kmemtrace: Additional documentation.

Documented kmemtrace's ABI, purpose and design. Also includes a short
usage guide, FAQ, as well as a link to the userspace application's Git
repository, which is currently hosted at repo.or.cz.

Signed-off-by: Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu <eduard.munteanu@linux360.ro>
Signed-off-by: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi>

1 files changed, 126 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/vm/kmemtrace.txt b/Documentation/vm/kmemtrace.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..75360b142ba4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/vm/kmemtrace.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,126 @@
+			kmemtrace - Kernel Memory Tracer
+
+			  by Eduard - Gabriel Munteanu
+			     <eduard.munteanu@linux360.ro>
+
+I. Introduction
+===============
+
+kmemtrace helps kernel developers figure out two things:
+1) how different allocators (SLAB, SLUB etc.) perform
+2) how kernel code allocates memory and how much
+
+To do this, we trace every allocation and export information to the userspace
+through the relay interface. We export things such as the number of requested
+bytes, the number of bytes actually allocated (i.e. including internal
+fragmentation), whether this is a slab allocation or a plain kmalloc() and so
+on.
+
+The actual analysis is performed by a userspace tool (see section III for
+details on where to get it from). It logs the data exported by the kernel,
+processes it and (as of writing this) can provide the following information:
+- the total amount of memory allocated and fragmentation per call-site
+- the amount of memory allocated and fragmentation per allocation
+- total memory allocated and fragmentation in the collected dataset
+- number of cross-CPU allocation and frees (makes sense in NUMA environments)
+
+Moreover, it can potentially find inconsistent and erroneous behavior in
+kernel code, such as using slab free functions on kmalloc'ed memory or
+allocating less memory than requested (but not truly failed allocations).
+
+kmemtrace also makes provisions for tracing on some arch and analysing the
+data on another.
+
+II. Design and goals
+====================
+
+kmemtrace was designed to handle rather large amounts of data. Thus, it uses
+the relay interface to export whatever is logged to userspace, which then
+stores it. Analysis and reporting is done asynchronously, that is, after the
+data is collected and stored. By design, it allows one to log and analyse
+on different machines and different arches.
+
+As of writing this, the ABI is not considered stable, though it might not
+change much. However, no guarantees are made about compatibility yet. When
+deemed stable, the ABI should still allow easy extension while maintaining
+backward compatibility. This is described further in Documentation/ABI.
+
+Summary of design goals:
+	- allow logging and analysis to be done across different machines
+	- be fast and anticipate usage in high-load environments (*)
+	- be reasonably extensible
+	- make it possible for GNU/Linux distributions to have kmemtrace
+	included in their repositories
+
+(*) - one of the reasons Pekka Enberg's original userspace data analysis
+    tool's code was rewritten from Perl to C (although this is more than a
+    simple conversion)
+
+
+III. Quick usage guide
+======================
+
+1) Get a kernel that supports kmemtrace and build it accordingly (i.e. enable
+CONFIG_KMEMTRACE and CONFIG_DEFAULT_ENABLED).
+
+2) Get the userspace tool and build it:
+$ git-clone git://repo.or.cz/kmemtrace-user.git		# current repository
+$ cd kmemtrace-user/
+$ ./autogen.sh
+$ ./configure
+$ make
+
+3) Boot the kmemtrace-enabled kernel if you haven't, preferably in the
+'single' runlevel (so that relay buffers don't fill up easily), and run
+kmemtrace:
+# '$' does not mean user, but root here.
+$ mount -t debugfs none /sys/kernel/debug
+$ mount -t proc none /proc
+$ cd path/to/kmemtrace-user/
+$ ./kmemtraced
+Wait a bit, then stop it with CTRL+C.
+$ cat /sys/kernel/debug/kmemtrace/total_overruns	# Check if we didn't
+							# overrun, should
+							# be zero.
+$ (Optionally) [Run kmemtrace_check separately on each cpu[0-9]*.out file to
+		check its correctness]
+$ ./kmemtrace-report
+
+Now you should have a nice and short summary of how the allocator performs.
+
+IV. FAQ and known issues
+========================
+
+Q: 'cat /sys/kernel/debug/kmemtrace/total_overruns' is non-zero, how do I fix
+this? Should I worry?
+A: If it's non-zero, this affects kmemtrace's accuracy, depending on how
+large the number is. You can fix it by supplying a higher
+'kmemtrace.subbufs=N' kernel parameter.
+---
+
+Q: kmemtrace_check reports errors, how do I fix this? Should I worry?
+A: This is a bug and should be reported. It can occur for a variety of
+reasons:
+	- possible bugs in relay code
+	- possible misuse of relay by kmemtrace
+	- timestamps being collected unorderly
+Or you may fix it yourself and send us a patch.
+---
+
+Q: kmemtrace_report shows many errors, how do I fix this? Should I worry?
+A: This is a known issue and I'm working on it. These might be true errors
+in kernel code, which may have inconsistent behavior (e.g. allocating memory
+with kmem_cache_alloc() and freeing it with kfree()). Pekka Enberg pointed
+out this behavior may work with SLAB, but may fail with other allocators.
+
+It may also be due to lack of tracing in some unusual allocator functions.
+
+We don't want bug reports regarding this issue yet.
+---
+
+V. See also
+===========
+
+Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
+Documentation/ABI/testing/debugfs-kmemtrace
+