If you want to use perf tools, this option is strongly recommended.
config DYNAMIC_FTRACE
- bool "enable/disable ftrace tracepoints dynamically"
+ bool "enable/disable function tracing dynamically"
depends on FUNCTION_TRACER
depends on HAVE_DYNAMIC_FTRACE
default y
help
- This option will modify all the calls to ftrace dynamically
- (will patch them out of the binary image and replace them
- with a No-Op instruction) as they are called. A table is
- created to dynamically enable them again.
+ This option will modify all the calls to function tracing
+ dynamically (will patch them out of the binary image and
+ replace them with a No-Op instruction) on boot up. During
+ compile time, a table is made of all the locations that ftrace
+ can function trace, and this table is linked into the kernel
+ image. When this is enabled, functions can be individually
+ enabled, and the functions not enabled will not affect
+ performance of the system.
+
+ See the files in /sys/kernel/debug/tracing:
+ available_filter_functions
+ set_ftrace_filter
+ set_ftrace_notrace
This way a CONFIG_FUNCTION_TRACER kernel is slightly larger, but
otherwise has native performance as long as no tracing is active.
- The changes to the code are done by a kernel thread that
- wakes up once a second and checks to see if any ftrace calls
- were made. If so, it runs stop_machine (stops all CPUS)
- and modifies the code to jump over the call to ftrace.
-
config FUNCTION_PROFILER
bool "Kernel function profiler"
depends on FUNCTION_TRACER