lock() lock_acquire() _lock() ... code protected by lock ... unlock() lock_release() _unlock() We need to extend this with two more hooks, in order to measure contention. lock_contended() - used to measure contention events lock_acquired() - completion of the contention These are then placed the following way: lock() lock_acquire() if (!_try_lock()) lock_contended() _lock() lock_acquired() ... do locked stuff ... unlock() lock_release() _unlock() (Note: the try_lock() 'trick' is used to avoid instrumenting all platform dependent lock primitive implementations.) It is also possible to toggle the two lockdep features at runtime using: /proc/sys/kernel/prove_locking /proc/sys/kernel/lock_stat (esp. turning off the O(n^2) prove_locking functionaliy can help) [akpm@linux-foundation.org: build fixes] [akpm@linux-foundation.org: nuke unneeded ifdefs] Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra Acked-by: Ingo Molnar Acked-by: Jason Baron Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds