Systemtap on Nokia N800/N810 HOWTO

This tutorial is a walkthrough made after efforts to get systemtap running on N800/N810 device. In order to compile systemtap from scratch, you need a scratchbox target with armel/glibc toolchain. You also need to install a quilt tool inside your scratchbox. Follow the steps below in order to download, compile and install systemtap binaries on your device.

Step 1: Download needed files

Systemtap

You can download the latest systemtap snapshot with this link:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~] wget ftp://sourceware.org/pub/systemtap/snapshots/latest.tar.bz2

You also need to get translate.diff patch. why? Create translate.diff file, copy code below and paste to translate.diff:

--- ./translate.cxx
+++ ./translate.cxx
@@ -1105,12 +1105,7 @@
 
   o->newline() << "if (strcmp (release, "
                << lex_cast_qstring (session->kernel_release) << ")) {";
-  o->newline(1) << "_stp_error (\"module release mismatch (%s vs %s)\", "
-                << "release, "
-                << lex_cast_qstring (session->kernel_release)
-                << ");";
-  o->newline() << "rc = -EINVAL;";
-  o->newline(-1) << "}";
+  o->newline() << "}";
 
   // XXX: perform buildid-based checking if able

ELFutils

Elfutils is a set of application that helps in the compilation of systemtap:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~] wget ftp://sourceware.org/pub/systemtap/elfutils.old/elfutils-0.131.tar.gz

You also need to get a patch that adds portability:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~] wget ftp://sourceware.org/pub/systemtap/elfutils.old/elfutils-portability.patch

In order to solve a compilation error when using gcc 3.4 (contained on the armel/glibc scratchbox toolchain), you need to get elfutils-vector-fix.patch from attachments of this wiki page.

Step 2: Compile systemtap sources

Systemtap

Decompress systemtap:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~] tar xjf latest.tar.bz2

Enter its directory:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~] cd src

Create a directory named patches/ and copy translate.diff into it:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] mkdir patches
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] cp ../translate.diff patches/
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] echo "translate.diff" > patches/series

Now patch systemtap using quilt:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] quilt push
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] quilt refresh

Decompress elfutils package inside systemtap directory:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] tar xzf ../elfutils-0.131.tar.gz

Enter elfutils directory:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] cd elfutils-0.131

Create a directory named patches/ and copy both elfutils-portability.patch and elfutils-vector-fix.patch into it:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] mkdir patches
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] cp ../../elfutils-portability.patch patches/
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] cp ../../elfutils-vector-fix.patch patches/
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] echo "elfutils-portability.patch" >> patches/series
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] echo "elfutils-vector-fix.patch" >> patches/series

Now patch elfutils using quilt. In order to apply two patches, you should run quilt push and quilt refresh twice (or just run quilt -a push for applying all patches from series):

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] quilt push
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] quilt refresh
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] quilt push
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] quilt refresh

Now your system is prepared to configure/make systemtap. First, get to the parent directory:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src/elfutils-0.131] cd ..

Use this command to configure systemtap:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] ./configure --with-elfutils=./elfutils-0.131 --prefix=/usr

After this step, you can make/install systemtap:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] make all check && fakeroot make install

Step 3: Create systemtap debian package

To create systemtap debian package, you need dh_make tool. It is available on scratchbox targets with debian devkits installed. First, rename your systemtap source directory:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/src] cd ..
[sbox-ARMEL: ~] mv src/ systemtap-<version>
[sbox-ARMEL: ~] cd systemtap-<version>

Where <version> corresponds to the systemtap snapshot version (i.e. 20080202). Now you need to export some environment variables:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/systemtap-20080202] export DEBFULLNAME="John Doe"
[sbox-ARMEL: ~/systemtap-20080202] export DEBEMAIL="john@doe.com"

DEBFULLNAME and DEBEMAIL environment variables represents the maintainer's full name and email, respectively. Run dh_make tool, setting package class to single:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/systemtap-20080202] dh_make -s

The command above creates the debian/ directory. You need to modify some of these configurations to get your debian package built. In order to do that, you need to get elfutils-debian.patch from attachments of this wiki page.

Patch debian/ directory:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/systemtap-20080202/debian] patch -p0 < elfutils-debian.patch

Now you are ready to build systemtap debian package. Run the command below:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/systemtap-20080202] dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc -b

Debian packages are available at the parent directory:

[sbox-ARMEL: ~/systemtap-20080202] ls -l ../systemtap*.deb
./systemtap_<version>-1_armel.deb

Now you are ready to install systemtap inside your N800/N810 device. For further instructions about kernel configurations (default Maemo kernels doesn't have some additional modules required by systemtap), please see Systemtap Benchmark on Nokia N800/N810.

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