Cirron

Cirron measures a piece of Python or Ruby code and report back several performance counters: CPU instruction count, branch misses, page faults and time spent measuring. It uses the Linux perf events interface or @ibireme's KPC demo on OSX.

It can also trace syscalls using strace, Linux only!

Prerequisites

Linux with perf events support / Apple ARM OSX
C++
Python 3.x / Ruby 3.x

Installation

Python

pip install cirron

Ruby

gem install cirron

The wrapper automatically compiles the C++ library (cirronlib.cpp) on first use.

Usage

Performance Counters

Python

$ sudo python
>>> from cirron import Collector
>>> 
>>> # Start collecting performance metrics
>>> with Collector() as collector:
>>>     # Your code here
>>>     print("Hello")
>>> 
>>> # Retrieve the metrics
>>> print(collector.counters)
Counter(time_enabled_ns=144185, instruction_count=19434, branch_misses=440, page_faults=0)

Ruby

$ sudo irb
irb(main):001> require 'cirron'
=> true
irb(main):002* c = Cirron::collector do
irb(main):003*   puts "Hello"
irb(main):004> end
Hello
=> Counter(time_enabled_ns: 110260, instruction_count: 15406, branch_misses: 525, page_faults: 0)

Tracing Syscalls

Python

$ sudo python
>>> from cirron import Tracer, to_tef

>>> with Tracer() as tracer:
>>>     # Your code here
>>>     print("Hello")
>>> 
>>> # Retrieve the trace
>>> print(tracer.trace)
>>> [Syscall(name='write', args='1, "Hello\\n", 6', retval='6', duration='0.000043', timestamp='1720333364.368337', pid='2270837')]
>>> 
>>> # Save the trace for ingesting to Perfetto
>>> open("/tmp/trace", "w").write(to_tef(tracer.trace))

Ruby

$ sudo irb
irb> require 'cirron'
=> true
irb> trace = Cirron::tracer do
irb>  # Your code here
irb>  puts "Hello"
irb> end
=> [#<Syscall:0x00007c6c1a4b3608 @args="1, [{iov_base=\"Hello\", iov_len=5}, {iov_base=\"\\n\", iov_len=1}], 2", @duration="0.000201", @name="writev", @pid="2261962", @retval="6", @timestamp="1720285300.334976">]
# Save the trace for ingesting to Perfetto
irb> File.write("/tmp/trace", Cirron::to_tef(trace))
=> 267

Tampering with Syscalls

Available tampering actions are:

error: Inject a fault with the specified errno.

retval: Inject a success with the specified return value.

signal: Deliver the specified signal on syscall entry.

delay_enter: Delay syscall entry by the specified time.

delay_exit: Delay syscall exit by the specified time.

poke_enter: Modify memory at argN on syscall entry.

poke_exit: Modify memory at argN on syscall exit.

syscall: Inject a different syscall instead.

The when argument can be used to specify when to perform the tampering.

See the Tampering section of the strace manual page for more detailed explanaition of the arguments.

Python

$ sudo python
>>> from cirron import Injector

>>> injector = Injector()
>>> injector.inject("openat", "error", "ENOSPC")
>>> injector.inject("openat", "delay_enter", "1s", when="2+2")
>>> with injector:
>>>     # Open now fails with "No space left on device" and every
>>>     # other call to `openat` will be delayed by 1s.
>>>     f = open("test.txt", "w")

Ruby

$ sudo irb
irb> require 'cirron'

irb> injector = Cirron.injector
irb> injector.inject("openat", "error", "ENOSPC")
irb> injector.inject("openat", "delay_enter", "1s", when="2+2")
irb> injector.run do
irb>     # Open now fails with "No space left on device" and every
irb>     # other call to `openat` will be delayed by 1s.
irb>     File.open("test.txt", "w")