tracing: add the v2 shared-ring chunk protocol
Add the producer-local shared ring used by tracing v2. This change contains
the shared-memory ABI, one writer per TraceWriter, the single reader, and the
protocol tests. SDK and service wiring follow in separate changes.
- Define a 64-byte ring header:
- an always-lock-free atomic64 packs write_pos in the high half and read_pos
in the low half;
- num_writers_waiting avoids a wake syscall when no writer is asleep;
- a zero-filled mapping is a valid empty ring.
- Define one atomic32 state word at the start of each chunk:
- Free(wrap) exposes the chunk to one ring traversal;
- BeingWritten identifies the writer and its published fragment prefix;
- Complete says the writer has finished touching the chunk, although it may
take the chunk back to append more fragments;
- RewriteRequested says the reader took the published prefix and the writer
must move any newer suffix;
- RewriteAcknowledged says the writer released the old chunk and the reader
may return it to Free.
- Reserve uint32 positions in FIFO order and map them onto a power-of-two
number of physical chunks. Free carries a 16-bit wrap count so a delayed
writer cannot claim the same chunk during a later traversal.
- Keep ownership rules local to the chunk word:
- one reservation permits one exact claim attempt;
- only the reader writes Free;
- the reader never waits for a writer;
- a lost reader CAS leaves read_pos unchanged and retries the position in a
later drain.
- Store target BufferID after the state word. Payload fragments grow towards
higher addresses while their sizes grow down from the end of the chunk as
shortest-form protobuf varints. Fragment counts publish an append-only
prefix. If the reader reaches an active writer, it copies that prefix and
asks the writer to move only the unpublished suffix.
- Keep the initial 256-byte minimum chunk size and require a four-byte-aligned
chunk stride. Check ring geometry and allocation arithmetic before mapping
memory. Require atomic32 and atomic64 to be always lock-free.
- Honor BufferExhaustedPolicy in SharedRingBufferWriter. Linux and Android
writers can wait on the read_pos half of rw_positions with a futex. Other
platforms report that blocking is unavailable instead of spinning. The
waiter hint and its seq_cst fence pair prevent a missed wake across the two
atomic words.
- Test ABI encoding, position and wrap rollover, malformed chunk input, every
state transition, failed claims, prefix copying, suffix relocation, futex
wake races, and concurrent multi-writer stress.
Bug: 536851377
Perfetto is an open-source suite of SDKs, daemons and tools which use tracing to help developers understand the behaviour of complex systems and root-cause functional and performance issues on client and embedded systems.
It is a production-grade tool that is the default tracing system for the Android operating system and the Chromium browser.
Perfetto is not a single tool, but a collection of components that work together:
Perfetto was designed to be a versatile and powerful tracing system for a wide range of use cases.
ftrace, allowing you to visualize scheduling, syscalls, interrupts, and custom kernel tracepoints on a timeline.chrome://tracing. Use it to debug and root-cause issues in the browser, V8, and Blink.We‘ve designed our documentation to guide you to the right information as quickly as possible, whether you’re a newcomer to performance analysis or an experienced developer.
New to tracing? If you're unfamiliar with concepts like tracing and profiling, start here:
Ready to dive in? Our “Getting Started” guide is the main entry point for all users. It will help you find the right tutorials and documentation for your specific needs:
Want the full overview? For a comprehensive look at what Perfetto is, why it's useful, and who uses it, see our main documentation page:
For users interested in the Debian distribution of Perfetto, the official source of truth and packaging efforts are maintained at Debian Perfetto Salsa Repository
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