How Much Is Tracing? Measuring the Overhead Caused by the Tracing Infrastructure

Explore the impact of tracing facilities on real-time systems in this 42-minute conference talk by Andreas Klinger. Delve into an investigation of how tracing affects target systems, focusing on the reliability of absolute timing values in ftrace outputs. Learn about the innovative measurement approach using a custom kernel driver and oscilloscope monitoring. Compare various kernel configurations, including different tracing setups, kernel preemption options, and the real-time preemption patch. Examine the overhead calculations for tracing events, kernel probes, user probes, trace markers, and eBPF events. Gain valuable insights into the trade-offs between tracing capabilities and system performance in real-time environments.