An updated guide to debugfs

LWN covered the debugfs API back in 2004. Rather more recently, Shen Feng kindly proposed the addition of LWN's debugfs article as a file in the Documentation directory. There was only one little problem with that suggestion: as one might expect, the debugfs API has changed a little since 2004. The following is an attempt to update the original document to cover the full API as it exists in the 2.6.30 kernel.

Debugfs exists as a simple way for kernel developers to make information available to user space. Unlike /proc, which is only meant for information about a process, or sysfs, which has strict one-value-per-file rules, debugfs has no rules at all. Developers can put any information they want there. The debugfs filesystem is also intended to not serve as a stable ABI to user space; in theory, there are no stability constraints placed on files exported there. The real world is not always so simple, though; even debugfs interfaces are best designed with the idea that they will need to be maintained forever.

Debugfs is typically mounted with a command like:

    mount -t debugfs none /sys/kernel/debug

(Or an equivalent /etc/fstab line). There is occasional dissent on the mailing lists regarding the proper mount location for debugfs, and some documentation refers to mount points like /debug instead. For now, user-space code which uses debugfs files will be more portable if it finds the debugfs mount point in /proc/mounts.

Note that the debugfs API is exported GPL-only to modules.

Code using debugfs should include <linux/debugfs.h>. Then, the first order of business will be to create at least one directory to hold a set of debugfs files:

    struct dentry *debugfs_create_dir(const char *name, struct dentry *parent);

This call, if successful, will make a directory called name underneath the indicated parent directory. If parent is NULL, the directory will be created in the debugfs root. On success, the return value is a struct dentry pointer which can be used to create files in the directory (and to clean it up at the end). A NULL return value indicates that something went wrong. If -ENODEV is returned, that is an indication that the kernel has been built without debugfs support and none of the functions described below will work.

The most general way to create a file within a debugfs directory is with:

    struct dentry *debugfs_create_file(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				       struct dentry *parent, void *data,
				       const struct file_operations *fops);

Here, name is the name of the file to create, mode describes the access permissions the file should have, parent indicates the directory which should hold the file, data will be stored in the i_private field of the resulting inode structure, and fops is a set of file operations which implement the file's behavior. At a minimum, the read() and/or write() operations should be provided; others can be included as needed. Again, the return value will be a dentry pointer to the created file, NULL for error, or -ENODEV if debugfs support is missing.

In a number of cases, the creation of a set of file operations is not actually necessary; the debugfs code provides a number of helper functions for simple situations. Files containing a single integer value can be created with any of:

    struct dentry *debugfs_create_u8(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				     struct dentry *parent, u8 *value);
    struct dentry *debugfs_create_u16(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				      struct dentry *parent, u16 *value);
    struct dentry *debugfs_create_u32(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				      struct dentry *parent, u32 *value);
    struct dentry *debugfs_create_u64(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				      struct dentry *parent, u64 *value);

These files support both reading and writing the given value; if a specific file should not be written to, simply set the mode bits accordingly. The values in these files are in decimal; if hexadecimal is more appropriate, the following functions can be used instead:

    struct dentry *debugfs_create_x8(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				     struct dentry *parent, u8 *value);
    struct dentry *debugfs_create_x16(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				      struct dentry *parent, u16 *value);
    struct dentry *debugfs_create_x32(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				      struct dentry *parent, u32 *value);

Note that there is no debugfs_create_x64().

These functions are useful as long as the developer knows the size of the value to be exported. Some types can have different widths on different architectures, though, complicating the situation somewhat. There is a function meant to help out in one special case:

    struct dentry *debugfs_create_size_t(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				         struct dentry *parent, 
					 size_t *value);

As might be expected, this function will create a debugfs file to represent a variable of type size_t.

Boolean values can be placed in debugfs with:

    struct dentry *debugfs_create_bool(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				       struct dentry *parent, u32 *value);

A read on the resulting file will yield either Y (for non-zero values) or N, followed by a newline. If written to, it will accept either upper- or lower-case values, or 1 or 0. Any other input will be silently ignored.

Finally, a block of arbitrary binary data can be exported with:

    struct debugfs_blob_wrapper {
	void *data;
	unsigned long size;
    };

    struct dentry *debugfs_create_blob(const char *name, mode_t mode,
				       struct dentry *parent,
				       struct debugfs_blob_wrapper *blob);

A read of this file will return the data pointed to by the debugfs_blob_wrapper structure. Some drivers use "blobs" as a simple way to return several lines of (static) formatted text output. This function can be used to export binary information, but there does not appear to be any code which does so in the mainline. Note that files created with debugfs_create_blob() are read-only.

There are a couple of other directory-oriented helper functions:

    struct dentry *debugfs_rename(struct dentry *old_dir, 
    				  struct dentry *old_dentry,
		                  struct dentry *new_dir, 
				  const char *new_name);

    struct dentry *debugfs_create_symlink(const char *name, 
                                          struct dentry *parent,
				      	  const char *target);

A call to debugfs_rename() will give a new name to an existing debugfs file, possibly in a different directory. The new_name must not exist prior to the call; the return value is old_dentry with updated information. Symbolic links can be created with debugfs_create_symlink().

There is one important thing that all debugfs users must take into account: there is no automatic cleanup of any directories created in debugfs. If a module is unloaded without explicitly removing debugfs entries, the result will be a lot of stale pointers and no end of highly antisocial behavior. So all debugfs users - at least those which can be built as modules - must be prepared to remove all files and directories they create there. A file can be removed with:

    void debugfs_remove(struct dentry *dentry);

The dentry value can be NULL.

Once upon a time, debugfs users were required to remember the dentry pointer for every debugfs file they created so that they could all be cleaned up. We live in more civilized times now, though, and debugfs users can call:

    void debugfs_remove_recursive(struct dentry *dentry);

If this function is passed a pointer for the dentry corresponding to the top-level directory, the entire hierarchy below that directory will be removed.

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