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<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
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<book id="Tracepoints">
<bookinfo>
<title>The Linux Kernel Tracepoint API</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Jason</firstname>
<surname>Baron</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>
<email>jbaron@redhat.com</email>
</address>
</affiliation>
</author>
<author>
<firstname>William</firstname>
<surname>Cohen</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>
<email>wcohen@redhat.com</email>
</address>
</affiliation>
</author>
</authorgroup>
<legalnotice>
<para>
This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.
</para>
<para>
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See the GNU General Public License for more details.
</para>
<para>
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
MA 02111-1307 USA
</para>
<para>
For more details see the file COPYING in the source
distribution of Linux.
</para>
</legalnotice>
</bookinfo>
<toc></toc>
<chapter id="intro">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>
Tracepoints are static probe points that are located in strategic points
throughout the kernel. 'Probes' register/unregister with tracepoints
via a callback mechanism. The 'probes' are strictly typed functions that
are passed a unique set of parameters defined by each tracepoint.
</para>
<para>
From this simple callback mechanism, 'probes' can be used to profile, debug,
and understand kernel behavior. There are a number of tools that provide a
framework for using 'probes'. These tools include Systemtap, ftrace, and
LTTng.
</para>
<para>
Tracepoints are defined in a number of header files via various macros. Thus,
the purpose of this document is to provide a clear accounting of the available
tracepoints. The intention is to understand not only what tracepoints are
available but also to understand where future tracepoints might be added.
</para>
<para>
The API presented has functions of the form:
<function>trace_tracepointname(function parameters)</function>. These are the
tracepoints callbacks that are found throughout the code. Registering and
unregistering probes with these callback sites is covered in the
<filename>Documentation/trace/*</filename> directory.
</para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="irq">
<title>IRQ</title>
!Iinclude/trace/events/irq.h
</chapter>
<chapter id="signal">
<title>SIGNAL</title>
!Iinclude/trace/events/signal.h
</chapter>
<chapter id="block">
<title>Block IO</title>
!Iinclude/trace/events/block.h
</chapter>
<chapter id="workqueue">
<title>Workqueue</title>
!Iinclude/trace/events/workqueue.h
</chapter>
</book>