[PATCH] powerpc/perf: Record counter overflow always if SAMPLE_IP is unset

Athira Rajeev atrajeev at linux.vnet.ibm.com
Wed Feb 3 19:54:44 AEDT 2021


While sampling for marked events, currently we record the sample only
if the SIAR valid bit of Sampled Instruction Event Register (SIER) is
set. SIAR_VALID bit is used for fetching the instruction address from
Sampled Instruction Address Register(SIAR). But there are some usecases,
where the user is interested only in the PMU stats at each counter
overflow and the exact IP of the overflow event is not required.
Dropping SIAR invalid samples will fail to record some of the counter
overflows in such cases.

Example of such usecase is dumping the PMU stats (event counts)
after some regular amount of instructions/events from the userspace
(ex: via ptrace). Here counter overflow is indicated to userspace via
signal handler, and captured by monitoring and enabling I/O
signaling on the event file descriptor. In these cases, we expect to
get sample/overflow indication after each specified sample_period.

Perf event attribute will not have PERF_SAMPLE_IP set in the
sample_type if exact IP of the overflow event is not requested. So
while profiling if SAMPLE_IP is not set, just record the counter overflow
irrespective of SIAR_VALID check.

Signed-off-by: Athira Rajeev <atrajeev at linux.vnet.ibm.com>
---
 arch/powerpc/perf/core-book3s.c | 10 ++++++++--
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/powerpc/perf/core-book3s.c b/arch/powerpc/perf/core-book3s.c
index 28206b1fe172..bb4828a05e4d 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/perf/core-book3s.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/perf/core-book3s.c
@@ -2166,10 +2166,16 @@ static void record_and_restart(struct perf_event *event, unsigned long val,
 	 * address even when freeze on supervisor state (kernel) is set in
 	 * MMCR2. Check attr.exclude_kernel and address to drop the sample in
 	 * these cases.
+	 *
+	 * If address is not requested in the sample
+	 * via PERF_SAMPLE_IP, just record that sample
+	 * irrespective of SIAR valid check.
 	 */
-	if (event->attr.exclude_kernel && record)
-		if (is_kernel_addr(mfspr(SPRN_SIAR)))
+	if (event->attr.exclude_kernel && record) {
+		if (is_kernel_addr(mfspr(SPRN_SIAR)) && (event->attr.sample_type & PERF_SAMPLE_IP))
 			record = 0;
+	} else if (!record && !(event->attr.sample_type & PERF_SAMPLE_IP))
+		record = 1;
 
 	/*
 	 * Finally record data if requested.
-- 
1.8.3.1



More information about the Linuxppc-dev mailing list