Commit
This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository.
perf/core: Implement fast breakpoint modification via _IOC_MODIFY_ATT…
…RIBUTES Problem and motivation: Once a breakpoint perf event (PERF_TYPE_BREAKPOINT) is created, there is no flexibility to change the breakpoint type (bp_type), breakpoint address (bp_addr), or breakpoint length (bp_len). The only option is to close the perf event and configure a new breakpoint event. This inflexibility has a significant performance overhead. For example, sampling-based, lightweight performance profilers (and also concurrency bug detection tools), monitor different addresses for a short duration using PERF_TYPE_BREAKPOINT and change the address (bp_addr) to another address or change the kind of breakpoint (bp_type) from "write" to a "read" or vice-versa or change the length (bp_len) of the address being monitored. The cost of these modifications is prohibitive since it involves unmapping the circular buffer associated with the perf event, closing the perf event, opening another perf event and mmaping another circular buffer. Solution: The new ioctl flag for perf events, PERF_EVENT_IOC_MODIFY_ATTRIBUTES, introduced in this patch takes a pointer to a struct perf_event_attr as an argument to update an old breakpoint event with new address, type, and size. This facility allows retaining a previous mmaped perf events ring buffer and avoids having to close and reopen another perf event. This patch supports only changing PERF_TYPE_BREAKPOINT event type; future implementations can extend this feature. The patch replicates some of its functionality of modify_user_hw_breakpoint() in kernel/events/hw_breakpoint.c. modify_user_hw_breakpoint cannot be called directly since perf_event_ctx_lock() is already held in _perf_ioctl(). Evidence: Experiments show that the baseline (not able to modify an already created breakpoint) costs an order of magnitude (~10x) more than the suggested optimization (having the ability to dynamically modifying a configured breakpoint via ioctl). When the breakpoints typically do not trap, the speedup due to the suggested optimization is ~10x; even when the breakpoints always trap, the speedup is ~4x due to the suggested optimization. Testing: tests posted at https://github.com/linux-contrib/perf_event_modify_bp demonstrate the performance significance of this patch. Tests also check the functional correctness of the patch. Signed-off-by: Milind Chabbi <[email protected]> [ Using modify_user_hw_breakpoint_check function. ] [ Reformated PERF_EVENT_IOC_*, so the values are all in one column. ] Signed-off-by: Jiri Olsa <[email protected]> Cc: Alexander Shishkin <[email protected]> Cc: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <[email protected]> Cc: David Ahern <[email protected]> Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <[email protected]> Cc: Hari Bathini <[email protected]> Cc: Jin Yao <[email protected]> Cc: Jiri Olsa <[email protected]> Cc: Kan Liang <[email protected]> Cc: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]> Cc: Michael Ellerman <[email protected]> Cc: Namhyung Kim <[email protected]> Cc: Oleg Nesterov <[email protected]> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <[email protected]> Cc: Sukadev Bhattiprolu <[email protected]> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <[email protected]> Cc: Will Deacon <[email protected]> Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/[email protected] Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <[email protected]>
- Loading branch information