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2009-11-17tracing: Only print objcopy version warning once from recordmcountSteven Rostedt1-2/+10
If the user has an older version of objcopy, that can not handle converting local symbols to global and vice versa, then some functions will not be part of the dynamic function tracer. The current code in recordmcount.pl will print a warning in this case. Unfortunately, there exists lots of files that may have this issue with older objcopys and this will cause a warning for every file compiled with this issue. This patch solves this overwhelming output by creating a .tmp_quiet_recordmcount file on the first instance the warning is encountered. The warning will not print if this file exists. The temp file is deleted at the beginning of the compile to ensure that the warning will happen once again on new compiles (because the issue is still present). Reported-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Cc: Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-29tracing: Exit with error if a weak function is used in recordmcount.plLi Hong1-7/+3
If a weak function is used as a relocation reference for mcount callers and that function is overridden, it will cause ftrace to fail at run time. The current code should prevent a weak function from being used, but if one is, the code should exit with an error to fail at compile time. Signed-off-by: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <20091028050743.GH30758@uhli> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-29tracing: Move conditional into update_funcs() in recordmcount.plLi Hong1-5/+3
Move all the condition validations into the function update_funcs(). Also update_funcs should not die if $ref_func is undefined for there may be more than one valid section in an object file. Signed-off-by: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <20091028050703.GG30758@uhli> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-29tracing: Add regex for weak functions in recordmcount.plLi Hong1-7/+9
Add a variable to contain the regex needed to find weak functions in the 'nm' output. This will allow other archs to easily override it. Also rename the regex variable $nm_regex to $local_regex to be more descriptive. Signed-off-by: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <20091028050619.GF30758@uhli> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-29tracing: Move mcount section search to front of loop in recordmcount.plLi Hong1-14/+18
Move the mcount section check to the beginning of the objdump read loop. This makes the code easier to follow since the search for the mcount section is performed first before the mcount callers are processed. Signed-off-by: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <20091028050523.GE30758@uhli> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-29tracing: Fix objcopy revision check in recordmcount.plLi Hong1-29/+27
The current logic to check objcopy's version is incorrect. This patch fixes the algorithm and disables the use of local functions as a reference if the objcopy version does not support static to global conversions. Also remove some usused variables. Signed-off-by: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <20091028050421.GD30758@uhli> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-29tracing: Check absolute path of input file in recordmcount.plLi Hong1-1/+1
The ftrace.c file may reference the mcount function and this may interfere with the recordmcount.pl processing. To avoid this, the code does not process the kernel/trace/ftrace.o. But currently the check is against a relative path. This patch modifies the check to succeed if the path is an absolute path. Signed-off-by: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <20091028050332.GC30758@uhli> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-29tracing: Correct the check for number of arguments in recordmcount.plLi Hong1-1/+1
The number of arguments passed into recordmcount.pl is 10, but the code checks if only 7 are passed in. Signed-off-by: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <20091027065733.GB22032@uhli> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-29tracing: Amend documentation in recordmcount.pl to reflect implementationLi Hong1-35/+49
The documentation currently says we will use the first function in a section as a reference. The actual algorithm is: choose the first global function we meet as a reference. If there is none, choose the first local one. Change the documentation to be consistent with the code. Also add several other clarifications. Signed-off-by: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <20091028050138.GA30758@uhli> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-10-14tracing: Enable "__cold" functionsJiri Olsa1-0/+1
Based on the commit: a586df06 "x86: Support __attribute__((__cold__)) in gcc 4.3" some of the functions goes to the ".text.unlikely" section. Looks like there's not many of them (I found printk, panic, __ssb_dma_not_implemented, fat_fs_error), but still worth to include I think. Signed-off-by: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com> Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> LKML-Reference: <20091013203426.175845614@goodmis.org> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2009-08-11Merge branch 'linus' into tracing/coreIngo Molnar1-4/+8
Conflicts: kernel/trace/trace_events_filter.c We use the tracing/core version. Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2009-08-07tracing: Fix recordmcount.pl to handle sections with only weak functionsSteven Rostedt1-2/+2
Roland Dreier found that a section that contained only a weak function in one of the staging drivers and this caused recordmcount.pl to spit out a warning and fail. Although it is strange that a driver would have a weak function, and this function only be used in one place, it should not be something to make recordmcount.pl fail. This patch fixes the issue in a simple manner: if only weak functions exist in a section, then that section will not be recorded. Reported-by: Roland Dreier <rdreier@cisco.com> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2009-08-05tracing: do not use functions starting with .L in recordmcount.plSteven Rostedt1-1/+4
On Wed, 5 Aug 2009, Ingo Molnar wrote: > * Dave Airlie <airlied@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hey, > > > > So I spent 3-4 hrs today (I'm stupid yes) tracking down a .o > > breakage by blaming rawhide gcc/binutils as I was using make > > V=1and seeing only the compiler chain running, > > Hm, is this that powerpc related build bug you just reported? Well we tracked it down and it is powerpc64 specific. Seems that in drivers/hwmon/lm93.c there's a function called: LM93_IN_FROM_REG() But PPC64 has function descriptors and the real function names (the ones you see in objdump) start with a '.'. Thus this in objdump you have: Disassembly of section .text: 0000000000000000 <.LM93_IN_FROM_REG>: 0: 7c 08 02 a6 mflr r0 4: fb 81 ff e0 std r28,-32(r1) The function name used is .LM93_IN_FROM_REG. But gcc considers symbols that start with ".L" as a special symbol that is used inside the assembly stage. The nm passed into recordmcount uses the --synthetic option which shows the ".L" symbols (my runs outside of the build did not include the --synthetic option, so my older patch worked). We see the function as a local. Now to capture all the locations that use "mcount" we need to have a reference to link into the object file a list of mcount callers. We need a reference that will not disappear. We try to use a global function and if that does not work, we use a local function as a reference. But to relink the section back into the object, we need to make it global. In this case, we run objcopy using --globalize-symbol and --localize-symbol to convert the symbol into a global symbol, link the mcount list, then convert it back to a local symbol. This works great except for this case. .L* symbols can not be converted into a global symbol, and the mcount section referencing it will remain unresolved. Reported-by: Dave Airlie <airlied@gmail.com> LKML-Reference: <alpine.DEB.2.00.0908052011590.5010@gandalf.stny.rr.com> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-07-23ftrace: Only update $offset when we update $ref_funcMatt Fleming1-1/+2
The value of $offset should be the offset of $ref_func from the beginning of the object file. Therefore, we should set both variables together. This fixes a bug I was hitting on sh where $offset (which is used to calcualte the addends for the __mcount_loc entries) was being set multiple times and didn't correspond to $ref_func's offset in the object file. The addends in __mcount_loc were calculated incorrectly, resulting in ftrace dynamically modifying addresses that weren't mcount call sites. Signed-off-by: Matt Fleming <matt@console-pimps.org> LKML-Reference: <1248365775-25196-2-git-send-email-matt@console-pimps.org> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-07-23ftrace: Fix the conditional that updates $ref_funcMatt Fleming1-1/+1
Fix the conditional that checks if we already have a $ref_func and that the new function is weak. The code as previously checking whether either condition was false, and we really need to only update $ref_func is both cconditions are false. Signed-off-by: Matt Fleming <matt@console-pimps.org> LKML-Reference: <1248365775-25196-1-git-send-email-matt@console-pimps.org> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-07-18tracing: Remove .globl in the scripts/recordmcount.pl docjolsa@redhat.com1-1/+0
I was reading throught the recordmcount.pl starting comment, and spotted a tiny discrepancy. The second example is about my_func not being global, but the example code has the ".globl my_func" statement just moved. Signed-off-by: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com> Cc: rostedt@goodmis.org LKML-Reference: <1247773468-11594-4-git-send-email-jolsa@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2009-06-16sparc64: Add proper dynamic ftrace support.David S. Miller1-0/+20
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net> Acked-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2009-06-12[S390] ftrace: add dynamic ftrace supportHeiko Carstens1-0/+13
Dynamic ftrace support for s390. Signed-off-by: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com> Signed-off-by: Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com>
2009-05-05ftrace: use .sched.text, not .text.sched in recordmcount.plTim Abbott1-3/+3
The only references in the kernel to the .text.sched section are in recordmcount.pl. Since the code it has is intended to be example code it should refer to real kernel sections. So change it to .sched.text instead. [ Impact: consistency in comments ] Signed-off-by: Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu> LKML-Reference: <1241136371-10768-1-git-send-email-tabbott@mit.edu> Acked-by: Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
2009-01-18ftrace: test for running of recordmcount.pl twice on an objectSteven Rostedt1-3/+18
Impact: fix failure of dynamic function tracer selftest In a course of development, a developer does several makes on their kernel. Sometimes, the make might do something abnormal. In the case of running the recordmcount.pl script on an object twice, the script will duplicate all the calls to mcount in the __mcount_loc section. On boot up, the dynamic function tracer is careful when it modifies code, and performs several consistency checks. One is to not modify the call site if it is not what it expects it to be. If a function call site is listed twice, the first entry will convert the site to a nop, and the second will fail because it expected to see a call to mcount, but instead it sees a nop. Thus, the function tracer is disabled. Eric Sesterhenn reported seeing: [ 1.055440] ftrace: converting mcount calls to 0f 1f 44 00 00 [ 1.055568] ftrace: allocating 29418 entries in 116 pages [ 1.061000] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 1.061000] WARNING: at kernel/trace/ftrace.c:441 [...] [ 1.060000] ---[ end trace 4eaa2a86a8e2da23 ]--- [ 1.060000] ftrace failed to modify [<c0118072>] check_corruption+0x3/0x2d [ 1.060000] actual: 0f:1f:44:00:00 This warning shows that check_corruption+0x3 already had a nop in its place (0x0f1f440000). After compiling another kernel the problem went away. Later Eric Paris notice the same type of issue. Luckily, he saved the vmlinux file that caused it. In the file we found a bunch of duplicate mcount call site records, which lead us to the script. Perhaps this problem only happens to people named Eric. This patch changes the script to test if the __mcount_loc already exists in the object file, and if it does, it will print out an error message and kill the compile. Reported-by: Eric Sesterhenn <snakebyte@gmx.de> Reported-by: Eric Paris <eparis@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2009-01-14ftrace, ia64: Add recordmcount for ia64Shaohua Li1-0/+7
Add recordmcount for ia64. Signed-off-by: Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@intel.com> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2009-01-14ftrace, ia64: explictly ignore a file in recordmcount.plShaohua Li1-0/+5
In IA64, a function pointer isn't a 'unsigned long' but a 'struct {unsigned long ip, unsigned long gp}'. MCOUNT_ADDR is determined at link time not compile time, so explictly ignore kernel/trace/ftrace.o in recordmcount.pl. Signed-off-by: Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@intel.com> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2009-01-14ftrace, ia64: make recordmcount distinct module compileShaohua Li1-3/+3
In IA64, module build and kernel build use different option. Make recordmcount.pl differentiate the two cases. Signed-off-by: Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@intel.com> Acked-by: Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-12-12tracing/function-graph-tracer: add a new .irqentry.text sectionFrederic Weisbecker1-0/+1
Impact: let the function-graph-tracer be aware of the irq entrypoints Add a new .irqentry.text section to store the irq entrypoints functions inside the same section. This way, the tracer will be able to signal an interrupts triggering on output by recognizing these entrypoints. Also, make this section recordable for dynamic tracing. Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-11-26ftrace: adding other non-leaving .text sectionsLiming Wang1-0/+2
Impact: widen the scope of recordmcount.pl Besides .text section, there are three .text sections that won't be freed after kernel booting. They are: .sched.text, .spinlock.text and .kprobes.text, which contain functions we can trace. But the last section ".kprobes.text" is particular, which has been marked as "notrace", we ignore it. Thus we add other two sections. Signed-off-by: Liming Wang <liming.wang@windriver.com> Acked-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-11-23ftrace: scripts/recordmcount.pl support for ARMJim Radford1-1/+7
Impact: extend scripts/recordmcount.pl to ARM Arm uses %progbits instead of @progbits and requires only 4 byte alignment. [ Thanks to Sam Ravnborg for mentioning that ARM uses %progbits ] Signed-off-by: Jim Radford <radford@galvanix.com> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-11-23ftrace: specify $alignment for sh architectureMatt Fleming1-1/+2
Impact: extend scripts/recordmcount.pl with default alignment for SH Set $alignment=2 for the sh architecture so that a ".align 2" directive will be emitted for all __mcount_loc sections. Fix a whitspace error while I'm here (converted spaces to tabs). Signed-off-by: Matt Fleming <mjf@gentoo.org> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-11-23ftrace: create default variables for archs in recordmcount.plSteven Rostedt1-16/+11
Impact: cleanup of recordmcount.pl Now that more architectures are being ported to the MCOUNT_RECORD method, there is no reason to have each declare their own arch specific variable if most of them share the same value. This patch creates a set of default values for the arch specific variables based off of i386. Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-11-23ftrace: add support for powerpc to recordmcount.pl scriptSteven Rostedt1-2/+17
Impact: Add PowerPC port to recordmcount.pl script This patch updates the recordmcount.pl script to process PowerPC. Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-11-23sh: dynamic ftrace support.Matt Fleming1-0/+11
First cut at dynamic ftrace support. [ Steven Rostedt - only updated the recordmcount.pl file. There are updates for PowerPC that will conflict with this, and we need to base off of these changes. ] Signed-off-by: Matt Fleming <mjf@gentoo.org> Signed-off-by: Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-11-08ftrace: align __mcount_loc sectionsMatt Fleming1-0/+4
Impact: add alignment option for recordmcount.pl script Align the __mcount_loc sections so that architectures with strict alignment requirements need not worry about performing unaligned accesses. This fixes an issue where I was seeing unaligned accesses, which are not supported on our architecture (the results of an unaligned access are undefined). Signed-off-by: Matt Fleming <matthew.fleming@imgtec.com> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-10-23ftrace: dynamic ftrace process only text sectionSteven Rostedt1-3/+14
The text section stays in memory without ever leaving. With the exception of modules, but modules know how to handle that case. With the dynamic ftrace tracer, we need to make sure that it does not try to modify code that no longer exists. The only safe section is .text. This patch changes the recordmcount script to only record the mcount calls in the .text sections. Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-10-23ftrace: handle generic arch callsSteven Rostedt1-1/+10
The recordmcount script requires that the actual arch is passed in. This works well when ARCH=i386 or ARCH=x86_64 but does not handle the case of ARCH=x86. This patch adds a parameter to the function to pass in the number of bits of the architecture. So that it can determine if x86 should be run for x86_64 or i386 archs. Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-10-14ftrace: remove warning of old objcopy and local functionsSteven Rostedt1-6/+0
The warning messages about old objcopy and local functions spam the user quite drastically. Remove the warning until we can find a nicer way of tell the user to upgrade their objcopy. Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Cc: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-10-14ftrace: objcopy version test for local symbolsSteven Rostedt1-0/+41
The --globalize-symbols option came out in objcopy version 2.17. If the kernel is being compiled on a system with a lower version of objcopy, then we can not use the globalize / localize trick to link to symbols pointing to local functions. This patch tests the version of objcopy and will only use the trick if the version is greater than or equal to 2.17. Otherwise, if an object has only local functions within a section, it will give a nice warning and recommend the user to upgrade their objcopy. Leaving the symbols unrecorded is not that big of a deal, since the mcount record method changes the actual mcount code to be a simple "ret" without recording registers or anything. Reported-by: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-10-14ftrace: handle weak symbol functionsSteven Rostedt1-20/+86
During tests and checks, I've discovered that there were failures to convert mcount callers into nops. Looking deeper into these failures, code that was attempted to be changed was not an mcount caller. The current code only updates if the code being changed is what it expects, but I still investigate any time there is a failure. What was happening is that a weak symbol was being used as a reference for other mcount callers. That weak symbol was also referenced elsewhere so the offsets were using the strong symbol and not the function symbol that it was referenced from. This patch changes the setting up of the mcount_loc section to search for a global function that is not weak. It will pick a local over a weak but if only a weak is found in a section, a warning is printed and the mcount location is not recorded (just to be safe). Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-10-14ftrace: update recordmount.pl arch changesSteven Rostedt1-14/+14
I'm trying to keep all the arch changes in recordmcount.pl in one place. I moved your code into that area, by adding the flags to the commands that were passed in. Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-10-14ftrace: scripts/recordmcount.pl cross-build hackIngo Molnar1-0/+14
hack around: ld: Relocatable linking with relocations from format elf32-i386 (init/.tmp_gl_calibrate.o) to format elf64-x86-64 (init/.tmp_mx_calibrate.o) i CC arch/x86/mm/extable.o objcopy: 'init/.tmp_mx_calibrate.o': No such file rm: cannot remove `init/.tmp_mx_calibrate.o': No such file or directory ld: Relocatable linking with relocations from format elf32-i386 (arch/x86/mm/extable.o) to format elf64-x86-64 (arch/x86/mm/.tmp_mx_extable.o) is not supported mv: cannot stat `arch/x86/mm/.tmp_mx_extable.o': No such file or directory ld: Relocatable linking with relocations from format elf32-i386 (arch/x86/mm/fault.o) to format elf64-x86-64 (arch/x86/mm/.tmp_mx_fault.o) is not supported Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
2008-10-14ftrace: create __mcount_loc sectionSteven Rostedt1-0/+280
This patch creates a section in the kernel called "__mcount_loc". This will hold a list of pointers to the mcount relocation for each call site of mcount. For example: objdump -dr init/main.o [...] Disassembly of section .text: 0000000000000000 <do_one_initcall>: 0: 55 push %rbp [...] 000000000000017b <init_post>: 17b: 55 push %rbp 17c: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp 17f: 53 push %rbx 180: 48 83 ec 08 sub $0x8,%rsp 184: e8 00 00 00 00 callq 189 <init_post+0xe> 185: R_X86_64_PC32 mcount+0xfffffffffffffffc [...] We will add a section to point to each function call. .section __mcount_loc,"a",@progbits [...] .quad .text + 0x185 [...] The offset to of the mcount call site in init_post is an offset from the start of the section, and not the start of the function init_post. The mcount relocation is at the call site 0x185 from the start of the .text section. .text + 0x185 == init_post + 0xa We need a way to add this __mcount_loc section in a way that we do not lose the relocations after final link. The .text section here will be attached to all other .text sections after final link and the offsets will be meaningless. We need to keep track of where these .text sections are. To do this, we use the start of the first function in the section. do_one_initcall. We can make a tmp.s file with this function as a reference to the start of the .text section. .section __mcount_loc,"a",@progbits [...] .quad do_one_initcall + 0x185 [...] Then we can compile the tmp.s into a tmp.o gcc -c tmp.s -o tmp.o And link it into back into main.o. ld -r main.o tmp.o -o tmp_main.o mv tmp_main.o main.o But we have a problem. What happens if the first function in a section is not exported, and is a static function. The linker will not let the tmp.o use it. This case exists in main.o as well. Disassembly of section .init.text: 0000000000000000 <set_reset_devices>: 0: 55 push %rbp 1: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp 4: e8 00 00 00 00 callq 9 <set_reset_devices+0x9> 5: R_X86_64_PC32 mcount+0xfffffffffffffffc The first function in .init.text is a static function. 00000000000000a8 t __setup_set_reset_devices 000000000000105f t __setup_str_set_reset_devices 0000000000000000 t set_reset_devices The lowercase 't' means that set_reset_devices is local and is not exported. If we simply try to link the tmp.o with the set_reset_devices we end up with two symbols: one local and one global. .section __mcount_loc,"a",@progbits .quad set_reset_devices + 0x10 00000000000000a8 t __setup_set_reset_devices 000000000000105f t __setup_str_set_reset_devices 0000000000000000 t set_reset_devices U set_reset_devices We still have an undefined reference to set_reset_devices, and if we try to compile the kernel, we will end up with an undefined reference to set_reset_devices, or even worst, it could be exported someplace else, and then we will have a reference to the wrong location. To handle this case, we make an intermediate step using objcopy. We convert set_reset_devices into a global exported symbol before linking it with tmp.o and set it back afterwards. 00000000000000a8 t __setup_set_reset_devices 000000000000105f t __setup_str_set_reset_devices 0000000000000000 T set_reset_devices 00000000000000a8 t __setup_set_reset_devices 000000000000105f t __setup_str_set_reset_devices 0000000000000000 T set_reset_devices 00000000000000a8 t __setup_set_reset_devices 000000000000105f t __setup_str_set_reset_devices 0000000000000000 t set_reset_devices Now we have a section in main.o called __mcount_loc that we can place somewhere in the kernel using vmlinux.ld.S and access it to convert all these locations that call mcount into nops before starting SMP and thus, eliminating the need to do this with kstop_machine. Note, A well documented perl script (scripts/recordmcount.pl) is used to do all this in one location. Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <srostedt@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>