Dynamic Binary Instrumentation Framework for CE Devices

Developers use various methods and approaches to find bugs and performance bottlenecks in their programs. One of the effective and widely used approach is application profiling by dynamic instrumentation. There are many various tools based on dynamic instrumentation. Each tool has its own benefits and limitations what often forces developers to use several of them for profiling. For example, in order to use Kprobe-based [1] Systemtap [2] tool developers need to write instrumentation script using special language. To use Dyninst [3] profiling library developers need to write instrumenting programs in C++. Thus each tool realizes its own profiling technology. Additionally various profiling tools produce output data in their own formats and those formats are incompatible. Thus two above problems significantly increase complexity of debugging. In this paper we describe unique dynamic binary instrumentation engine concept which is used in our monitoring tool — System-Wide Analyzer of Performance (SWAP). This tool has modular open architecture and API which allow integrating various tools for providing powerful instrumentation and analysis framework for developers. Dyninst and Kprobe-based instrumentation engines are integrated into SWAP framework and used in a similar way. Modular structure of SWAP can be extended with other instrumentation and analysis methods by easy way. Also SWAP has several levels of API: instrumentation API, connection API, control API, user interface API and monitoring language framework API. This multilevel API architecture allows developers to re-use SWAP functionality and embed it into their own solutions. All above mentioned SWAP advantages essentially simplify debugging profiling process for embedded software.