[PATCH] kbase: Add knowledge base for libvirt systemtap

Han Han hhan at redhat.com
Thu Aug 6 06:34:02 UTC 2020


Signed-off-by: Han Han <hhan at redhat.com>
---
 docs/kbase.rst           |   3 ++
 docs/kbase/meson.build   |   1 +
 docs/kbase/systemtap.rst | 113 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 117 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 docs/kbase/systemtap.rst

diff --git a/docs/kbase.rst b/docs/kbase.rst
index 78daaa5989..d8bff5d41e 100644
--- a/docs/kbase.rst
+++ b/docs/kbase.rst
@@ -36,6 +36,9 @@ Knowledge base
       Examination of the security protections used for QEMU and how they need
       configuring to allow use of QEMU passthrough with host files/devices.
 
+   `Systemtap <kbase/systemtap.html>`__
+      Explanation of how to use systemtap for libvirt tracing.
+
    `Virtio-FS <kbase/virtiofs.html>`__
       Share a filesystem between the guest and the host
 
diff --git a/docs/kbase/meson.build b/docs/kbase/meson.build
index d7f254e163..ca032a4b9b 100644
--- a/docs/kbase/meson.build
+++ b/docs/kbase/meson.build
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ docs_kbase_files = [
   'rpm-deployment',
   's390_protected_virt',
   'secureusage',
+  'systemtap',
   'virtiofs',
 ]
 
diff --git a/docs/kbase/systemtap.rst b/docs/kbase/systemtap.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..34420efbb2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/kbase/systemtap.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+=======================
+Systemtap of Libvirt
+=======================
+
+.. contents::
+
+`Systemtap <https://sourceware.org/systemtap/>`__ is a scripting
+language and tool for dynamically probing or tracing in Linux kernel
+space or user space. This page is about the usage of systemtap
+in libvirt tracing.
+
+Preparation
+===================
+
+Libvirt
+-------------------------
+
+Libvirt should be configured with the systemtap option to support libvirt
+probing events in systemtap.
+
+For libvirt before **6.7.0**, it can be configured by:
+
+::
+
+    mkdir build
+    cd build
+   ../configure --with-dtrace
+
+For libvirt **6.7.0** or later, configure it by the ``meson`` (seeing
+`libvirt compiling <https://libvirt.org/compiling.html>`__):
+
+::
+
+   meson build -Ddtrace=enabled
+
+For the libvirt binaries installed by the package manager like ``dnf`` or
+``apt``, if libvirt systemtap tapset ``/usr/share/systemtap/tapset/libvirt_*``
+exists, it means the libvirt enables the systemtap feature.
+
+Systemtap
+------------------------
+
+For most of linux distributions, execute ``stap-prep`` by root to prepare the
+environment for systemtap after installing the systemtap. If your distribution
+doesn't have ``stap-prep``, install the ``kernel debuginfo`` packages manually.
+
+After these above, run this test command to confirm the systemtap works well:
+
+::
+
+   stap -e 'probe oneshot{ printf("hello world\n")}'
+
+
+Tracing events
+=======================
+
+The libvirt systemtap tracing events are defined in tapset
+``/usr/share/systemtap/tapset/libvirt_*``. Libvirt support these type of tracing
+events: ``dbus``, ``event_glib``, ``object``, ``qemu``, ``rpc``.
+
+List all tracing events in libvirt:
+
+::
+
+   grep 'probe libvirt.[a-z_0-9.]*' /usr/share/systemtap/tapset/libvirt_* -o|cut -f 2 -d :
+
+
+Tracing examples
+==================
+
+Here is an example of the systemtap script to trace the QMP messages sent from libvirtd
+daemon to the qemu process.
+``qmp.stp``:
+
+::
+
+   probe begin
+   {
+     printf("Start tracing\n")
+   }
+   probe libvirt.qemu.monitor_send_msg
+   {
+     printf("QMPs: %s", msg);
+   }
+
+Then run the systemtap script attaching to the libvirtd process:
+
+::
+
+   stap qmp.stp -x `pidof libvirtd`
+
+
+To trace a libvirtd started from command line, use the option ``-c``
+
+::
+
+   stap qmp.stp -c "/usr/sbin/libvirtd"
+
+
+Then after seeing the welcome message "Start tracing" from systemtap, then execute a virsh
+command associated with QMP, for example ``virsh domstats``. Then get the QMP tracing logs
+from systemtap. For example, the result from ``virsh domstats``
+
+::
+
+   QMPs: {"execute":"query-balloon","id":"libvirt-393"}
+   QMPs: {"execute":"qom-get","arguments":{"path":"/machine/peripheral/balloon0","property":"guest-stats"},"id":"libvirt-394"}
+   QMPs: {"execute":"query-blockstats","id":"libvirt-395"}
+   QMPs: {"execute":"query-named-block-nodes","id":"libvirt-396"}
+   QMPs: {"execute":"query-iothreads","id":"libvirt-397"}
+
+For more examples of libvirt systemtap scripts, see the scripts in ``/usr/share/doc/libvirt-docs/examples/systemtap``
+For more details of systemtap language, see `document of systemtap <https://sourceware.org/systemtap/documentation.html>`__
-- 
2.27.0




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