[ The below is a rough draft of what the new trace.dat version 7 data file might look like. ] TRACE-CMD-v7.DAT(5) =================== NAME ---- trace-cmd-v7.dat - trace-cmd file format (version 7) SYNOPSIS -------- *trace-cmd.dat* ignore DESCRIPTION ----------- The trace-cmd(1) utility produces a "trace.dat" file. The file may also be named anything depending if the user specifies a different output name, but it must have a certain binary format. The file is used by trace-cmd to save kernel traces into it and be able to extract the trace from it at a later point (see *trace-cmd-report(1)*). INITIAL FORMAT -------------- The first three bytes contain the magic value: 0x17 0x08 0x44 The next 7 bytes contain the characters: "tracing" The next set of characters contain a null '\0' terminated string that contains the version of the file (for example): "7\0" The next 1 byte contains the flags for the file endianess: 0 = little endian 1 = big endian The next byte contains the number of bytes per "long" value: 4 - 32-bit long values 8 - 64-bit long values Note: This is the long size of the target's userspace. Not the kernel space size. [ Now all numbers are written in file defined endianess. ] The next set of characters contain a null '\0' terminating string that contain the compression type. "none\0", if the file does not have any compression algorithm in it. "zlib\0", if it uses the zlib compression. The next set of characters contain a null '\0' terminating string that contain the version of compression that is used. Note, the "none\0" compression will simply have a single null character "\0". ie. For compression type and version: "none\0\0" The next 8 bytes is the file offset to the "Options" section that defines where all other sections are located, which may exist anywhere in the file. OPTIONS SECTION --------------- The options sections starts with the following format: 8 bytes - size in bytes of this options sections The array of options in this section Each element of the array consists of: 2 bytes - option identifier 4 bytes - option size See OPTION TYPES for information on each option. The option section ends with the option TRACE_OPTION_DONE, which is of the following format: 2 bytes - 00 00 - (TRACE_OPTION_DONE) 4 bytes - 00 08 - (size == 8) 8 bytes - Either zero, which means there's no more options. Or a file offset to another OPTION SECTION array, that has the same format as this section. The data of the section starts immediately after the above header. SECTION FORMAT -------------- All other parts of the trace.dat file will have a pointer to it from the OPTION SECTION and defined by the OPTION TYPE. But they also will start with the following: 2 bytes - Type of section (this will be the same as the option type) 2 bytes - Flags - currently bit zero will define if the section is compressed or not. 8 bytes - The size of the section in the file. 8 bytes - The size of the section when uncompressed. If it is not compressed, then it will be equal to the size of the section in the file. OPTION TYPES ------------ 0 TRACECMD_OPTION_DONE Defines the end of the option section, or if the next 8 bytes are other than zero, defines the offset in the file that starts another option section. 1 TRACECMD_OPTION_DATE String defining an offset to add to the time stamps in microseconds. Starts with 0x. 2 TRACECMD_OPTION_CPUSTAT A string defining the stats of the CPU buffer at the end of the trace. 3 TRACECMD_OPTION_BUFFER String containing the name of the buffer instance, "\0" if it is the top level buffer. 8 bytes that point to where an instance buffer exists 4 TRACECMD_OPTION_TRACECLOCK No size. If exists, sets the "use_trace_clock" option of the trace-cmd handle. 5 TRACECMD_OPTION_UNAME String containing the "uname" of the system that was recorded on. 6 TRACECMD_OPTION_HOOK The string used for *trace-cmd record -H string*, is saved here. 7 TRACECMD_OPTION_OFFSET Similar to TRACECMD_OPTION_DATE, but just add an offset to the timestamps. The format is a number as an ASCII string. 8 TRACECMD_OPTION_CPUCOUNT 4 byte integer representing the number of CPUs for the current buffer. 9 TRACECMD_OPTION_VERSION A nul terminated string showing the version of trace-cmd that was used to record the trace.dat file. 10 TRACECMD_OPTION_PROCMAPS A string containing the /proc/$PID/maps file of the processes being recorded. 11 TRACECMD_OPTION_TRACEID 8 byte number representing a unique identifier for the trace data. 12 TRACECMD_OPTION_TIME_SHIFT 8 byte number holding the trace session identifier 4 byte number for the protocol flags 4 byte number holding the CPU count Array of size the previous CPU count - 4 bytes holding the count of timestamp offsets - array of 8 byte numbers holding the above count of timestamps when offsets were calculated - array of 8 byte numbers holding the above count of timestamp offsets - array of 8 byte numbers holding the above count of timestamp scaling ratios. 13 TRACECMD_OPTION_GUEST Null terminated string holding the guest name 8 byte number of the guest trace identifier of its tracing data 4 bytes holding the CPU count of the guest Array of size the previous CPU count - 4 byte guest virtual CPU id - 4 byte host PID representing the guest virtual CPU 14 TRACECMD_OPTION_TSC2NSEC 4 byte timestamp multiplier 4 byte timestamp shift 4 byte timestamp offset 15 TRACECMD_OPTION_LATENCY 8 byte offset of the file to a section that holds the string context of the latency trace output. 16 TRACECMD_OPTION_HEADER_SECTION 8 byte offset of where the header section is located (See HEADER INFO FORMAT) 17 TRACECMD_OPTION_FTRACE_EVENTS 8 byte offset of where the ftrace event section is located (See FTRACE EVENT FORMATS) 18 TRACECMD_OPTION_EVENT_FORMATS 8 byte offset of where the event format section is located (See EVENT FORMATS) 19 TRACECMD_OPTION_KALLSYMS 8 byte offset of where the kallsyms format section is located (See KALLSYMS INFORMATION) 20 TRACECMD_OPTION_PRINTK 8 byte offset of where the trace_printk format section is located (See TRACE_PRINTK INFORMATION) 21 TRACECMD_OPTION_CMDLINES 8 byte offset of where the process information section is located. (See PROCESS INFORMATION) HEADER INFO FORMAT ------------------ Directly after the initial format comes information about the trace headers recorded from the target box. The next 12 bytes contain the string: "header_page\0" The next 8 bytes are a 64-bit word containing the size of the page header information stored next. The next set of data is of the size read from the previous 8 bytes, and contains the data retrieved from debugfs/tracing/events/header_page. Note: The size of the second field \fBcommit\fR contains the target kernel long size. For example: field: local_t commit; offset:8; \fBsize:8;\fR signed:1; shows the kernel has a 64-bit long. The next 13 bytes contain the string: "header_event\0" The next 8 bytes are a 64-bit word containing the size of the event header information stored next. The next set of data is of the size read from the previous 8 bytes and contains the data retrieved from debugfs/tracing/events/header_event. This data allows the trace-cmd tool to know if the ring buffer format of the kernel made any changes. FTRACE EVENT FORMATS -------------------- Directly after the header information comes the information about the Ftrace specific events. These are the events used by the Ftrace plugins and are not enabled by the event tracing. The next 4 bytes contain a 32-bit word of the number of Ftrace event format files that are stored in the file. For the number of times defined by the previous 4 bytes is the following: 8 bytes for the size of the Ftrace event format file. The Ftrace event format file copied from the target machine: debugfs/tracing/events/ftrace/<event>/format EVENT FORMATS ------------- Directly after the Ftrace formats comes the information about the event layout. The next 4 bytes are a 32-bit word containing the number of event systems that are stored in the file. These are the directories in debugfs/tracing/events excluding the \fBftrace\fR directory. For the number of times defined by the previous 4 bytes is the following: A null-terminated string containing the system name. 4 bytes containing a 32-bit word containing the number of events within the system. For the number of times defined in the previous 4 bytes is the following: 8 bytes for the size of the event format file. The event format file copied from the target machine: debugfs/tracing/events/<system>/<event>/format KALLSYMS INFORMATION -------------------- Directly after the event formats comes the information of the mapping of function addresses to the function names. The next 4 bytes are a 32-bit word containing the size of the data holding the function mappings. The next set of data is of the size defined by the previous 4 bytes and contains the information from the target machine's file: /proc/kallsyms TRACE_PRINTK INFORMATION ------------------------ If a developer used trace_printk() within the kernel, it may store the format string outside the ring buffer. This information can be found in: debugfs/tracing/printk_formats The next 4 bytes are a 32-bit word containing the size of the data holding the printk formats. The next set of data is of the size defined by the previous 4 bytes and contains the information from debugfs/tracing/printk_formats. PROCESS INFORMATION ------------------- Directly after the trace_printk formats comes the information mapping a PID to a process name. The next 8 bytes contain a 64-bit word that holds the size of the data mapping the PID to a process name. The next set of data is of the size defined by the previous 8 bytes and contains the information from debugfs/tracing/saved_cmdlines. CPU DATA -------- The CPU data is located in the part of the file that is specified in the end of the header. Padding is placed between the header and the CPU data, placing the CPU data at a page aligned (target page) position in the file. This data is copied directly from the Ftrace ring buffer and is of the same format as the ring buffer specified by the event header files loaded in the header format file. The trace-cmd tool will try to \fBmmap(2)\fR the data page by page with the target's page size if possible. If it fails to mmap, it will just read the data instead. SEE ALSO -------- trace-cmd(1), trace-cmd-record(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), trace-cmd.dat(5) AUTHOR ------ Written by Steven Rostedt, <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx> RESOURCES --------- https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/trace-cmd/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).