From 0a6d7d45414a77876e8e9a77e454af754cea3a60 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Steven Rostedt (Google)" Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2022 16:12:31 -0400 Subject: ftrace: Be more specific about arch impact when function tracer is enabled It was brought up that on ARMv7, that because the FUNCTION_TRACER does not use nops to keep function tracing disabled because of the use of a link register, it does have some performance impact. The start of functions when -pg is used to compile the kernel is: push {lr} bl 8010e7c0 <__gnu_mcount_nc> When function tracing is tuned off, it becomes: push {lr} add sp, sp, #4 Which just puts the stack back to its normal location. But these two instructions at the start of every function does incur some overhead. Be more honest in the Kconfig FUNCTION_TRACER description and specify that the overhead being in the noise was x86 specific, but other architectures may vary. Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220705105416.GE5208@pengutronix.de/ Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20220706161231.085a83da@gandalf.local.home Reported-by: Sascha Hauer Acked-by: Sascha Hauer Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) --- kernel/trace/Kconfig | 3 ++- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) (limited to 'kernel') diff --git a/kernel/trace/Kconfig b/kernel/trace/Kconfig index debbbb083286..ccd6a5ade3e9 100644 --- a/kernel/trace/Kconfig +++ b/kernel/trace/Kconfig @@ -194,7 +194,8 @@ config FUNCTION_TRACER sequence is then dynamically patched into a tracer call when tracing is enabled by the administrator. If it's runtime disabled (the bootup default), then the overhead of the instructions is very - small and not measurable even in micro-benchmarks. + small and not measurable even in micro-benchmarks (at least on + x86, but may have impact on other architectures). config FUNCTION_GRAPH_TRACER bool "Kernel Function Graph Tracer" -- cgit v1.2.3