ngx_tracer_module
-----------------
About
-----
The module allows to trace nginx function calls. Function calls are are traced
by the means of GCC instrumentation.
Requirements
------------
1) amd64 arch
2) GCC compiler (clang also works, but no support for dumping arguments)
3) either 'nm' utility or libbfd to build symbol table
4) [optional] libbfd - to decode caller address to line number
5) [optional] 'readelf' utility - to extract DWARF v.4 from binary, obtain
function definitions and decode passed arguments and return values
6) no optimizations should be enabled (-O0), debugging symbols must be included
into the binary; arguments extraction code depends on them being pushed
to stack in compiler-specific manner.
FreeBSD notes:
- install recent readelf, not base one
- to have libbfd support build 'binutils' port and provide
a path to 'work' directory in the 'config'.
Usage
-----
nginx$ ./auto/configure --add-module=../ngx_tracer_module
The 'config' file contains list of functions that
are filtered out from trace by default, to decrease
mess by skipping low-level functions like memory copying
or hash manipulations that are not very interesting.
Upon start, module is invoked before main(), reads nginx binary to get
symbols and start tracing. Results are in logs/trace-worker|master-PID.log
The information dumped is a unix timestamp in usecs,
process PID, function itself and caller function names.
Example output:
+- PID of a process ++- function arguments called from file:line -+
/ // \
0.214827 [46174] { small(a=3, b=66666666, c=U, f=3.14, p=0x408a7d) from main at nginx.c:192
\ \ /
+- usec from start +- function name caller function name -+
0.215119 [46174] [done:small = 66666669]}
\ \
+- completed +- return value