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ktr(4)

NAME

     ktr -- kernel tracing facility

SYNOPSIS

     options KTR
     options KTR_ALQ
     options KTR_COMPILE=(KTR_LOCK|KTR_INTR|KTR_PROC)
     options KTR_CPUMASK=0x3
     options KTR_ENTRIES=8192
     options KTR_MASK=(KTR_INTR|KTR_PROC)
     options KTR_VERBOSE

DESCRIPTION

     The ktr facility allows kernel events to be logged while the kernel exe-
     cutes so that they can be examined later when debugging.  The only manda-
     tory option to enable ktr is ``options KTR''.

     The KTR_ENTRIES option sets the size of the buffer of events.  It should
     be a power of two.  The size of the buffer in the currently running ker-
     nel can be found via the read-only sysctl debug.ktr.entries.  By default
     the buffer contains 1024 entries.

   Event Masking
     Event levels can be enabled or disabled to trim excessive and overly ver-
     bose logging.  First, a mask of events is specified at compile time via
     the KTR_COMPILE option to limit which events are actually compiled into
     the kernel.  The default value for this option is for all events to be
     enabled.

     Secondly, the actual events logged while the kernel runs can be further
     masked via the run time event mask.  The KTR_MASK option sets the default
     value of the run time event mask.	The runtime event mask can also be set
     by the loader(8) via the debug.ktr.mask environment variable.  It can
     also be examined and set after booting via the debug.ktr.mask sysctl.  By
     default the run time mask is set to log only KTR_GEN events.  The defini-
     tions of the event mask bits can be found in <sys/ktr.h>.

     Furthermore, there is a CPU event mask whose default value can be changed
     via the KTR_CPUMASK option.  A CPU must have the bit corresponding to its
     logical id set in this bitmask for events that occur on it to be logged.
     This mask can be set by the loader(8) via the debug.ktr.cpumask environ-
     ment variable.  It can also be examined and set after booting via the
     debug.ktr.cpumask sysctl.	By default events on all CPUs are enabled.

   Verbose Mode
     By default, events are only logged to the internal buffer for examination
     later, but if the verbose flag is set then they are dumped to the kernel
     console as well.  This flag can also be set from the loader via the
     debug.ktr.verbose environment variable, or it can be examined and set
     after booting via the debug.ktr.verbose sysctl.  If the flag is set to
     zero, which is the default, then verbose output is disabled.  If the flag
     is set to one, then the contents of the log message and the CPU number
     are printed to the kernel console.  If the flag is greater than one, then
     the filename and line number of the event are output to the console in
     addition to the log message and the CPU number.  The KTR_VERBOSE option
     sets the flag to one.

     events are displayed in reverse chronological order.  That is, the most
     recent events are displayed first.

   Logging ktr to Disk
     The KTR_ALQ option can be used to log ktr entries to disk for post analy-
     sis using the ktrdump(8) utility.	Due to the potentially high volume of
     trace messages the trace mask should be selected carefully.  This feature
     is configured through a group of sysctls.

     debug.ktr.alq_file    displays or sets the file that ktr will log to.  By
			   default its value is /tmp/ktr.out.  If the file
			   name is changed while ktr is enabled it will not
			   take effect until the next invocation.

     debug.ktr.alq_enable  enables logging of ktr entries to disk if it is set
			   to one.  Setting this to 0 will terminate logging.

     debug.ktr.alq_max	   is the maximum number of entries that will be
			   recorded to disk, or 0 for infinite.  This is help-
			   ful for limiting the number of particularly high
			   frequency entries that are recorded.

     debug.ktr.alq_depth   determines the number of entries in the write
			   buffer.  This is the buffer that holds entries
			   before they are written to disk and defaults to the
			   value of the KTR_ENTRIES option.

     debug.ktr.alq_failed  records the number of times we failed to write an
			   entry due to overflowing the write buffer.  This
			   may happen if the frequency of the logged ktr mes-
			   sages outpaces the depth of the queue.

     debug.ktr.alq_cnt	   records the number of entries that have currently
			   been written to disk.

SEE ALSO

     ktrdump(8), ktr(9)

HISTORY

     The KTR kernel tracing facility first appeared in BSD/OS 3.0 and was
     imported into FreeBSD 5.0.

FreeBSD 5.4		       February 16, 2001		   FreeBSD 5.4

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