Re: [PATCH v2 3/4] perf build: Use libtraceevent from the system

From: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo
Date: Fri Dec 02 2022 - 13:30:03 EST


Em Fri, Dec 02, 2022 at 10:08:04AM -0800, Namhyung Kim escreveu:
> On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 12:13 PM Ian Rogers <irogers@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 11:05 AM Namhyung Kim <namhyung@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 10:30 PM Ian Rogers <irogers@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Remove the LIBTRACEEVENT_DYNAMIC and LIBTRACEFS_DYNAMIC. If
> > > > libtraceevent isn't installed or NO_LIBTRACEEVENT=1 is passed to the
> > > > build, don't compile in libtraceevent and libtracefs support. This
> > > > also disables CONFIG_TRACE that controls "perf
> > > > trace". CONFIG_TRACEEVENT is used to control enablement in
> > > > Build/Makefiles, HAVE_LIBTRACEEVENT is used in C code. Without
> > > > HAVE_LIBTRACEEVENT tracepoints are disabled and as such the commands
> > > > kmem, kwork, lock, sched and timechart are removed. The majority of
> > > > commands continue to work including "perf test".
> > >
> > > Maybe we can have a different approach. I guess the trace data
> > > access is isolated then we can make dummy interfaces when there's
> > > no libtraceevent. This way we don't need to touch every command
> > > and let it fail when it's asked.
> >
> > Sounds like a worthwhile refactor that can land on top of this change.
> >
> > > The motivation is that we should be able to run the sub-commands
> > > as much as possible. In fact, we could run 'record' part only on the
> > > target machine and pass the data to the host for analysis with a
> > > full-fledged perf. Also some commands like 'perf lock contention'
> > > can run with or without libtraceevent (using BPF only).
> >
> > The issue here is that perf lock contention will use evsel__new_tp and
> > internally that uses libtraceevent. As such it is removed without
> > HAVE_LIBTRACEEVENT. Without the evsel there's not much perf lock
> > contention can do, so rather than litter the code with
> > HAVE_LIBTRACEEVENT and for it to be broken, I made the choice just to
> > remove it from the no libtraceevent build for now.
>
> I don't think it needs evsel__new_tp() when BPF is used.
> The BPF program is attached to the raw tracepoint without
> perf_event and the result is written to the BPF map.
>
> >
> > I think it is worth pursuing these patches in the shape they are in so
> > that we can land the removal of tools/lib/traceevent and ensure the
> > migration away from an out-of-date version of that library.
>
> Yeah, I agree that we should remove the stale libtraceevent but
> I'd like to do it with minimal changes in the perf code base.
> Let me take a look at this.

Ok, was going to take a look at this patchkit, will wait for you now.

- Arnaldo