Minutes of SystemTap Conference Call, Oct 20, 2005

Minutes of SystemTap Conference Call, Oct 20, 2005

[Kevin Stafford]

Minutes of SystemTap Conference Call, Oct 20, 2005

Participants:
IBM:
        Ananth Mavinakayanahalli (mananth@in.ibm.com -- Boston)
        Jim Keniston (jkenisto@us.ibm.com -- Beaverton)
        Kevin Stafford (kevinrs@us.ibm.com -- Beaverton)
        Hien Nguyen (nguyhien@us.ibm.com -- Beaverton)
        Prasanna Panchamukhi (prasanna@in.ibm.com -- Bangalore)
Red Hat:
        Elena Zannoni (ezannoni@redhat.com -- Boston)
        Graydon Hoare (graydon@redhat.com -- Vancouver)
        Martin Hunt (hunt@redhat.com -- Seattle)
        Frank Eigler (fche@redhat.com -- Toronto)
        Will Cohen (wcohen@redhat.com -- Raleigh)
Intel:
        Josh Stone (joshua.i.stone@intel.com -- Santa Clara)
        Anil Keshavamurthy (anil.s.keshavamurthy@intel.com -- Hillsboro)
        Charles Spirakis (charles.spirakis@intel.com)
Hitachi:
        Satoshi Oshima (soshima@redhat.com)

Actions Required (ARs):
 >From 5/19/05:

23. Jim, Martin: Ensure that the runtime's stack-trace feature works
    appropriately when there are return probes in the call stack.
    [Update: Martin is working on this.  Jim will prototype an improvement
    whereby the saved IP is updated before the handler is called.]

 >From 6/9/05:
26. Rusty/Brad: Forward email address of Intel test person to Jay
    Turner.  [Update 10/6/05: Will be done now that Intel has Jay's email
    address: jkt@redhat.com]

 >From 6/23/05:
30. Rusty: Review Will's rendition of Rusty's test that exercises
    probes on a wide variety of instruction types.
    [Update: As of 7/7/05, Will still needs to hear back from Rusty.]

 >From 7/28/05:
41. Anil: Post a summary of known djprobes implementation issues.
    [Update 10/6/05: Defer at least until djprobes discussion settles
    down a bit.]

 >From 8/11/05:
44. Tom: Automate relayfs tests and post them to mailing list.
    [Update: In progress]

 >From 8/18/05:

53. Anil: Test RCU-based SMP scalability feature on ia64.
    [Update: continue testing on 32 way machine and post to ML]

 >From 8/25/05:

55. Elena: Investigate approaches to making the full SystemTap bug
    list available to SystemTap developers outside Red Hat.

 >From 9/8/05:

57. Martin: Runtime build issues fix or unlink documentation from 
Runtime webpage.

 >From 9/22/05:

73. Prasanna: post user space probes paper to ML
    [Update: Will post to ML after 10/11-14/05 conference]

74. Ananth: post kprobes RCU patches to LKML, contingent upon resolution of
    BZ# 1345 and possibly others.
    [Done]

76. Hien: post dumpstack routine that solves kallsyms_lookup PPC issue.

77. Frank: post prototype to do symbol lookup in the translator. 
(alternative
    to #76)

 >From 9/29/05:

83. Kevin: Post SystemTap documentation, mirror examples on website.
    [Update: stap manpages mirrored on site, package requirement list
    to come (see #86)]

 >From 10/6/05

84. Jim: Propose face-to-face meeting agenda, post document.
    [Update: Topic list posted to perftools-ML 10/10]

86. Kevin: Compile list of known SystemTap package requirements to post to
    website.
    [Update: internal review of list in progress]

87. Anil: Post feedback to Frank's "Next Steps" proposal.
    [DONE: 10/07]

 >From 10/20/05

88. Ananth: Post RCU (smp scalability) patch changes from Paul's suggestions
    to cvs. Upon review/test post to LKML.
    [DONE]

89. Hien: Investigate new PPC64 stap symbol resolution mechanism.

90. Prasanna: Complete user-space probes (preferably RCU enhancement
    compliant) design/implementation in time for face-2-face.

91. Elena: Investigate solutions to elfutils license situation.

All are encouraged to do all SystemTap testing/development using kernel
2.6.14-rc4 + versions with the RCU scalability patches applied.

The face-2-face meeting is slotted for Nov. 15-16. Agenda TBD before the
meeting. (Jim/Frank request summary of concerns about user-space probes
before the meeting date)

RHEL4U3 deliverables were discussed.

SystemTap will remain a "technology preview" for the release of Update 3.

There are concerns about SystemTap's ability to run on non-RH distributions.
IBM will look into running STAP on Debian, SLES, etc. Another concern is 
about
licensing conflicts with elfutils. Elena is working on a solution.

-- 
Kevin Stafford
DES 2 | MS 2M3
Beaverton - OR
Linux Technology Center
IBM Systems & Technology
Phone: 1-503-578-3039
Email: kevinrs@us.ibm.com