# NVMe-oF Target Tracepoints {#nvmf_tgt_tracepoints} ## Introduction {#tracepoints_intro} SPDK has a tracing framework for capturing low-level event information at runtime. Tracepoints provide a high-performance tracing mechanism that is accessible at runtime. They are implemented as a circular buffer in shared memory that is accessible from other processes. The NVMe-oF target is instrumented with tracepoints to enable analysis of both performance and application crashes and it has to be configured beforehand using this [guide](https://spdk.io/doc/nvmf.html). (Note: the SPDK tracing framework should still be considered experimental. Work to formalize and document the framework is in progress.) ## Enabling Tracepoints {#enable_tracepoints} Tracepoints are placed in groups. They are enabled and disabled as a group. To enable the instrumentation of all the tracepoints group in an SPDK target application, start the target with -e parameter set to 0xFFFF: ~~~bash build/bin/nvmf_tgt -e 0xFFFF ~~~ To enable the instrumentation of just the NVMe-oF RDMA tracepoints in an SPDK target application, start the target with the -e parameter set to 0x10: ~~~bash build/bin/nvmf_tgt -e 0x10 ~~~ When the target starts, a message is logged with the information you need to view the tracepoints in a human-readable format using the spdk_trace application. The target will also log information about the shared memory file. ~~~bash app.c: 527:spdk_app_setup_trace: *NOTICE*: Tracepoint Group Mask 0xFFFF specified. app.c: 531:spdk_app_setup_trace: *NOTICE*: Use 'spdk_trace -s nvmf -p 24147' to capture a snapshot of events at runtime. app.c: 533:spdk_app_setup_trace: *NOTICE*: Or copy /dev/shm/nvmf_trace.pid24147 for offline analysis/debug. ~~~ Note that when tracepoints are enabled, the shared memory files are not deleted when the application exits. This ensures the file can be used for analysis after the application exits. On Linux, the shared memory files are in /dev/shm, and can be deleted manually to free shm space if needed. A system reboot will also free all of the /dev/shm files. ## Capturing a snapshot of events {#capture_tracepoints} Send I/Os to the SPDK target application to generate events. The following is an example usage of perf to send I/Os to the NVMe-oF target over an RDMA network interface for 10 minutes. ~~~bash ./perf -q 128 -s 4096 -w randread -t 600 -r 'trtype:RDMA adrfam:IPv4 traddr:192.168.100.2 trsvcid:4420' ~~~ The spdk_trace program can be found in the app/trace directory. To analyze the tracepoints on the same system running the NVMe-oF target, simply execute the command line shown in the log: ~~~bash build/bin/spdk_trace -s nvmf -p 24147 ~~~ To analyze the tracepoints on a different system, first prepare the tracepoint file for transfer. The tracepoint file can be large, but usually compresses very well. This step can also be used to prepare a tracepoint file to attach to a GitHub issue for debugging NVMe-oF application crashes. ~~~bash bzip2 -c /dev/shm/nvmf_trace.pid24147 > /tmp/trace.bz2 ~~~ After transferring the /tmp/trace.bz2 tracepoint file to a different system: ~~~bash bunzip2 /tmp/trace.bz2 build/bin/spdk_trace -f /tmp/trace ~~~ The following is sample trace capture showing the cumulative time that each I/O spends at each RDMA state. All the trace captures with the same id are for the same I/O. ~~~bash 28: 6026.658 ( 12656064) RDMA_REQ_NEED_BUFFER id: r3622 time: 0.019 28: 6026.694 ( 12656140) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_EXECUTE id: r3622 time: 0.055 28: 6026.820 ( 12656406) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTING id: r3622 time: 0.182 28: 6026.992 ( 12656766) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTED id: r3477 time: 228.510 28: 6027.010 ( 12656804) RDMA_REQ_TX_PENDING_C_TO_H id: r3477 time: 228.528 28: 6027.022 ( 12656828) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_COMPLETE id: r3477 time: 228.539 28: 6027.115 ( 12657024) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETING id: r3477 time: 228.633 28: 6027.471 ( 12657770) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETED id: r3518 time: 171.577 28: 6028.027 ( 12658940) RDMA_REQ_NEW id: r3623 28: 6028.057 ( 12659002) RDMA_REQ_NEED_BUFFER id: r3623 time: 0.030 28: 6028.095 ( 12659082) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_EXECUTE id: r3623 time: 0.068 28: 6028.216 ( 12659336) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTING id: r3623 time: 0.189 28: 6028.408 ( 12659740) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTED id: r3505 time: 190.509 28: 6028.441 ( 12659808) RDMA_REQ_TX_PENDING_C_TO_H id: r3505 time: 190.542 28: 6028.452 ( 12659832) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_COMPLETE id: r3505 time: 190.553 28: 6028.536 ( 12660008) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETING id: r3505 time: 190.637 28: 6028.854 ( 12660676) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETED id: r3465 time: 247.000 28: 6029.433 ( 12661892) RDMA_REQ_NEW id: r3624 28: 6029.452 ( 12661932) RDMA_REQ_NEED_BUFFER id: r3624 time: 0.019 28: 6029.482 ( 12661996) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_EXECUTE id: r3624 time: 0.050 28: 6029.591 ( 12662224) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTING id: r3624 time: 0.158 28: 6029.782 ( 12662624) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTED id: r3564 time: 96.937 28: 6029.798 ( 12662658) RDMA_REQ_TX_PENDING_C_TO_H id: r3564 time: 96.953 28: 6029.812 ( 12662688) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_COMPLETE id: r3564 time: 96.967 28: 6029.899 ( 12662870) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETING id: r3564 time: 97.054 28: 6030.262 ( 12663634) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETED id: r3477 time: 231.780 28: 6030.786 ( 12664734) RDMA_REQ_NEW id: r3625 28: 6030.804 ( 12664772) RDMA_REQ_NEED_BUFFER id: r3625 time: 0.018 28: 6030.841 ( 12664848) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_EXECUTE id: r3625 time: 0.054 28: 6030.963 ( 12665104) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTING id: r3625 time: 0.176 28: 6031.139 ( 12665474) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTED id: r3552 time: 114.906 28: 6031.196 ( 12665594) RDMA_REQ_TX_PENDING_C_TO_H id: r3552 time: 114.963 28: 6031.210 ( 12665624) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_COMPLETE id: r3552 time: 114.977 28: 6031.293 ( 12665798) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETING id: r3552 time: 115.060 28: 6031.633 ( 12666512) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETED id: r3505 time: 193.734 28: 6032.230 ( 12667766) RDMA_REQ_NEW id: r3626 28: 6032.248 ( 12667804) RDMA_REQ_NEED_BUFFER id: r3626 time: 0.018 28: 6032.288 ( 12667888) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_EXECUTE id: r3626 time: 0.058 28: 6032.396 ( 12668114) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTING id: r3626 time: 0.166 28: 6032.593 ( 12668528) RDMA_REQ_EXECUTED id: r3570 time: 90.443 28: 6032.611 ( 12668564) RDMA_REQ_TX_PENDING_C_TO_H id: r3570 time: 90.460 28: 6032.623 ( 12668590) RDMA_REQ_RDY_TO_COMPLETE id: r3570 time: 90.473 28: 6032.707 ( 12668766) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETING id: r3570 time: 90.557 28: 6033.056 ( 12669500) RDMA_REQ_COMPLETED id: r3564 time: 100.211 ~~~ ## Capturing sufficient trace events {#capture_trace_events} Since the tracepoint file generated directly by SPDK application is a circular buffer in shared memory, the trace events captured by it may be insufficient for further analysis. The spdk_trace_record program can be found in the app/trace_record directory. spdk_trace_record is used to poll the spdk tracepoint shared memory, record new entries from it, and store all entries into specified output file at its shutdown on SIGINT or SIGTERM. After SPDK nvmf target is launched, simply execute the command line shown in the log: ~~~bash build/bin/spdk_trace_record -q -s nvmf -p 24147 -f /tmp/spdk_nvmf_record.trace ~~~ Also send I/Os to the SPDK target application to generate events by previous perf example for 10 minutes. ~~~bash ./perf -q 128 -s 4096 -w randread -t 600 -r 'trtype:RDMA adrfam:IPv4 traddr:192.168.100.2 trsvcid:4420' ~~~ After the completion of perf example, shut down spdk_trace_record by signal SIGINT (Ctrl + C). To analyze the tracepoints output file from spdk_trace_record, simply run spdk_trace program by: ~~~bash build/bin/spdk_trace -f /tmp/spdk_nvmf_record.trace ~~~ ## Adding New Tracepoints {#add_tracepoints} SPDK applications and libraries provide several trace points. You can add new tracepoints to the existing trace groups. For example, to add a new tracepoints to the SPDK RDMA library (lib/nvmf/rdma.c) trace group TRACE_GROUP_NVMF_RDMA, define the tracepoints and assigning them a unique ID using the SPDK_TPOINT_ID macro: ~~~c #define TRACE_GROUP_NVMF_RDMA 0x4 #define TRACE_RDMA_REQUEST_STATE_NEW SPDK_TPOINT_ID(TRACE_GROUP_NVMF_RDMA, 0x0) ... #define NEW_TRACE_POINT_NAME SPDK_TPOINT_ID(TRACE_GROUP_NVMF_RDMA, UNIQUE_ID) ~~~ You also need to register the new trace points in the SPDK_TRACE_REGISTER_FN macro call within the application/library using the spdk_trace_register_description function as shown below: ~~~c SPDK_TRACE_REGISTER_FN(nvmf_trace) { spdk_trace_register_object(OBJECT_NVMF_RDMA_IO, 'r'); spdk_trace_register_description("RDMA_REQ_NEW", "", TRACE_RDMA_REQUEST_STATE_NEW, OWNER_NONE, OBJECT_NVMF_RDMA_IO, 1, SPDK_TRACE_ARG_TYPE_PTR, "cmid: "); ... spdk_trace_register_description("NEW_RDMA_REQ_NAME", "", NEW_TRACE_POINT_NAME, OWNER_NONE, OBJECT_NVMF_RDMA_IO, 0, SPDK_TRACE_ARG_TYPE_PTR, "cmid: "); } ~~~ Finally, use the spdk_trace_record function at the appropriate point in the application/library to record the current trace state for the new trace points. The following example shows the usage of the spdk_trace_record function to record the current trace state of several tracepoints. ~~~c case RDMA_REQUEST_STATE_NEW: spdk_trace_record(TRACE_RDMA_REQUEST_STATE_NEW, 0, 0, (uintptr_t)rdma_req, (uintptr_t)rqpair->cm_id); ... break; case RDMA_REQUEST_STATE_NEED_BUFFER: spdk_trace_record(TRACE_RDMA_REQUEST_STATE_NEED_BUFFER, 0, 0, (uintptr_t)rdma_req, (uintptr_t)rqpair->cm_id); ... break; case RDMA_REQUEST_STATE_TRANSFER_PENDING_HOST_TO_CONTROLLER: spdk_trace_record(TRACE_RDMA_REQUEST_STATE_TRANSFER_PENDING_HOST_TO_CONTROLLER, 0, 0, (uintptr_t)rdma_req, (uintptr_t)rqpair->cm_id); ... ~~~ All the tracing functions are documented in the [Tracepoint library documentation](https://spdk.io/doc/trace_8h.html)