tracing: only prepare tracepoint args if attached

Before this commit, we would always prepare tracepoint arguments
regardless of the tracepoint being used or not. While we already made
sure not to include expensive arguments in our tracepoints, this
commit introduces gating to make sure the arguments are only prepared
if the tracepoints are actually used. This is a win-win improvement
to our tracing framework. For users not interested in tracing, the
overhead is reduced to a cheap 'greater than 0' compare. As the
semaphore-gating technique used here is available in bpftrace, bcc,
and libbpf, users interested in tracing don't have to change their
tracing scripts while profiting from potential future tracepoints
passing slightly more expensive arguments. An example are mempool
tracepoints that pass serialized transactions. We've avoided the
serialization in the past as it was too expensive.

Under the hood, the semaphore-gating works by placing a 2-byte
semaphore in the '.probes' ELF section. The address of the semaphore
is contained in the ELF note providing the tracepoint information
(`readelf -n ./src/bitcoind | grep NT_STAPSDT`). Tracing toolkits
like bpftrace, bcc, and libbpf increase the semaphore at the address
upon attaching to the tracepoint. We only prepare the arguments and
reach the tracepoint if the semaphore is greater than zero. The
semaphore is decreased when detaching from the tracepoint.

This also extends the "Adding a new tracepoint" documentation to
include information about the semaphores and updated step-by-step
instructions on how to add a new tracepoint.

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/src/net.cpp b/src/net.cpp
index 15cf1fe80c..0a643c48c5 100644
--- a/src/net.cpp
+++ b/src/net.cpp
@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@
 #include <optional>
 #include <unordered_map>
 
+TRACEPOINT_SEMAPHORE(net, outbound_message);
+
 /** Maximum number of block-relay-only anchor connections */
 static constexpr size_t MAX_BLOCK_RELAY_ONLY_ANCHORS = 2;
 static_assert (MAX_BLOCK_RELAY_ONLY_ANCHORS <= static_cast<size_t>(MAX_BLOCK_RELAY_ONLY_CONNECTIONS), "MAX_BLOCK_RELAY_ONLY_ANCHORS must not exceed MAX_BLOCK_RELAY_ONLY_CONNECTIONS.");