perf trace: New tool

Initially should look loosely like the venerable 'strace' tool, but
using the infrastructure in the perf tools to allow tracing extra
targets:

  [acme@sandy linux]$ perf trace --hell
  Error: unknown option `hell'

   usage: perf trace <PID>

      -p, --pid <pid>       trace events on existing process id
          --tid <tid>       trace events on existing thread id
          --all-cpus        system-wide collection from all CPUs
          --cpu <cpu>       list of cpus to monitor
          --no-inherit      child tasks do not inherit counters
          --mmap-pages <n>  number of mmap data pages
          --uid <user>      user to profile

  [acme@sandy linux]$

Those should have the same semantics as when using with 'perf record'.

It gets stuck sometimes, but hey, it works sometimes too!

In time it should support perf.data based workloads, i.e. it should have
a:
	-o filename

Command line option that will produce a perf.data file that can then be
used with 'perf trace' or any of the other perf tools (script, report,
etc).

It will also eventually have the set of functionalities described in the
previous 'trace' prototype by Thomas Gleixner:

   "Announcing a new utility: 'trace'"
   http://lwn.net/Articles/415728/

Also planned is to have some of the features suggested in the comments
of that LWN article.

Cc: David Ahern <dsahern@gmail.com>
Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Cc: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>
Cc: Mike Galbraith <efault@gmx.de>
Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@gmail.com>
Cc: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/n/tip-v9x3q9rv4caxtox7wtjpchq5@git.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 53 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-trace.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-trace.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..3a2ae37310a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-trace.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+perf-trace(1)
+=============
+
+NAME
+----
+perf-trace - strace inspired tool
+
+SYNOPSIS
+--------
+[verse]
+'perf trace'
+
+DESCRIPTION
+-----------
+This command will show the events associated with the target, initially
+syscalls, but other system events like pagefaults, task lifetime events,
+scheduling events, etc.
+
+Initially this is a live mode only tool, but eventually will work with
+perf.data files like the other tools, allowing a detached 'record' from
+analysis phases.
+
+OPTIONS
+-------
+
+--all-cpus::
+        System-wide collection from all CPUs.
+
+-p::
+--pid=::
+        Record events on existing process ID (comma separated list).
+
+--tid=::
+        Record events on existing thread ID (comma separated list).
+
+--uid=::
+        Record events in threads owned by uid. Name or number.
+
+--no-inherit::
+        Child tasks do not inherit counters.
+
+--mmap-pages=::
+        Number of mmap data pages. Must be a power of two.
+
+--cpu::
+Collect samples only on the list of CPUs provided. Multiple CPUs can be provided as a
+comma-separated list with no space: 0,1. Ranges of CPUs are specified with -: 0-2.
+In per-thread mode with inheritance mode on (default), Events are captured only when
+the thread executes on the designated CPUs. Default is to monitor all CPUs.
+
+SEE ALSO
+--------
+linkperf:perf-record[1], linkperf:perf-script[1]