TRACE-CMD.DAT.V(5)

NAME
trace-cmd.dat.v7 - trace-cmd version 7 file format

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:

    "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 user space. Not the
    kernel space size.

    [ Now all numbers are written in file defined endianess. ]

    The next 4 bytes are a 32-bit word that defines what the traced
    host machine page size was.

    The compression algorithm header is written next:
       "name\0version\0"
    where "name" and "version" are strings, name and version of the
    compression algorithm used to compress the trace file. If the name
    is "none", the data in the file is not compressed.

    The next 8 bytes are 64-bit integer, the offset within the file where
    the first OPTIONS section is located.

    The rest of the file consists of different sections. The only mandatory
    is the first OPTIONS section, all others are optional. The location and
    the order of the sections is not strict. Each section starts with a header:

FORMAT OF THE SECTION HEADER

    <2 bytes> unsigned short integer, ID of the section.
    <2 bytes> unsigned short integer, section flags:
      1 = the section is compressed.
    <4 bytes> ID of a string, description of the section.
    <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, size of the section in the file.

    If the section is compressed, the above is the compressed size.
    The section must be uncompressed on reading. The described format of
    the sections refers to the uncompressed data.

COMPRESSION FORMAT OF THE FILE SECTIONS

    Some of the sections in the file may be compressed with the compression algorithm,
    specified in the compression algorithm header. Compressed sections have a compression
    header, written after the section header and right before the compressed data:
      <4 bytes> unsigned int, size of compressed data in this section.
      <4 bytes> unsigned int, size of uncompressed data.
      <data> binary compressed data, with the specified size.

COMPRESSION FORMAT OF THE TRACE DATA

    There are two special sections, BUFFER FLYRECORD and BUFFER LATENCY, containing
    trace data. These sections may be compressed with the compression algorithm, specified
    in the compression header. Usually the size of these sections is huge, that's why its
    compression format is different from the other sections. The trace data is compressed
    in chunks The size of one chunk is specified in the file creation time. The format
    of compressed trace data is:
       <4 bytes> unsigned int, count of chunks.
       Follows the compressed chunks of given count. For each chunk:
          <4 bytes> unsigned int, size of compressed data in this chunk.
          <4 bytes> unsigned int, size of uncompressed data, aligned with the trace page size.
          <data> binary compressed data, with the specified size.
    These chunks must be uncompressed on reading. The described format of
    trace data refers to the uncompressed data.

OPTIONS SECTION

    Section ID: 0

    This is the the only mandatory section in the file. There can be multiple
    options sections, the first one is located at the offset specified right
    after the compression algorithm header. The section consists of multiple
    trace options, each option has the following format:
      <2 bytes> unsigned short integer, ID of the option.
      <4 bytes> unsigned integer, size of the option's data.
      <binary data> bytes of the size specified above, data of the option.

    Options, supported by the trace file version 7:

    DONE: id 0, size 8
      This option indicates the end of the options section, it is written
      always as last option. The DONE option data is:
         <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset in the trace file where
         the next options section is located. If this offset is 0, then there
         are no more options sections.

    DATE: id 1, size vary
      The DATE option data is a null terminated ASCII string, which represents
      the time difference between trace events timestamps and the Generic Time
      of Day of the system.

    CPUSTAT: id 2, size vary
      The CPUSTAT option data is a null terminated ASCII string, the content of the
      "per_cpu/cpu<id>/stats" file from the trace directory. There is a CPUSTAT option
      for each CPU.

    BUFFER: id 3, size vary
      The BUFFER option describes the flyrecord trace data saved in the file, collected
      from one trace instance. There is BUFFER option for each trace instance. The format
      of the BUFFER data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset in the trace file where the
        BUFFER FLYRECORD section is located, containing flyrecord trace data.
        <string> a null terminated ASCII string, name of the trace instance. Empty string ""
        is saved as name of the top instance.
        <string> a null terminated ASCII string, trace clock used for events timestamps in
        this trace instance.
        <4 bytes> unsigned integer, size of the trace buffer page.
        <4 bytes> unsigned integer, count of the CPUs with trace data.
        For each CPU of the above count:
           <4 bytes> unsigned integer, ID of the CPU.
           <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset in the trace file where the trace data
           for this CPU is located.
           <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, size of the trace data for this CPU.

    TRACECLOCK: id 4, size vary
      The TRACECLOCK option data is a null terminated ASCII string, the content of the
      "trace_clock" file from the trace directory.

    UNAME: id 5, size vary
      The UNAME option data is a null terminated ASCII string, identifying the system where
      the trace data is collected. The string is retrieved by the uname() system call.

    HOOK: id 6, size vary
      The HOOK option data is a null terminated ASCII string, describing event hooks: custom
      event matching to connect any two events together.

    OFFSET: id 7, size vary
      The OFFSET option data is a null terminated ASCII string, representing a fixed time that
      is added to each event timestamp on reading.

    CPUCOUNT: id 8, size 4
      The CPUCOUNT option data is:
        <4 bytes> unsigned integer, number of CPUs in the system.

    VERSION: id 9, size vary
      The VERSION option data is a null terminated ASCII string, representing the version of
      the trace-cmd application, used to collect these trace logs.

    PROCMAPS: id 10, size vary
      The PROCMAPS option data is a null terminated ASCII string, representing the memory map
      of each traced filtered process. The format of the string is, for each filtered process:
        <procss ID> <libraries count> <process command> \n
          <memory start address> <memory end address> <full path of the mapped library file> \n
          ...
           separate line for each library, used by this process
          ...
        ...

    TRACEID: id 11, size 8
      The TRACEID option data is a unique identifier of this tracing session:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, trace session identifier.

    TIME_SHIFT: id 12, size vary
      The TIME_SHIFT option stores time synchronization information, collected during host and guest
      tracing session. Usually it is saved in the guest trace file. This information is used to
      synchronize guest with host events timestamps, when displaying all files from this tracing
      session. The format of the TIME_SHIFT option data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, trace identifier of the peer (usually the host).
        <4 bytes> unsigned integer, flags specific to the time synchronization protocol, used in this
        trace session.
        <4 bytes> unsigned integer, number of traced CPUs. For each CPU, timestamps corrections
        are recorded:
           <4 bytes> unsigned integer, count of the recorded timestamps corrections for this CPU.
           <array of unsigned long long integers of the above count>, times when the corrections are calculated
           <array of unsigned long long integers of the above count>, corrections offsets
           <array of unsigned long long integers of the above count>, corrections scaling ratio

    GUEST: id 13, size vary
      The GUEST option stores information about traced guests in this tracing session. Usually it is
      saved in the host trace file. There is a separate GUEST option for each traced guest.
      The information is used when displaying all files from this tracing session. The format of
      the GUEST option data is:
         <string> a null terminated ASCII string, name of the guest.
         <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, trace identifier of the guest for this session.
         <4 bytes> unsigned integer, number of guest's CPUs. For each CPU:
            <4 bytes> unsigned integer, ID of the CPU.
            <4 bytes> unsigned integer, PID of the host task, emulating this guest CPU.

    TSC2NSEC: id 14, size 16
      The TSC2NSEC option stores information, used to convert TSC events timestamps to nanoseconds.
      The format of the TSC2NSEC option data is:
         <4 bytes> unsigned integer, time multiplier.
         <4 bytes> unsigned integer, time shift.
         <8 bytes> unsigned long long integer, time offset.

    STRINGS: id 15, size vary
      The STRINGS option holds a list of nul terminated strings that holds the names of the
      other sections.

    HEADER_INFO: id 16, size 8
      The HEADER_INFO option data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset into the trace file where the HEADER INFO
        section is located

    FTRACE_EVENTS: id 17, size 8
      The FTRACE_EVENTS option data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset into the trace file where the
        FTRACE EVENT FORMATS section is located.

    EVENT_FORMATS: id 18, size 8
      The EVENT_FORMATS option data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset into the trace file where the EVENT FORMATS
        section is located.

    KALLSYMS: id 19, size 8
      The KALLSYMS option data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset into the trace file where the KALLSYMS
        section is located.

    PRINTK: id 20, size 8
      The PRINTK option data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset into the trace file where the TRACE_PRINTK
        section is located.

    CMDLINES: id 21, size 8
      The CMDLINES option data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset into the trace file where the
        SAVED COMMAND LINES section is located.

    BUFFER_TEXT: id 22, size
      The BUFFER_LAT option describes the latency trace data saved in the file. The format
      of the BUFFER_LAT data is:
        <8 bytes> long long unsigned integer, offset in the trace file where the
        BUFFER LATENCY section is located, containing latency trace data.
        <string> a null terminated ASCII string, name of the trace instance. Empty string ""
        is saved as name of the top instance.
        <string> a null terminated ASCII string, trace clock used for events timestamps in
        this trace instance.

    BTF_FILE: id 23, size 8
      The BTF_FILE option data is:
       A compressed data from the host file /sys/kernel/btf/vmlinux, using the
       compression algorthim defined by the trace.dat header. The compression data
       includes the size of the uncompressed output.

    LAST_BOOT_INFO: id 24, size vary
      The LAST_BOOT_INFO option data contains the content of the last_boot_info if
       the file existed for an instance. It starts with the instance name, followed
       by a colon ":" and then the content of the last_boot_info file. Currently
       the instance name is not used, but exists in case in the future there are
       more than one instance with this file.

    MODULES_FILE: id 25, size 8
      The MODULES_FILE option data is:
       A compressed data from the host file /proc/modules, using the compression
       algorthim defined by the trace.dat header. The compression data includes
       the size of the uncompressed output.

HEADER INFO SECTION

    Section ID: 16

    The first 12 bytes of the section, after the section header, 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 SECTION

    Section ID: 17

    Directly after the section header 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 SECTION

    Section ID: 18

    Directly after the section header 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 SECTION

    Section ID: 19

    Directly after the section header 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 SECTION

    Section ID: 20

    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.

SAVED COMMAND LINES SECTION

    Section ID: 21

    Directly after the section header 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.

BUFFER FLYRECORD SECTION

    This section contains flyrecord tracing data, collected in one trace instance.
    The data is saved per CPU. Each BUFFER FLYRECORD section has a corresponding BUFFER
    option, containing information about saved CPU's trace data. Padding is placed between
    the section 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.

BUFFER TEXT SECTION

    .ft C
      Section ID: 22
      This section contains latency tracing data, ASCII text taken from the
      target's debugfs/tracing/trace file.
    STRINGS SECTION
    .ft

    Section ID: 15

    All strings of the trace file metadata are stored in a string section within the file. The section
    contains a list of nul terminated ASCII strings. An ID of the string is used in the file
    meta data, which is the offset of the actual string into the string section. Strings can be stored
    into multiple string sections in the file.

BTF FILE SECTION

    Section ID: 23

    Directly after the section header comes the a 8 byte value that contains
    a 64-bit word that holds he size of the BTF file (may be compressed)

    The next set of data is of the size defined by the previous 8 bytes
    and contains the information from /sys/kernel/btf/vmlinux.

MODULES FILE SECTION

    Section ID: 25

    Directly after the section header comes the a 8 byte value that contains
    a 64-bit word that holds he size of the modules file (may be compressed)

    The next set of data is of the size defined by the previous 8 bytes
    and contains the information from /proc/modules.

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@goodmis.org[1]>

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).

NOTES

1.  rostedt@goodmis.org
    mailto:rostedt@goodmis.org