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[66.90.148.213]) by smtp.googlemail.com with ESMTPSA id y14sm2883236oti.69.2021.09.14.13.48.06 (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256/256); Tue, 14 Sep 2021 13:48:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Rob Herring To: Will Deacon , Mark Rutland , Peter Zijlstra , Ingo Molnar Cc: Catalin Marinas , Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo , Jiri Olsa , Kan Liang , Ian Rogers , Alexander Shishkin , honnappa.nagarahalli@arm.com, Zachary.Leaf@arm.com, Raphael Gault , Jonathan Cameron , Namhyung Kim , Itaru Kitayama , Vince Weaver , linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: [PATCH v10 5/5] Documentation: arm64: Document PMU counters access from userspace Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2021 15:48:00 -0500 Message-Id: <20210914204800.3945732-6-robh@kernel.org> X-Mailer: git-send-email 2.30.2 In-Reply-To: <20210914204800.3945732-1-robh@kernel.org> References: <20210914204800.3945732-1-robh@kernel.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Raphael Gault Add documentation to describe the access to the pmu hardware counters from userspace. Signed-off-by: Raphael Gault Signed-off-by: Rob Herring --- v10: - Add details on perf_user_access sysctl v9: - No change v8: - Reword that config1:1 must always be set to request user access v7: - Merge into existing arm64 perf.rst v6: - Update the chained event section with attr.config1 details v2: - Update links to test examples Changes from Raphael's v4: - Convert to rSt - Update chained event status - Add section for heterogeneous systems --- Documentation/arm64/perf.rst | 73 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 72 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/Documentation/arm64/perf.rst b/Documentation/arm64/perf.rst index b567f177d385..47980c9058e3 100644 --- a/Documentation/arm64/perf.rst +++ b/Documentation/arm64/perf.rst @@ -2,7 +2,10 @@ .. _perf_index: -===================== +==== +Perf +==== + Perf Event Attributes ===================== @@ -88,3 +91,71 @@ exclude_host. However when using !exclude_hv there is a small blackout window at the guest entry/exit where host events are not captured. On VHE systems there are no blackout windows. + +Perf Userspace PMU Hardware Counter Access +========================================== + +Overview +-------- +The perf userspace tool relies on the PMU to monitor events. It offers an +abstraction layer over the hardware counters since the underlying +implementation is cpu-dependent. +Arm64 allows userspace tools to have access to the registers storing the +hardware counters' values directly. + +This targets specifically self-monitoring tasks in order to reduce the overhead +by directly accessing the registers without having to go through the kernel. + +How-to +------ +The focus is set on the armv8 PMUv3 which makes sure that the access to the pmu +registers is enabled and that the userspace has access to the relevant +information in order to use them. + +In order to have access to the hardware counters, the global sysctl +kernel/perf_user_access must first be enabled: + +.. code-block:: sh + + echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/perf_user_access + +It is necessary to open the event using the perf tool interface with config1:1 +attr bit set: the sys_perf_event_open syscall returns a fd which can +subsequently be used with the mmap syscall in order to retrieve a page of memory +containing information about the event. The PMU driver uses this page to expose +to the user the hardware counter's index and other necessary data. Using this +index enables the user to access the PMU registers using the `mrs` instruction. + +The userspace access is supported in libperf using the perf_evsel__mmap() +and perf_evsel__read() functions. See `tools/lib/perf/tests/test-evsel.c`_ for +an example. + +About heterogeneous systems +--------------------------- +On heterogeneous systems such as big.LITTLE, userspace PMU counter access can +only be enabled when the tasks are pinned to a homogeneous subset of cores and +the corresponding PMU instance is opened by specifying the 'type' attribute. +The use of generic event types is not supported in this case. + +Have a look at `tools/perf/arch/arm64/tests/user-events.c`_ for an example. It +can be run using the perf tool to check that the access to the registers works +correctly from userspace: + +.. code-block:: sh + + perf test -v user + +About chained events and 64-bit counters +---------------------------------------- +Chained events are not supported in conjunction with userspace counter +access. If a 64-bit counter is requested (attr.config1:0) with userspace +access (attr.config1:1 set), then counter chaining will be disabled. The +'pmc_width' in the user page will indicate the actual width of the +counter which could be only 32-bits depending on the event and PMU +features. + +.. Links +.. _tools/perf/arch/arm64/tests/user-events.c: + https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/tools/perf/arch/arm64/tests/user-events.c +.. _tools/lib/perf/tests/test-evsel.c: + https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/tools/lib/perf/tests/test-evsel.c -- 2.30.2