Re: [PATCH] perf: RISC-V: Check standard event availability

[Samuel Holland <samuel.holland@sifive.com>]

Hi Atish,

On 2024-03-18 2:44 PM, Atish Patra wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 8:54 AM Samuel Holland <samuel.holland@sifive.com> wrote:
>>
>> The RISC-V SBI PMU specification defines several standard hardware and
>> cache events. Currently, all of these events appear in the `perf list`
>> output, even if they are not actually implemented. Add logic to check
>> which events are supported by the hardware (i.e. can be mapped to some
>> counter), so only usable events are reported to userspace.
>>
> 
> Thanks for the patch.
> This adds tons of SBI calls at every boot for a use case which is at
> best confusing for a subset of users who actually wants to run perf.

I should have been clearer in the patch description. This is not just a cosmetic
change; because perf sees these as valid events, it tries to use them in
commands like `perf stat`. When the error from SBI_EXT_PMU_COUNTER_CFG_MATCH
causes the ->add() callback to fail, this prevents any other events from being
scheduled on that same CPU (search can_add_hw in kernel/events/core.c). That is
why the dTLB/iTLB miss counts are missing in the "before" example below.

> This probing can be done at runtime by invoking the
> pmu_sbi_check_event from pmu_sbi_event_map.
> We can update the event map after that so that it doesn't need to
> invoke pmu_sbi_check_event next time.

I tried to implement this suggestion, but it did not work. The SBI interface
does not distinguish between "none of the counters can monitor the specified
event [because the event is unsupported]" and "none of the counters can monitor
the specified event [because the counters are busy]". It is not sufficient for
the kernel to verify that at least one counter is available before performing
the check, because certain events may only be usable on a subset of counters
(per riscv,event-to-mhpmcounters), and the kernel does not know that mapping.

As a result, checking for event support is only reliable when none of the
counters are in use. So the check can be asynchronous/deferred to later in the
boot process, but I believe it still needs to be performed for all events before
userspace starts using the counters.

Regards,
Samuel

>> Signed-off-by: Samuel Holland <samuel.holland@sifive.com>
>> ---
>> Before this patch:
>> $ perf list hw
>>
>> List of pre-defined events (to be used in -e or -M):
>>
>>   branch-instructions OR branches                    [Hardware event]
>>   branch-misses                                      [Hardware event]
>>   bus-cycles                                         [Hardware event]
>>   cache-misses                                       [Hardware event]
>>   cache-references                                   [Hardware event]
>>   cpu-cycles OR cycles                               [Hardware event]
>>   instructions                                       [Hardware event]
>>   ref-cycles                                         [Hardware event]
>>   stalled-cycles-backend OR idle-cycles-backend      [Hardware event]
>>   stalled-cycles-frontend OR idle-cycles-frontend    [Hardware event]
>>
>> $ perf stat -ddd true
>>
>>  Performance counter stats for 'true':
>>
>>               4.36 msec task-clock                       #    0.744 CPUs utilized
>>                  1      context-switches                 #  229.325 /sec
>>                  0      cpu-migrations                   #    0.000 /sec
>>                 38      page-faults                      #    8.714 K/sec
>>          4,375,694      cycles                           #    1.003 GHz                         (60.64%)
>>            728,945      instructions                     #    0.17  insn per cycle
>>             79,199      branches                         #   18.162 M/sec
>>             17,709      branch-misses                    #   22.36% of all branches
>>            181,734      L1-dcache-loads                  #   41.676 M/sec
>>              5,547      L1-dcache-load-misses            #    3.05% of all L1-dcache accesses
>>      <not counted>      LLC-loads                                                               (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      LLC-load-misses                                                         (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      L1-icache-loads                                                         (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      L1-icache-load-misses                                                   (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      dTLB-loads                                                              (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      dTLB-load-misses                                                        (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      iTLB-loads                                                              (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      iTLB-load-misses                                                        (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      L1-dcache-prefetches                                                    (0.00%)
>>      <not counted>      L1-dcache-prefetch-misses                                               (0.00%)
>>
>>        0.005860375 seconds time elapsed
>>
>>        0.000000000 seconds user
>>        0.010383000 seconds sys
>>
>> After this patch:
>> $ perf list hw
>>
>> List of pre-defined events (to be used in -e or -M):
>>
>>   branch-instructions OR branches                    [Hardware event]
>>   branch-misses                                      [Hardware event]
>>   cache-misses                                       [Hardware event]
>>   cache-references                                   [Hardware event]
>>   cpu-cycles OR cycles                               [Hardware event]
>>   instructions                                       [Hardware event]
>>
>> $ perf stat -ddd true
>>
>>  Performance counter stats for 'true':
>>
>>               5.16 msec task-clock                       #    0.848 CPUs utilized
>>                  1      context-switches                 #  193.817 /sec
>>                  0      cpu-migrations                   #    0.000 /sec
>>                 37      page-faults                      #    7.171 K/sec
>>          5,183,625      cycles                           #    1.005 GHz
>>            961,696      instructions                     #    0.19  insn per cycle
>>             85,853      branches                         #   16.640 M/sec
>>             20,462      branch-misses                    #   23.83% of all branches
>>            243,545      L1-dcache-loads                  #   47.203 M/sec
>>              5,974      L1-dcache-load-misses            #    2.45% of all L1-dcache accesses
>>    <not supported>      LLC-loads
>>    <not supported>      LLC-load-misses
>>    <not supported>      L1-icache-loads
>>    <not supported>      L1-icache-load-misses
>>    <not supported>      dTLB-loads
>>             19,619      dTLB-load-misses
>>    <not supported>      iTLB-loads
>>              6,831      iTLB-load-misses
>>    <not supported>      L1-dcache-prefetches
>>    <not supported>      L1-dcache-prefetch-misses
>>
>>        0.006085625 seconds time elapsed
>>
>>        0.000000000 seconds user
>>        0.013022000 seconds sys
>>
>>
>>  drivers/perf/riscv_pmu_sbi.c | 37 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
>>  1 file changed, 35 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/drivers/perf/riscv_pmu_sbi.c b/drivers/perf/riscv_pmu_sbi.c
>> index 16acd4dcdb96..b58a70ee8317 100644
>> --- a/drivers/perf/riscv_pmu_sbi.c
>> +++ b/drivers/perf/riscv_pmu_sbi.c
>> @@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ struct sbi_pmu_event_data {
>>         };
>>  };
>>
>> -static const struct sbi_pmu_event_data pmu_hw_event_map[] = {
>> +static struct sbi_pmu_event_data pmu_hw_event_map[] = {
>>         [PERF_COUNT_HW_CPU_CYCLES]              = {.hw_gen_event = {
>>                                                         SBI_PMU_HW_CPU_CYCLES,
>>                                                         SBI_PMU_EVENT_TYPE_HW, 0}},
>> @@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ static const struct sbi_pmu_event_data pmu_hw_event_map[] = {
>>  };
>>
>>  #define C(x) PERF_COUNT_HW_CACHE_##x
>> -static const struct sbi_pmu_event_data pmu_cache_event_map[PERF_COUNT_HW_CACHE_MAX]
>> +static struct sbi_pmu_event_data pmu_cache_event_map[PERF_COUNT_HW_CACHE_MAX]
>>  [PERF_COUNT_HW_CACHE_OP_MAX]
>>  [PERF_COUNT_HW_CACHE_RESULT_MAX] = {
>>         [C(L1D)] = {
>> @@ -265,6 +265,36 @@ static const struct sbi_pmu_event_data pmu_cache_event_map[PERF_COUNT_HW_CACHE_M
>>         },
>>  };
>>
>> +static void pmu_sbi_check_event(struct sbi_pmu_event_data *edata)
>> +{
>> +       struct sbiret ret;
>> +
>> +       ret = sbi_ecall(SBI_EXT_PMU, SBI_EXT_PMU_COUNTER_CFG_MATCH,
>> +                       0, cmask, 0, edata->event_idx, 0, 0);
>> +       if (!ret.error) {
>> +               sbi_ecall(SBI_EXT_PMU, SBI_EXT_PMU_COUNTER_STOP,
>> +                         ret.value, 0x1, SBI_PMU_STOP_FLAG_RESET, 0, 0, 0);
>> +       } else if (ret.error == SBI_ERR_NOT_SUPPORTED) {
>> +               /* This event cannot be monitored by any counter */
>> +               edata->event_idx = -EINVAL;
>> +       }
>> +}
>> +
>> +static void pmu_sbi_update_events(void)
>> +{
>> +       /* Ensure events are not already mapped to a counter */
>> +       sbi_ecall(SBI_EXT_PMU, SBI_EXT_PMU_COUNTER_STOP,
>> +                 0, cmask, SBI_PMU_STOP_FLAG_RESET, 0, 0, 0);
>> +
>> +       for (int i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(pmu_hw_event_map); i++)
>> +               pmu_sbi_check_event(&pmu_hw_event_map[i]);
>> +
>> +       for (int i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(pmu_cache_event_map); i++)
>> +               for (int j = 0; j < ARRAY_SIZE(pmu_cache_event_map[i]); j++)
>> +                       for (int k = 0; k < ARRAY_SIZE(pmu_cache_event_map[i][j]); k++)
>> +                               pmu_sbi_check_event(&pmu_cache_event_map[i][j][k]);
>> +}
>> +
>>  static int pmu_sbi_ctr_get_width(int idx)
>>  {
>>         return pmu_ctr_list[idx].width;
>> @@ -1046,6 +1076,9 @@ static int pmu_sbi_device_probe(struct platform_device *pdev)
>>         if (pmu_sbi_get_ctrinfo(num_counters, &cmask))
>>                 goto out_free;
>>
>> +       /* Check which standard events are available */
>> +       pmu_sbi_update_events();
>> +
>>         ret = pmu_sbi_setup_irqs(pmu, pdev);
>>         if (ret < 0) {
>>                 pr_info("Perf sampling/filtering is not supported as sscof extension is not available\n");
>> --
>> 2.42.0