tracing: Add a tracepoint verification check at build time

If a tracepoint is defined via DECLARE_TRACE() or TRACE_EVENT() but never
called (via the trace_<tracepoint>() function), its metadata is still
around in memory and not discarded.

When created via TRACE_EVENT() the situation is worse because the
TRACE_EVENT() creates metadata that can be around 5k per trace event.
Having unused trace events causes several thousand of wasted bytes.

Add a verifier that injects a string of the name of the tracepoint it
calls that is added to the discarded section "__tracepoint_check".
For every builtin tracepoint, its name (which is saved in the in-memory
section "__tracepoint_strings") will have its name also in the
"__tracepoint_check" section if it is used.

Add a new program that is run on build called tracepoint-update. This is
executed on the vmlinux.o before the __tracepoint_check section is
discarded (the section is discarded before vmlinux is created). This
program will create an array of each string in the __tracepoint_check
section and then sort it. Then it will walk the strings in the
__tracepoint_strings section and do a binary search to check if its name
is in the __tracepoint_check section. If it is not, then it is unused and
a warning is printed.

Note, this currently only handles tracepoints that are builtin and not in
modules.

Enabling this currently with a given config produces:

warning: tracepoint 'sched_move_numa' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'sched_stick_numa' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'sched_swap_numa' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'pelt_hw_tp' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'pelt_irq_tp' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'rcu_preempt_task' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'rcu_unlock_preempted_task' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xdp_bulk_tx' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xdp_redirect_map' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xdp_redirect_map_err' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'vma_mas_szero' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'vma_store' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'hugepage_set_pmd' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'hugepage_set_pud' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'hugepage_update_pmd' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'hugepage_update_pud' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'block_rq_remap' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_handle_event' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_handle_transfer' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_gadget_ep_queue' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_alloc_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_free_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_queue_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'xhci_dbc_giveback_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_wrong_maclen' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_mismatch' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_key_not_found' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_rnext_request' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_synack_no_key' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_snd_sne_update' is unused.
warning: tracepoint 'tcp_ao_rcv_sne_update' is unused.

Some of the above is totally unused but others are not used due to their
"trace_" functions being inside configs, in which case, the defined
tracepoints should also be inside those same configs. Others are
architecture specific but defined in generic code, where they should
either be moved to the architecture or be surrounded by #ifdef for the
architectures they are for.

This tool could be updated to process modules in the future.

I'd like to thank Mathieu Desnoyers for suggesting using strings instead
of pointers, as using pointers in vmlinux.o required handling relocations
and it required implementing almost a full feature linker to do so.

To enable this check, run the build with: make UT=1

Note, when all the existing unused tracepoints are removed from the build,
the "UT=1" will be removed and this will always be enabled when
tracepoints are configured to warn on any new tracepoints. The reason this
isn't always enabled now is because it will introduce a lot of warnings
for the current unused tracepoints, and all bisects would end at this
commit for those warnings.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250528114549.4d8a5e03@gandalf.local.home/

Cc: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>
Cc: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
Cc: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
Cc: Nicolas Schier <nicolas.schier@linux.dev>
Cc: Nick Desaulniers <nick.desaulniers+lkml@gmail.com>
Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Cc: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20251022004452.920728129@kernel.org
Suggested-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com> # for using strings instead of pointers
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@goodmis.org>

1 files changed, 21 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index d14824792227..9823c20c4278 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -810,6 +810,25 @@ ifdef CONFIG_FUNCTION_TRACER
   CC_FLAGS_FTRACE := -pg
 endif
 
+ifdef CONFIG_TRACEPOINTS
+# To check for unused tracepoints (tracepoints that are defined but never
+# called), run with:
+#
+# make UT=1
+#
+# Each unused tracepoints can take up to 5KB of memory in the running kernel.
+# It is best to remove any that are not used.
+#
+# This command line option will be removed when all current unused
+# tracepoints are removed.
+
+ifeq ("$(origin UT)", "command line")
+  WARN_ON_UNUSED_TRACEPOINTS := $(UT)
+endif
+endif # CONFIG_TRACEPOINTS
+
+export WARN_ON_UNUSED_TRACEPOINTS
+
 include $(srctree)/arch/$(SRCARCH)/Makefile
 
 ifdef need-config
@@ -1772,6 +1791,8 @@ help:
 	@echo  '		c: extra checks in the configuration stage (Kconfig)'
 	@echo  '		e: warnings are being treated as errors'
 	@echo  '		Multiple levels can be combined with W=12 or W=123'
+	@echo  '  make UT=1   [targets] Warn if a tracepoint is defined but not used.'
+	@echo  '          [ This will be removed when all current unused tracepoints are eliminated. ]'
 	@$(if $(dtstree), \
 		echo '  make CHECK_DTBS=1 [targets] Check all generated dtb files against schema'; \
 		echo '         This can be applied both to "dtbs" and to individual "foo.dtb" targets' ; \