xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/tslog.4 (revision c40e4349889b32500e51e60f9529dbcc080f468b)
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26.Dd March 4, 2022
27.Dt TSLOG 4
28.Os
29.Sh NAME
30.Nm tslog
31.Nd Boot-time event tracing facility
32.Sh SYNOPSIS
33To compile this boot-time event tracing facility into the kernel,
34place the following line in the kernel configuration file:
35.Bd -ragged -offset indent
36.Cd "option TSLOG"
37.Ed
38.Sh DESCRIPTION
39.Nm
40is a boot-time event tracing facility.
41Its purpose is to ease diagnosing and reducing the overall
42.Fx
43boot time by generating detailed timing information.
44.Pp
45.Nm
46is able to trace the boot loader, kernel initialization, and userland processes.
47.Pp
48In userland, it records the following details for each process ID:
49.Bl -dash
50.It
51The timestamp of the
52.Xr fork 2
53which creates the given process ID and the parent process ID.
54.It
55The path passed to
56.Xr execve 2 ,
57if any.
58.It
59The first path resolved by
60.Xr namei 9 ,
61if any.
62.It
63The timestamp of the
64.Xr exit 3
65which terminates the process.
66.El
67.Sh SYSCTL VARIABLES
68The following
69.Xr sysctl 8
70variables are available:
71.Bl -tag -width indent
72.It Va debug.tslog
73Dump the
74.Nm
75buffer of recorded loader and kernel event timestamps.
76.It Va debug.tslog_user
77Dump the
78.Nm
79buffer
80of recorded userland event timestamps.
81.El
82.Sh FLAMEGRAPHS
83The
84.Nm
85buffer dumps
86can be used to generate flamegraphs of the
87.Fx
88boot process for visual analysis.
89See
90.Lk https://github.com/cperciva/freebsd-boot-profiling
91for more information.
92.Sh SEE ALSO
93.Xr dtrace 1 ,
94.Xr boottrace 4 ,
95.Xr ktr 4
96.Sh HISTORY
97.Nm
98first appeared in
99.Fx 12.0 .
100Support for tracing boot loaders and userland process
101was added in
102.Fx 14.0 .
103.Ss TSLOG vs. Boottrace
104.Nm
105is oriented towards system developers while
106.Xr boottrace 4
107is meant to be easy to use by system administrators.
108Both faciliities provide an overview of timing and resource usage of the boot
109process.
110.Ss TSLOG vs. DTrace
111.Xr dtrace 1
112is not always the right tool for profiling early kernel initialization.
113The reason is it requires some kernel subroutines
114which are not yet available early in the boot process, e.g.:
115traps, memory allocation, or thread scheduling.
116.Nm
117depends on fewer kernel subroutines than
118.Xr dtrace 1
119and because of that can trace early kernel initialization.
120.Ss TSLOG vs. KTR
121.Xr ktr 4
122has a couple of limitations which prevent it from
123being able to run at the start of the boot process.
124In contrast,
125.Nm
126is designed for logging timestamped events for boot
127profiling.
128.Sh AUTHORS
129.An -nosplit
130.Nm
131was written by
132.An Colin Percival Aq Mt cperciva@FreeBSD.org .
133.Pp
134This manual page was written by
135.An Mateusz Piotrowski Aq Mt 0mp@FreeBSD.org .
136