Instrumenting CPython with eBPF

1. Instrumenting CPython with eBPF
Furkan Onder

2. Who Am I?
●
Working at Bumper
●
F/OSS Lover
●
Twitter: @fsyscall
●
E-mail: furkanonder@protonmail.com

3. What is eBPF?
●
1992, Steven McCanne and Van Jacobson
●
Network filter programs
https://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.pdf

4. What is eBPF?
●
Alexei Starovoitov & Daniel Borkmann
●
Not just for the network packets
●
https://ebpf.io/

5. Configuring Cpython
●
Probes
●
Python 3.6 or above
●
SystemTap
●
--with-dtrace

6. Displaying the Probes
$ readelf -n ./python

7. Available Probes
●
function__entry(str filename, str funcname, int lineno)
●
function__return(str filename, str funcname, int lineno)
●
line(str filename, str funcname, int lineno)

8. Available Probes
●
gc__start(int generation)
●
gc__done(long collected)
●
import__find__load__start(str modulename)
●
import__find__load__done(str modulename, int found)
●
audit(str event, void *tuple)

9. Instrumentation
●
Tracing
●
Profiling
https://www.flickr.com/photos/30478819@N08/45977680015

10. eBPF Program
●
BPF Compiler Collection (BCC)
●
https://github.com/iovisor/bcc

11. eBPF Program

12. eBPF Program

13. eBPF Program

14. Example Program

15. Output

16. eBPF
https://rnemet.dev/posts/ebpf/learn-ebpf/

17. bpftrace
●
High-level tracing language for Linux eBPF
●
Created by Alastair Robertson
●
https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace/

18. bpftrace

19. py-spy
●
Sampling profiler for Python programs.
●
https://github.com/benfred/py-spy
●
process_vm_readv
●
vm_read

20. Example

21. Profiling in py-spy
py-spy record -o profile.svg --pid 27229

22. Python profiling in eBPF
●
gprofiler
●
eBPF based profiling
●
System-wide
●
pyPerf

23. Python profiling in gprofiler

24. Python profiling in eBPF
●
gprofiler
●
eBPF based profiling
●
System-wide
●
pyPerf

25. Why is the eBPF important?
●
Performance
●
No Context Switches
●
Event-Driven
●
JIT

26. THANK YOU!
Twitter: @fsyscall
E-mail: furkanonder@protonmail.com