From 87ff16007cff64a36ef31f50d45b69211d88da1d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alexander Shishkin Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2019 08:42:01 +0200 Subject: intel_th: Document software sinks Add documentation for the software sinks API of the MSU driver and the msu-sink module in particular. Signed-off-by: Alexander Shishkin Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20191114064201.43089-3-alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman --- Documentation/trace/intel_th.rst | 28 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) (limited to 'Documentation/trace') diff --git a/Documentation/trace/intel_th.rst b/Documentation/trace/intel_th.rst index baa12eb09ef4..70b7126eaeeb 100644 --- a/Documentation/trace/intel_th.rst +++ b/Documentation/trace/intel_th.rst @@ -44,7 +44,8 @@ Documentation/trace/stm.rst for more information on that. MSU can be configured to collect trace data into a system memory buffer, which can later on be read from its device nodes via read() or -mmap() interface. +mmap() interface and directed to a "software sink" driver that will +consume the data and/or relay it further. On the whole, Intel(R) Trace Hub does not require any special userspace software to function; everything can be configured, started @@ -122,3 +123,28 @@ In order to enable the host mode, set the 'host_mode' parameter of the will show up on the intel_th bus. Also, trace configuration and capture controlling attribute groups of the 'gth' device will not be exposed. The 'sth' device will operate as usual. + +Software Sinks +-------------- + +The Memory Storage Unit (MSU) driver provides an in-kernel API for +drivers to register themselves as software sinks for the trace data. +Such drivers can further export the data via other devices, such as +USB device controllers or network cards. + +The API has two main parts:: + - notifying the software sink that a particular window is full, and + "locking" that window, that is, making it unavailable for the trace + collection; when this happens, the MSU driver will automatically + switch to the next window in the buffer if it is unlocked, or stop + the trace capture if it's not; + - tracking the "locked" state of windows and providing a way for the + software sink driver to notify the MSU driver when a window is + unlocked and can be used again to collect trace data. + +An example sink driver, msu-sink illustrates the implementation of a +software sink. Functionally, it simply unlocks windows as soon as they +are full, keeping the MSU running in a circular buffer mode. Unlike the +"multi" mode, it will fill out all the windows in the buffer as opposed +to just the first one. It can be enabled by writing "sink" to the "mode" +file (assuming msu-sink.ko is loaded). -- cgit