Coupling tracing over host and guest machines

The purpose of this thesis is to understand how host make tracing in scenarios that include virtualization. During the thesis, state-of-the-art tracing tools, including some still under development, were investigated, analyzed and tested. To better understand this particular type of tracing, it is necessary to introduce general concepts about the linux kernel, the virtualization and the "standard" mode to make tracing over a machine. Then, problems that arise during synchronization between host and guest are shown. Finally, a solution to these problems is given. The configuration of my machine and version of the software used: Host's linux kernel: 5.8.0 (distro openSUSE Tumbleweed); Virtual Machine Manager 3.2.0; Guest's linux kernel: 5.8.0 (distro openSUSE Tumbleweed); trace-cmd 2.9.1; Kernelshark 1.0 and Kernelshark2-alpha; cscope 15.9; In Chapter 1, some basic operating system concepts and a brief of the Linux kernel are provided. Chapter 2 describes in detail what is meant by virtualization, its various shades and its components. Chapter 3 contains an overview of tracing, ftrace and others component to make the tracing; this chapter also includes a description of trace-cmd and its GUI kernelshark. Finally, Chapter 4 holds the core; tracing over the guest, the timestamp synchronization issues and the Precision Time Protocol to solve them.