Re: Unified tracing buffer

From: Frank Ch. Eigler
Date: Tue Sep 23 2008 - 11:05:51 EST


Hi -

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 11:36:26PM +0900, KOSAKI Motohiro wrote:
> > By the way, systemtap uses two modes;
> >
> > - single-channel mode
> > In this mode, all cpus share one buffer channel to write and read.
> > each writer locks spinlock and write a probe-local data to buffer.
> > - per-cpu buffer mode [...]
>
> I can't imazine a merit of the single-channel mode.
> Could you please explain it?

It could be a way of saving some memory and merging hassle for
low-throughput data. (Remember that systemtap enables in-situ
analysis of events so that often only brief final results need be sent
along need be sent out.) If timestampwise cross-cpu merging can be
done on demand by the hypothetical future buffer widget, then little
reason remains not to use it.

- FChE
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/