4.3.4. Monitoring Polling Applications This section describes how to identify and monitor which applications are polling. Doing so allows you to track unnecessary or excessive polling, which can help you pinpoint areas for improvement in terms of CPU usage and power savings. timeout.stp timeout.stp tracks how many times each application used the following system calls over time: poll select epoll itimer futex nanosleep signal In some applications, these system calls are used excessively. As such, they are normally identified as "likely culprits" for polling applications. Note, however, that an application may be using a different system call to poll excessively; sometimes, it is useful to find out the top system calls used by the system (refer to Section 4.3.5, "Tracking Most Frequently Used System Calls" for instructions). Doing so can help you identify any additional suspects, which you can add to timeout.stp for tracking. Example 4.14. timeout.stp Sample Output You can increase the sample time by editing the timer in the second probe ( timer.s() ). The output of functioncallcount.stp contains the name and UID of the top 20 polling applications, along with how many times each application performed each polling system call (over time). Example 4.14, "timeout.stp Sample Output" contains an excerpt of the script:

Commands:
#! /usr/bin/env stap Copyright (C) 2009 Red Hat, Inc. Written by Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com> Modified by William Cohen <wcohen@redhat.com> global process, timeout_count, to global poll_timeout, epoll_timeout, select_timeout, itimer_timeout global nanosleep_timeout, futex_timeout, signal_timeout probe syscall.poll, syscall.epoll_wait { if (timeout) to[pid()]=timeout } probe syscall.poll.return { p = pid() if (USDreturn == 0 && to[p] > 0 ) { poll_timeout[p]++ timeout_count[p]++ process[p] = execname() delete to[p] } } probe syscall.epoll_wait.return { p = pid() if (USDreturn == 0 && to[p] > 0 ) { epoll_timeout[p]++ timeout_count[p]++ process[p] = execname() delete to[p] } } probe syscall.select.return { if (USDreturn == 0) { p = pid() select_timeout[p]++ timeout_count[p]++ process[p] = execname() } } probe syscall.futex.return { if (errno_str(USDreturn) == "ETIMEDOUT") { p = pid() futex_timeout[p]++ timeout_count[p]++ process[p] = execname() } } probe syscall.nanosleep.return { if (USDreturn == 0) { p = pid() nanosleep_timeout[p]++ timeout_count[p]++ process[p] = execname() } } probe kernel.function("it_real_fn") { p = pid() itimer_timeout[p]++ timeout_count[p]++ process[p] = execname() } probe syscall.rt_sigtimedwait.return { if (errno_str(USDreturn) == "EAGAIN") { p = pid() signal_timeout[p]++ timeout_count[p]++ process[p] = execname() } } probe syscall.exit { p = pid() if (p in process) { delete process[p] delete timeout_count[p] delete poll_timeout[p] delete epoll_timeout[p] delete select_timeout[p] delete itimer_timeout[p] delete futex_timeout[p] delete nanosleep_timeout[p] delete signal_timeout[p] } } probe timer.s(1) { ansi_clear_screen() printf (" pid | poll select epoll itimer futex nanosle signal| process\n") foreach (p in timeout_count- limit 20) { printf ("%5d |%7d %7d %7d %7d %7d %7d %7d| %-.38s\n", p, poll_timeout[p], select_timeout[p], epoll_timeout[p], itimer_timeout[p], futex_timeout[p], nanosleep_timeout[p], signal_timeout[p], process[p]) } }
uid | poll select epoll itimer futex nanosle signal| process 28937 | 148793 0 0 4727 37288 0 0| firefox 22945 | 0 56949 0 1 0 0 0| scim-bridge 0 | 0 0 0 36414 0 0 0| swapper 4275 | 23140 0 0 1 0 0 0| mixer_applet2 4191 | 0 14405 0 0 0 0 0| scim-launcher 22941 | 7908 1 0 62 0 0 0| gnome-terminal 4261 | 0 0 0 2 0 7622 0| escd 3695 | 0 0 0 0 0 7622 0| gdm-binary 3483 | 0 7206 0 0 0 0 0| dhcdbd 4189 | 6916 0 0 2 0 0 0| scim-panel-gtk 1863 | 5767 0 0 0 0 0 0| iscsid 2562 | 0 2881 0 1 0 1438 0| pcscd 4257 | 4255 0 0 1 0 0 0| gnome-power-man 4278 | 3876 0 0 60 0 0 0| multiload-apple 4083 | 0 1331 0 1728 0 0 0| Xorg 3921 | 1603 0 0 0 0 0 0| gam_server 4248 | 1591 0 0 0 0 0 0| nm-applet 3165 | 0 1441 0 0 0 0 0| xterm 29548 | 0 1440 0 0 0 0 0| httpd 1862 | 0 0 0 0 0 1438 0| iscsid