linux/include
Steven Rostedt e30f8e61e2 tracing: Add a tracepoint verification check at build time
If a tracepoint is defined via DECLARE_TRACE() or TRACE_EVENT() but never
called (via the trace_<tracepoint>() function), its metadata is still
around in memory and not discarded.

When created via TRACE_EVENT() the situation is worse because the
TRACE_EVENT() creates metadata that can be around 5k per trace event.
Having unused trace events causes several thousand of wasted bytes.

Add a verifier that injects a string of the name of the tracepoint it
calls that is added to the discarded section "__tracepoint_check".
For every builtin tracepoint, its name (which is saved in the in-memory
section "__tracepoint_strings") will have its name also in the
"__tracepoint_check" section if it is used.

Add a new program that is run on build called tracepoint-update. This is
executed on the vmlinux.o before the __tracepoint_check section is
discarded (the section is discarded before vmlinux is created). This
program will create an array of each string in the __tracepoint_check
section and then sort it. Then it will walk the strings in the
__tracepoint_strings section and do a binary search to check if its name
is in the __tracepoint_check section. If it is not, then it is unused and
a warning is printed.

Note, this currently only handles tracepoints that are builtin and not in
modules.

Enabling this currently with a given config produces:

warning: tracepoint 'sched_move_numa' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'sched_stick_numa' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'sched_swap_numa' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'pelt_hw_tp' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'pelt_irq_tp' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'rcu_preempt_task' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'rcu_unlock_preempted_task' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xdp_bulk_tx' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xdp_redirect_map' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xdp_redirect_map_err' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'vma_mas_szero' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'vma_store' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'hugepage_set_pmd' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'hugepage_set_pud' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'hugepage_update_pmd' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'hugepage_update_pud' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'block_rq_remap' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_handle_event' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_handle_transfer' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_gadget_ep_queue' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_alloc_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_free_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_queue_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_giveback_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_wrong_maclen' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_mismatch' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_key_not_found' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_rnext_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_synack_no_key' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_snd_sne_update' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_rcv_sne_update' is unused.

Some of the above is totally unused but others are not used due to their
"trace_" functions being inside configs, in which case, the defined
tracepoints should also be inside those same configs. Others are
architecture specific but defined in generic code, where they should
either be moved to the architecture or be surrounded by #ifdef for the
architectures they are for.

This tool could be updated to process modules in the future.

I'd like to thank Mathieu Desnoyers for suggesting using strings instead
of pointers, as using pointers in vmlinux.o required handling relocations
and it required implementing almost a full feature linker to do so.

To enable this check, run the build with: make UT=1

Note, when all the existing unused tracepoints are removed from the build,
the "UT=1" will be removed and this will always be enabled when
tracepoints are configured to warn on any new tracepoints. The reason this
isn't always enabled now is because it will introduce a lot of warnings
for the current unused tracepoints, and all bisects would end at this
commit for those warnings.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250528114549.4d8a5e03@gandalf.local.home/

Cc: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>
Cc: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
Cc: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
Cc: Nicolas Schier <nicolas.schier@linux.dev>
Cc: Nick Desaulniers <nick.desaulniers+lkml@gmail.com>
Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Cc: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20251022004452.920728129@kernel.org
Suggested-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com> # for using strings instead of pointers
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2025-10-24 16:43:14 -04:00
..
acpi More power management updates for 6.18-rc1 2025-10-07 09:39:51 -07:00
asm-generic tracing: Add a tracepoint verification check at build time 2025-10-24 16:43:14 -04:00
clocksource
crypto This update includes the following changes: 2025-10-04 14:59:29 -07:00
cxl
drm drm/gpuvm: Fix kernel-doc warning for drm_gpuvm_map_req.map 2025-10-15 18:37:05 +02:00
dt-bindings There's a bunch of patches here across drivers/clk/ to migrate drivers to use 2025-10-07 09:28:37 -07:00
hyperv hyperv: Remove the spurious null directive line 2025-10-02 21:21:24 +00:00
keys
kunit linux_kselftest-kunit-6.18-rc1 2025-10-01 19:15:11 -07:00
kvm KVM: arm64: Kill leftovers of ad-hoc timer userspace access 2025-10-13 14:42:41 +01:00
linux tracing: Add a tracepoint verification check at build time 2025-10-24 16:43:14 -04:00
math-emu
media
memory
misc
net net/ip6_tunnel: Prevent perpetual tunnel growth 2025-10-13 17:43:46 -07:00
pcmcia
ras
rdma
rv
scsi SCSI misc on 20251002 2025-10-03 19:17:48 -07:00
soc There's a bunch of patches here across drivers/clk/ to migrate drivers to use 2025-10-07 09:28:37 -07:00
sound ASoC: tas2781: Support more newly-released amplifiers tas58xx in the driver 2025-10-13 11:08:09 +01:00
target
trace dma-mapping fixes for Linux 6.18: 2025-10-07 12:48:06 -07:00
uapi ARM: 2025-10-18 07:07:14 -10:00
ufs scsi: ufs: core: Include UTP error in INT_FATAL_ERRORS 2025-09-30 16:10:29 -04:00
vdso Updates for the VDSO subsystem: 2025-09-30 16:58:21 -07:00
video
xen
Kbuild