Adding a profiling page

src/contents.rst

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ Table of Contents
    contrib/debugging-sssd
    contrib/coding-style
    contrib/running-tests
+   contrib/profiling-sssd
 
 .. toctree::
    :caption: Fundamentals

src/contrib/profiling-sssd.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+Profiling SSSD
+##############
+
+Getting Ready
+*************
+
+There are several tools allowing us to profile an application. We will focus on
+perf_ which seems to be the one that works best with SSSD.
+
+.. _perf: https://perf.wiki.kernel.org
+
+First you need to install the ``perf`` tool:
+
+.. code-tabs::
+
+    .. fedora-tab::
+
+        # dnf -y install perf js-d3-flame-graph
+
+    .. ubuntu-tab::
+
+        $ sudo apt install linux-tools-common linux-tools-generic
+
+
+Make sure the debug information is available for SSSD and all its dependencies
+either by using ``debuginfod``, or by manually installing the debug information
+packages:
+
+.. code-tabs::
+
+    .. fedora-tab::
+
+        # dnf debuginfo-install -y sssd* libsss_* samba-client-libs libsmbclient \
+        libldb libtevent libtalloc libini_config c-ares glibc
+
+    .. ubuntu-tab::
+
+        $ sudo apt install sssd-ad-common-dbgsym sssd-ad-dbgsym sssd-common-dbgsym \
+        sssd-dbus-dbgsym sssd-ipa-dbgsym sssd-kcm-dbgsym sssd-krb5-common-dbgsym \
+        sssd-krb5-dbgsym sssd-ldap-dbgsym sssd-proxy-dbgsym sssd-tools-dbgsym \
+        libsss-certmap0-dbgsym libsss-idmap0-dbgsym libsss-nss-idmap0-dbgsym \
+        libsss-simpleifp0-dbgsym libsss-sudo-dbgsym libldb2-dbgsym libtdb1-dbgsym \
+        libtalloc2-dbgsym libtevent0-dbgsym libc6-dbgsym
+
+.. seealso::
+
+    More information on `Debug Symbol Packages`_ for Ubuntu.
+
+.. _`Debug Symbol Packages`: https://documentation.ubuntu.com/server/reference/debugging/debug-symbol-packages/
+
+.. note::
+
+    If you are using SELinux, the shipped targeted policy may prevent ``perf``
+    from interacting with the SSSD process. You can put SELinux into permissive
+    mode to confirm or look at the audit logs and add the required rules. Rules
+    can be added using ``audit2allow``. 
+
+Profiling
+*********
+
+The simplest way to profile one of the SSSD's daemons is to attach the profiler
+to the process while it is running.
+
+Once SSSD is running and ready to be profiled, identify the PID of the process
+you want to monitor (``sssd_ssh``, ``sssd_nss``, ``sssd_be``, etc.), start the
+``perf`` command in the background, launch the command you want to profile
+and stop the profiling after the command completes:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+    :caption: `Profiling the LDAP domain daemon during the id command`
+
+    # PID=$(pgrep -f 'sssd_be --domain LDAP')
+    # perf record --pid=$PID --call-graph=dwarf -e cycles:u &
+    # id user1002@LDAP
+    # kill %%
+
+.. code-block:: console
+    :caption: `Profiling the sssd_nss daemon during the ls command`
+
+    # perf record --pid=$(pgrep -f 'sssd_nss') --call-graph=dwarf -e cycles:u &
+    # ls -l /tmp
+    # kill %%
+
+
+This will create a ``perf.data`` file in your current directory. It is
+recommended to process this file in the same machine, so that the debug
+information matches perfectly the installed binaries. You can later move the
+results to another host.
+
+The ``-e cycles:u`` argument tells ``perf`` to only monitor the CPU cycles the
+application consumes in user space. The kernel will not be profiled. Check the 
+``perf-record(1)`` man page for more options that might be useful in you
+particular case.
+
+Generating the Reports
+**********************
+
+We will create two types of reports: a text report and a flame graph to be seen
+in a web browser:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+    # perf report -g > report.txt
+    # perf script report flamegraph
+
+The files ``report.txt`` and ``flamegraph.html`` contain the reports, are
+self-contained, and can safely be moved to another host.
+
+.. seealso::
+
+    Other reports are available. You can learn about them in the
+    ``perf-report(1)`` and ``perf-script(1)`` man pages.
+