[PATCH v7 0/7] add mbuf debug capabilities

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 22:34:38 +0200
Thomas Monjalon <thomas at monjalon.net> wrote:

> History is added to mbuf for debugging.
> 
> This series set some marks in mbuf allocation/freeing and ethdev Rx/Tx.
> More marks could be added in other libraries.
> Drivers could benefit a finer debugging by marking alloc/free calls,
> in addition to marks already done in the mbuf library.
> Even better, the application could add its own marks.
> 
> As part of this series, mbuf statistics can be dumped,
> and a Python script will help to parse mbuf history.
> 
> ---
> 
> v7 changes:
> - loop for sum of allocated mbufs
> - remove unused Python import
> 
> v6 changes:
> - simplify testpmd commands
> - use enum op type
> - rename Tx ops
> - mark free before freeing
> - mark out of sanity check loop
> 
> v5 change:
> - fix MSVC build in testpmd
> 
> v4 changes:
> - fix/rewrite testpmd commands
> - fix python script
> - fix thread safety
> - fix checks
> - fix logs
> - change config (no Meson option)
> - add documentation
> 
> v3 changes:
> - use atomic
> - fix prefix
> - add asserts
> - reformat dump
> - remove #ifdef clutter
> - remove mlx5 patch
> 
> v2 changes:
> - move to mbuf in dynamic field
> 
> v1:
> - mempool feature
> 
> ---
> 
> Shani Peretz (3):
>   mbuf: record mbuf operations history
>   ethdev: mark mbufs in burst functions
>   usertools/mbuf: parse mbuf history dump
> 
> Thomas Monjalon (4):
>   doc: explain debug options in mbuf guide
>   mbuf: move header include for logs
>   app/testpmd: use space separator in dump commands
>   app/testpmd: add commands to dump mbuf history
> 
>  app/test-pmd/cmdline.c                      | 309 ++++++++++++++------
>  config/rte_config.h                         |   1 +
>  doc/guides/howto/debug_troubleshoot.rst     |   7 +
>  doc/guides/prog_guide/mbuf_lib.rst          |  18 +-
>  doc/guides/rel_notes/release_25_11.rst      |   7 +
>  doc/guides/testpmd_app_ug/testpmd_funcs.rst |  33 ++-
>  lib/ethdev/rte_ethdev.h                     |  11 +
>  lib/mbuf/mbuf_history.c                     | 223 ++++++++++++++
>  lib/mbuf/mbuf_log.h                         |   2 +
>  lib/mbuf/meson.build                        |   2 +
>  lib/mbuf/rte_mbuf.c                         |   5 +-
>  lib/mbuf/rte_mbuf.h                         |  15 +-
>  lib/mbuf/rte_mbuf_dyn.h                     |  18 ++
>  lib/mbuf/rte_mbuf_history.h                 | 207 +++++++++++++
>  usertools/dpdk-mbuf-history-parser.py       | 165 +++++++++++
>  15 files changed, 917 insertions(+), 106 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 lib/mbuf/mbuf_history.c
>  create mode 100644 lib/mbuf/rte_mbuf_history.h
>  create mode 100755 usertools/dpdk-mbuf-history-parser.py
> 


If build is done with lots of debug enabled it now fails.
Looks like typo in history code.

FAILED: lib/librte_mbuf.a.p/mbuf_mbuf_history.c.o 
cc -Ilib/librte_mbuf.a.p -Ilib -I../lib -Ilib/mbuf -I../lib/mbuf -Ilib/eal/common -I../lib/eal/common -I. -I.. -Iconfig -I../config -Ilib/eal/include -I../lib/eal/include -Ilib/eal/linux/include -I../lib/eal/linux/include -Ilib/eal/x86/include -I../lib/eal/x86/include -I../kernel/linux -Ilib/eal -I../lib/eal -Ilib/kvargs -I../lib/kvargs -Ilib/log -I../lib/log -Ilib/metrics -I../lib/metrics -Ilib/telemetry -I../lib/telemetry -Ilib/argparse -I../lib/argparse -Ilib/mempool -I../lib/mempool -Ilib/ring -I../lib/ring -fdiagnostics-color=always -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -Wall -Winvalid-pch -Wextra -std=c11 -O3 -include rte_config.h -Wvla -Wcast-qual -Wdeprecated -Wformat -Wformat-nonliteral -Wformat-security -Wmissing-declarations -Wmissing-prototypes -Wnested-externs -Wold-style-definition -Wpointer-arith -Wsign-compare -Wstrict-prototypes -Wundef -Wwrite-strings -Wno-packed-not-aligned -Wno-missing-field-initializers -fzero-init-padding-bits=all -D_GNU_SOURCE -DRTE_ENABLE_ASSERT -DRTE_LIBRTE_ETHDEV_DEBUG=1 -DRTE_LIBRTE_IPFRAG_TBL_STAT -DRTE_LIBRTE_MEMPOOL_STATS -DRTE_LIBRTE_MEMPOOL_DEBUG -DRTE_MBUF_HISTORY_DEBUG -fPIC -march=native -mrtm -DALLOW_EXPERIMENTAL_API -DALLOW_INTERNAL_API -Wno-format-truncation -DRTE_LOG_DEFAULT_LOGTYPE=lib.mbuf -MD -MQ lib/librte_mbuf.a.p/mbuf_mbuf_history.c.o -MF lib/librte_mbuf.a.p/mbuf_mbuf_history.c.o.d -o lib/librte_mbuf.a.p/mbuf_mbuf_history.c.o -c ../lib/mbuf/mbuf_history.c
In file included from ../lib/eal/x86/include/rte_vect.h:14,
                 from ../lib/eal/x86/include/rte_memcpy.h:17,
                 from ../lib/mempool/rte_mempool.h:50,
                 from ../lib/mbuf/mbuf_history.c:8:
../lib/mbuf/mbuf_history.c: In function ‘rte_mbuf_history_init’:
../lib/log/rte_log.h:364:9: error: static assertion failed: "This log format string contains a \\n"
  364 |         static_assert(!__builtin_strchr(fmt, '\n'), \
      |         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
../lib/log/rte_log.h:387:9: note: in expansion of macro ‘RTE_LOG_CHECK_NO_NEWLINE’
  387 |         RTE_LOG_CHECK_NO_NEWLINE(RTE_FMT_HEAD(__VA_ARGS__ ,)); \
      |         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
../lib/mbuf/mbuf_log.h:8:9: note: in expansion of macro ‘RTE_LOG_LINE’
    8 |         RTE_LOG_LINE(level, MBUF, "" __VA_ARGS__)
      |         ^~~~~~~~~~~~
../lib/mbuf/mbuf_history.c:219:17: note: in expansion of macro ‘MBUF_LOG’
  219 |                 MBUF_LOG(ERR, "Failed to register mbuf history dynamic field: %s\n",
      |                 ^~~~~~~~