Provided by: trace-cmd_2.3.1-1_amd64 bug

NAME

       trace-cmd-record - record a trace from the Ftrace Linux internal tracer

SYNOPSIS

       trace-cmd record [OPTIONS] [command]

DESCRIPTION

       The trace-cmd(1) record command will set up the Ftrace Linux kernel tracer to record the
       specified plugins or events that happen while the command executes. If no command is
       given, then it will record until the user hits Ctrl-C.

       The record command of trace-cmd will set up the Ftrace tracer to start tracing the various
       events or plugins that are given on the command line. It will then create a number of
       tracing processes (one per CPU) that will start recording from the kernel ring buffer
       straight into temporary files. When the command is complete (or Ctrl-C is hit) all the
       files will be combined into a trace.dat file that can later be read (see
       trace-cmd-report(1)).

OPTIONS

       -p plugin
           Specify a trace plugin. Plugins are special Ftrace tracers that usually do more than
           just trace an event. Common plugins are function, function_graph, preemptirqsoff,
           irqsoff, preemptoff, and wakeup. A plugin must be supported by the running kernel. To
           see a list of available plugins, see trace-cmd-list(1).

       -e event
           Specify an event to trace. Various static trace points have been added to the Linux
           kernel. They are grouped by subsystem where you can enable all events of a given
           subsystem or specify specific events to be enabled. The event is of the format
           "subsystem:event-name". You can also just specify the subsystem without the
           :event-name or the event-name without the "subsystem:". Using "-e sched_switch" will
           enable the "sched_switch" event where as, "-e sched" will enable all events under the
           "sched" subsystem.

               The 'event' can also contain glob expressions. That is, "*stat*" will
               select all events (or subsystems) that have the characters "stat" in their
               names.

               The keyword 'all' can be used to enable all events.

       -a
           Every event that is being recorded has its output format file saved in the output file
           to be able to display it later. But if other events are enabled in the trace without
           trace-cmd’s knowledge, the formats of those events will not be recorded and trace-cmd
           report will not be able to display them. If this is the case, then specify the -a
           option and the format for all events in the system will be saved.

       -T
           Enable a stacktrace on each event. For example:

                         <idle>-0     [003] 58549.289091: sched_switch:         kworker/0:1:0 [120] R ==> trace-cmd:2603 [120]
                         <idle>-0     [003] 58549.289092: kernel_stack:         <stack trace>
               => schedule (ffffffff814b260e)
               => cpu_idle (ffffffff8100a38c)
               => start_secondary (ffffffff814ab828)

       --func-stack
           Enable a stack trace on all functions. Note this is only applicable for the "function"
           plugin tracer, and will only take effect if the -l option is used and succeeds in
           limiting functions. If the function tracer is not filtered, and the stack trace is
           enabled, you can live lock the machine.

       -f filter
           Specify a filter for the previous event. This must come after a -e. This will filter
           what events get recorded based on the content of the event. Filtering is passed to the
           kernel directly so what filtering is allowed may depend on what version of the kernel
           you have. Basically, it will let you use C notation to check if an event should be
           processed or not.

               ==, >=, <=, >, <, &, |, && and ||

           The above are usually safe to use to compare fields.

       -v
           This will cause all events specified after it on the command line to not be traced.
           This is useful for selecting a subsystem to be traced but to leave out various events.
           For Example: "-e sched -v -e "*stat\*"" will enable all events in the sched subsystem
           except those that have "stat" in their names.

               Note: the *-v* option was taken from the way grep(1) inverts the following
               matches.

       -F
           This will filter only the executable that is given on the command line. If no command
           is given, then it will filter itself (pretty pointless). Using -F will let you trace
           only events that are caused by the given command.

       -P pid
           Similar to -F but lets you specify a process ID to trace.

       -c
           Used with either -F to trace the process' children too.

       -o output-file
           By default, trace-cmd report will create a trace.dat file. You can specify a different
           file to write to with the -o option.

       -l function-name
           This will limit the function and function_graph tracers to only trace the given
           function name. More than one -l may be specified on the command line to trace more
           than one function. The limited use of glob expressions are also allowed. These are
           match* to only filter functions that start with match.  *match to only filter
           functions that end with match.  *match\* to only filter on functions that contain
           match.

       -g function-name
           This option is for the function_graph plugin. It will graph the given function. That
           is, it will only trace the function and all functions that it calls. You can have more
           than one -g on the command line.

       -n function-name
           This has the opposite effect of -l. The function given with the -n option will not be
           traced. This takes precedence, that is, if you include the same function for both -n
           and -l, it will not be traced.

       -d
           Some tracer plugins enable the function tracer by default. Like the latency tracers.
           This option prevents the function tracer from being enabled at start up.

       -D
           The option -d will try to use the function-trace option to disable the function tracer
           (if available), otherwise it defaults to the proc file:
           /proc/sys/kernel/ftrace_enabled, but will not touch it if the function-trace option is
           available. The -D option will disable both the ftrace_enabled proc file as well as the
           function-trace option if it exists.

               Note, this disable function tracing for all users, which includes users
               outside of ftrace tracers (stack_tracer, perf, etc).

       -O option
           Ftrace has various options that can be enabled or disabled. This allows you to set
           them. Appending the text no to an option disables it. For example: "-O nograph-time"
           will disable the "graph-time" Ftrace option.

       -s interval
           The processes that trace-cmd creates to record from the ring buffer need to wake up to
           do the recording. Setting the interval to zero will cause the processes to wakeup
           every time new data is written into the buffer. But since Ftrace is recording kernel
           activity, the act of this processes going back to sleep may cause new events into the
           ring buffer which will wake the process back up. This will needlessly add extra data
           into the ring buffer.

               The 'interval' metric is microseconds. The default is set to 1000 (1 ms).
               This is the time each recording process will sleep before waking up to
               record any new data that was written to the ring buffer.

       -r priority
           The priority to run the capture threads at. In a busy system the trace capturing
           threads may be staved and events can be lost. This increases the priority of those
           threads to the real time (FIFO) priority. But use this option with care, it can also
           change the behaviour of the system being traced.

       -b size
           This sets the ring buffer size to size kilobytes. Because the Ftrace ring buffer is
           per CPU, this size is the size of each per CPU ring buffer inside the kernel. Using
           "-b 10000" on a machine with 4 CPUs will make Ftrace have a total buffer size of 40
           Megs.

       -B buffer-name
           If the kernel supports multiple buffers, this will add a buffer with the given name.
           If the buffer name already exists, that buffer is just reset and will not be deleted
           at the end of record execution. If the buffer is created, it will be removed at the
           end of execution (unless the -k is set, or start command was used).

               After a buffer name is stated, all events added after that will be
               associated with that buffer. If no buffer is specified, or an event
               is specified before a buffer name, it will be associated with the
               main (toplevel) buffer.

               trace-cmd record -e sched -B block -e block -B time -e timer sleep 1

               The above is will enable all sched events in the main buffer. It will
               then create a 'block' buffer instance and enable all block events within
               that buffer. A 'time' buffer instance is created and all timer events
               will be enabled for that event.

       -m size
           The max size in kilobytes that a per cpu buffer should be. Note, due to rounding to
           page size, the number may not be totally correct. Also, this is performed by switching
           between two buffers that are half the given size thus the output may not be of the
           given size even if much more was written.

               Use this to prevent running out of diskspace for long runs.

       -M cpumask
           Set the cpumask for to trace. It only affects the last buffer instance given. If
           supplied before any buffer instance, then it affects the main buffer. The value
           supplied must be a hex number.

               trace-cmd record -p function -M c -B events13 -e all -M 5

               If the -M is left out, then the mask stays the same. To enable all
               CPUs, pass in a value of '-1'.

       -k
           By default, when trace-cmd is finished tracing, it will reset the buffers and disable
           all the tracing that it enabled. This option keeps trace-cmd from disabling the tracer
           and reseting the buffer. This option is useful for debugging trace-cmd.

               Note: usually trace-cmd will set the "tracing_on" file back to what it
               was before it was called. This option will leave that file set to zero.

       -i
           By default, if an event is listed that trace-cmd does not find, it will exit with an
           error. This option will just ignore events that are listed on the command line but are
           not found on the system.

       -N host:port
           If another machine is running "trace-cmd listen", this option is used to have the data
           sent to that machine with UDP packets. Instead of writing to an output file, the data
           is sent off to a remote box. This is ideal for embedded machines with little storage,
           or having a single machine that will keep all the data in a single repository.

               Note: This option is not supported with latency tracer plugins:
                 wakeup, wakeup_rt, irqsoff, preemptoff and preemptirqsoff

       -t
           This option is used with -N, when there’s a need to send the live data with TCP
           packets instead of UDP. Although TCP is not nearly as fast as sending the UDP packets,
           but it may be needed if the network is not that reliable, the amount of data is not
           that intensive, and a guarantee is needed that all traced information is transfered
           successfully.

       --date
           With the --date option, "trace-cmd" will write timestamps into the trace buffer after
           it has finished recording. It will then map the timestamp to gettimeofday which will
           allow wall time output from the timestamps reading the created trace.dat file.

EXAMPLES

       The basic way to trace all events:

            # trace-cmd record -e all ls > /dev/null
            # trace-cmd report
                  trace-cmd-13541 [003] 106260.693809: filemap_fault: address=0x128122 offset=0xce
                  trace-cmd-13543 [001] 106260.693809: kmalloc: call_site=81128dd4 ptr=0xffff88003dd83800 bytes_req=768 bytes_alloc=1024 gfp_flags=GFP_KERNEL|GFP_ZERO
                         ls-13545 [002] 106260.693809: kfree: call_site=810a7abb ptr=0x0
                         ls-13545 [002] 106260.693818: sys_exit_write:       0x1

       To use the function tracer with sched switch tracing:

            # trace-cmd record -p function -e sched_switch ls > /dev/null
            # trace-cmd report
                         ls-13587 [002] 106467.860310: function: hrtick_start_fair <-- pick_next_task_fair
                         ls-13587 [002] 106467.860313: sched_switch: prev_comm=trace-cmd prev_pid=13587 prev_prio=120 prev_state=R ==> next_comm=trace-cmd next_pid=13583 next_prio=120
                  trace-cmd-13585 [001] 106467.860314: function: native_set_pte_at <-- __do_fault
                  trace-cmd-13586 [003] 106467.860314: function:             up_read <-- do_page_fault
                         ls-13587 [002] 106467.860317: function:             __phys_addr <-- schedule
                  trace-cmd-13585 [001] 106467.860318: function: _raw_spin_unlock <-- __do_fault
                         ls-13587 [002] 106467.860320: function: native_load_sp0 <-- __switch_to
                  trace-cmd-13586 [003] 106467.860322: function: down_read_trylock <-- do_page_fault

       Here is a nice way to find what interrupts have the highest latency:

            # trace-cmd record -p function_graph -e irq_handler_entry  -l do_IRQ sleep 10
            # trace-cmd report
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157412.933969: funcgraph_entry:                  |  do_IRQ() {
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157412.933974: irq_handler_entry:    irq=48 name=eth0
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157412.934004: funcgraph_exit:       + 36.358 us |  }
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157413.895004: funcgraph_entry:                  |  do_IRQ() {
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157413.895011: irq_handler_entry:    irq=48 name=eth0
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157413.895026: funcgraph_exit:                        + 24.014 us |  }
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157415.891762: funcgraph_entry:                  |  do_IRQ() {
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157415.891769: irq_handler_entry:    irq=48 name=eth0
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157415.891784: funcgraph_exit:       + 22.928 us |  }
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157415.934869: funcgraph_entry:                  |  do_IRQ() {
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157415.934874: irq_handler_entry:    irq=48 name=eth0
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157415.934906: funcgraph_exit:       + 37.512 us |  }
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157417.888373: funcgraph_entry:                  |  do_IRQ() {
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157417.888381: irq_handler_entry:    irq=48 name=eth0
                     <idle>-0     [000] 157417.888398: funcgraph_exit:       + 25.943 us |  }

SEE ALSO

       trace-cmd(1), trace-cmd-report(1), trace-cmd-start(1), trace-cmd-stop(1),
       trace-cmd-extract(1), trace-cmd-reset(1), trace-cmd-split(1), trace-cmd-list(1),
       trace-cmd-listen(1)

AUTHOR

       Written by Steven Rostedt, <rostedt@goodmis.org[1]>

RESOURCES

       git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rostedt/trace-cmd.git

COPYING

       Copyright (C) 2010 Red Hat, Inc. Free use of this software is granted under the terms of
       the GNU Public License (GPL).

NOTES

        1. rostedt@goodmis.org
           mailto:rostedt@goodmis.org

                                            01/29/2014                        TRACE-CMD-RECORD(1)