available for i386. If you want to create your own LTTV
106 packages for other platforms, do :
112 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
114 You should then have your LTTV .deb files created for your architecture.
116 * Create custom LTTng packages
118 For building LTTng Debian packages :
121 apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
123 bzip2 -cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
124 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
125 make menuconfig (or xconfig or config) (customize your configuration)
126 make-kpkg kernel_image
128 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
129 dpkg -i /usr/src/(image-name).deb
131 You will also need to create a package for the lttng-modules :
135 apt-get source lttng-modules
136 cd kernel-source-2.6.12-rc4-mm2-lttng-0.4.2
137 make-kpkg --added_modules /usr/src/lttng-modules-0.3 modules_image
139 You will then see your freshly created .deb in /usr/src. Install it with
140 dpkg -i /usr/src/lttng-modules-modules-(your version).deb
143 Then, follow the section "Editing the system wide configuration" in section 2.
146 ***********************************************************
147 ** Section 2 * Installation from sources **
148 ***********************************************************
152 Tools needed to follow the package download steps :
159 You have to install the standard development librairies and programs necessary
160 to compile a kernel :
162 (from Documentation/Changes in the Linux kernel tree)
163 o Gnu C 2.95.3 # gcc --version
164 o Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
165 o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
166 o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
167 o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
169 You might also want to have libncurses5 to have the text mode kernel
170 configuration menu, but there are alternatives.
172 Prerequisites for LTTV 0.x.x installation are :
175 gtk 2.4 or better development libraries
176 (Debian : libgtk2.0, libgtk2.0-dev)
177 (Fedora : gtk2, gtk2-devel)
178 note : For Fedora users : this might require at least core 3 from Fedora,
179 or you might have to compile your own GTK2 library.
180 glib 2.4 or better development libraries
181 (Debian : libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-dev)
182 (Fedora : glib2, glib2-devel)
183 libpopt development libraries
184 (Debian : libpopt0, libpopt-dev)
186 libpango development libraries
187 (Debian : libpango1.0, libpango1.0-dev)
188 (Fedora : pango, pango-devel)
189 libc6 development librairies
190 (Debian : libc6, libc6-dev)
191 (Fedora : glibc, glibc)
194 * Getting the LTTng packages
199 (see http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng for package listing)
200 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2
201 bzip2 -cd patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
204 * Getting LTTng kernel sources
208 wget http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2
209 bzip2 -cd linux-2.6.X.tar.bz2 | tar xvof -
211 cat /usr/src/lttng/patch-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx* | patch -p1
213 mv linux-2.6.X linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
216 * Installing a LTTng kernel
219 cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
220 make menuconfig (or make xconfig or make config)
221 Select the < Help > button if you are not familiar with kernel
223 Items preceded by [*] means they has to be built into the kernel.
224 Items preceded by [M] means they has to be built as modules.
225 Items preceded by [ ] means they should be removed.
226 go to the "Instrumentation Support" section
227 Select the following options :
228 [*] Linux Trace Toolkit Instrumentation Support
229 <M> or <*> Linux Trace Toolkit Tracer
230 It makes no difference for the rest of the procedure whether the Tracer
231 is compiled built-in or as a module.
233 [*] Align Linux Trace Toolkit Traces
234 [*] Allow tracing from userspace
235 your choice (see < Help >) :
236 [ ] Activate Linux Trace Toolkit Heartbeat Timer
237 You may or may not activate instrumentation per facility. They are all
238 selected for logging by default. It can be used as a compile time filter to
239 enable/disable logging of events. It is useful to discard events with a
240 minimal impact on the system and especially useful for now, as the dynamic
241 filter has not been implemented yet.
251 Select the Linux 2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
254 cp vmlinux.strip /boot/vmlinux-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
255 cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
256 cp .config /boot/config-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
257 depmod -ae -F /boot/System.map-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
258 mkinitrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx 2.6.X-lttng-0.x.xx
259 (edit /etc/yaboot.conf to add a new entry pointing to your kernel : the entry
260 that comes first is the default kernel)
262 select the right entry at the yaboot prompt (see choices : tab, select : type
263 the kernel name followed by enter)
264 Select the Linux 2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx kernel in your boot loader.
269 * Editing the system wide configuration
271 You must activate relayfs and specify a mount point. This is typically done in
272 fstab such that it happens at boot time.
274 If you have never used RelayFS before, these operation would do this for you :
277 cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.lttng.bkp
278 echo "relayfs /mnt/relayfs relayfs rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
280 then, rebooting or issuing the following command will activate relayfs :
284 You need to load the ltt-control module to be able to control tracing from user
285 space. This is done by issuing the command :
289 If you want to have complete information about the kernel state (including all
290 the process names), you need to load the ltt-statedump module. This is done by
291 issuing the command :
293 modprobe ltt-statedump
295 You can automate at boot time loading the ltt-control module by :
297 echo ltt-control >> /etc/modules
298 echo ltt-statedump >> /etc/modules
301 * Getting and installing the ltt-control package (on the traced machine)
302 (note : the ltt-control package contains lttd and lttctl. Although it has the
303 same name as the ltt-control kernel module, they are *not* the same thing.)
306 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/lttng/ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz
307 gzip -cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
308 cd ltt-control-0.x-xxxx2006
309 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
315 * Getting and installing the ltt-usertrace package for user space tracing
316 See http://ltt.polymtl.ca/ > USERSPACE TRACING QUICKSTART
319 * Getting and installing the LTTV package (on the visualisation machine, same or
320 different from the visualisation machine)
324 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006.tar.gz
325 gzip -cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006.tar.gz | tar xvof -
326 cd LinuxTraceToolkitViewer-0.x.xx-xxxx2006
327 (refer to README to see the development libraries that must be installed on you
336 ***********************************************************
337 ** Section 3 * Using LTTng and LTTV **
338 ***********************************************************
340 * Use graphical LTTV to control tracing and analyse traces
342 lttv-gui (or /usr/local/bin/lttv-gui)
343 - Spot the "Tracing Control" icon : click on it
344 (it's a traffic light icon)
345 - enter the root password
349 * You should now see a trace
351 * Use text mode LTTng to control tracing
353 The tracing can be controlled from a terminal by using the lttctl command (as
358 lttctl -n trace -d -l /mnt/relayfs/ltt -t /tmp/trace
360 Stop tracing and destroy trace channels :
364 see lttctl --help for details.
369 Fell free to look in /usr/local/lib/lttv/plugins to see all the text and
370 graphical plugins available.
372 For example, a simple trace dump in text format is available with :
374 lttv -m textDump -t /tmp/trace
376 see lttv -m textDump --help for detailed command line options of textDump.
381 ***********************************************************
382 ** Section 4 * Adding new instrumentations with genevent **
383 ***********************************************************
385 * Getting and installing genevent
389 wget http://ltt.polymtl.ca/packages/genevent-0.xx.tar.gz
390 gzip -cd genevent-0.xx.tar.gz | tar xvof -
396 * Add new events to the kernel with genevent
399 cd /usr/local/share/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer/facilities
400 cp process.xml yourfacility.xml
401 * edit yourfacility.xml to fit your needs.
403 /usr/local/bin/genevent /usr/local/share/LinuxTraceToolkitViewer/facilities/yourfacility.xml
404 cp ltt-facility-yourfacility.h ltt-facility-id-yourfacility.h \
405 /usr/src/linux-2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx8/include/linux/ltt
406 cp ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.c ltt-facility-loader-yourfacility.h \
407 /usr/src/linux-2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx/ltt
408 * edit the kernel file you want to instrument
409 - Add #include <linux/ltt/ltt-facility-yourfacility.h> at the beginning
411 - Add a call to the tracing functions. See their names and parameters in
412 /usr/src/linux-2.6.17-lttng-0.x.xx/include/linux/ltt/ltt-facility-yourfacility.h
414 * Add new events to userspace programs with genevent
415 See http://ltt.polymtl.ca/ > USERSPACE TRACING QUICKSTART