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SubjectRe: [PATCH v3 bpf-next 4/8] printk: add type-printing %pT format specifier which uses BTF
On Fri 2020-06-26 12:37:19, Alan Maguire wrote:
>
> On Fri, 26 Jun 2020, Petr Mladek wrote:
>
> > On Tue 2020-06-23 13:07:07, Alan Maguire wrote:
> > >
> > > printk(KERN_INFO "%pT", BTF_PTR_TYPE(skb, struct sk_buff));
> > >
> > > struct sk_buff *skb = alloc_skb(64, GFP_KERNEL);
> > > pr_info("%pT", BTF_PTR_TYPE(skb, struct sk_buff));
> > >
> > > ...gives us:
> > >
> > > (struct sk_buff){
> > > .transport_header = (__u16)65535,
> > > .mac_header = (__u16)65535,
> > > .end = (sk_buff_data_t)192,
> > > .head = (unsigned char *)0x000000006b71155a,
> > > .data = (unsigned char *)0x000000006b71155a,
> > > .truesize = (unsigned int)768,
> > > .users = (refcount_t){
> > > .refs = (atomic_t){
> > > .counter = (int)1,
> > > },
> > > },
> > > .extensions = (struct skb_ext *)0x00000000f486a130,
> > > }
> > >
> > > printk output is truncated at 1024 bytes. For cases where overflow
> > > is likely, the compact/no type names display modes may be used.
> >
> > Hmm, this scares me:
> >
> > 1. The long message and many lines are going to stretch printk
> > design in another dimensions.
> >
> > 2. vsprintf() is important for debugging the system. It has to be
> > stable. But the btf code is too complex.
> >
>
> Right on both points, and there's no way around that really. Representing
> even small data structures will stretch us to or beyond the 1024 byte
> limit. This can be mitigated by using compact display mode and not
> printing field names, but the output becomes hard to parse then.
>
> I think a better approach might be to start small, adding the core
> btf_show functionality to BPF, allowing consumers to use it there,
> perhaps via a custom helper.

Sounds good to me.

> In the current model bpf_trace_printk() inherits the functionality
> to display data from core printk, so a different approach would
> be needed there.

BTW: Even the trace buffer has a limitation, see BUF_MAX_DATA_SIZE
in kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c. It is internally implemented as
a list of memory pages, see the comments above RB_BUFFER_OFF
definition.

It is typically 4k. I think that you might hit this limit as well.
We had to increase per-CPU buffers used by printk() in NMI context
because 4k was not enough for some backtraces.

So, using different approach would make sense even when using trace
buffer.

> Other consumers outside of BPF
> could potentially avail of the show functionality directly via the btf_show
> functions in the future, but at least it would have one consumer at the
> outset, and wouldn't present problems like these for printk.

Sounds good to me.

> > I would strongly prefer to keep this outside vsprintf and printk.
> > Please, invert the logic and convert it into using separate printk()
> > call for each printed line.
> >
>
> I think the above is in line with what you're suggesting?

Yes, as far as I understand it.

> Yep, no way round this either. I'll try a different approach. Thanks for
> taking a look!

Uff, thanks a lot for understanding. I hope that most of the code will
be reusable in some form.

Best Regards,
Petr

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