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From: Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>
To: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>,
Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>,
Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>,
Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>,
Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>,
Kan Liang <kan.liang@linux.intel.com>,
Ian Rogers <irogers@google.com>,
Alexander Shishkin <alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com>,
honnappa.nagarahalli@arm.com, Zachary.Leaf@arm.com,
Raphael Gault <raphael.gault@arm.com>,
Jonathan Cameron <Jonathan.Cameron@huawei.com>,
Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>,
Itaru Kitayama <itaru.kitayama@gmail.com>,
linux-perf-users@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v9 3/3] Documentation: arm64: Document PMU counters access from userspace
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2021 16:51:23 -0600 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20210806225123.1958497-4-robh@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20210806225123.1958497-1-robh@kernel.org>
From: Raphael Gault <raphael.gault@arm.com>
Add documentation to describe the access to the pmu hardware counters from
userspace.
Signed-off-by: Raphael Gault <raphael.gault@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>
---
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 | 68 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
1 file changed, 67 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/arm64/perf.rst b/Documentation/arm64/perf.rst
index b567f177d385..fa8706df2281 100644
--- a/Documentation/arm64/perf.rst
+++ b/Documentation/arm64/perf.rst
@@ -2,7 +2,10 @@
.. _perf_index:
-=====================
+====
+Perf
+====
+
Perf Event Attributes
=====================
@@ -88,3 +91,66 @@ 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 counter 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
prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-08-06 22:51 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-08-06 22:51 [PATCH v9 0/3] arm64 userspace counter support Rob Herring
2021-08-06 22:51 ` [PATCH v9 1/3] arm64: perf: Add userspace counter access disable switch Rob Herring
2021-08-24 15:26 ` Will Deacon
2021-08-06 22:51 ` [PATCH v9 2/3] arm64: perf: Enable PMU counter userspace access for perf event Rob Herring
2021-08-24 15:27 ` Will Deacon
2021-08-24 21:58 ` Rob Herring
2021-08-25 19:59 ` Rob Herring
2021-08-06 22:51 ` Rob Herring [this message]
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