Re: [PATCH] perf_events: improve DS/BTS/PEBS buffer allocation

Stephane Eranian
2010-09-13T19:12:38Z

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 8:57 PM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 20:49 +0200, Stephane Eranian wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 8:42 PM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> wrote:
>> > On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 20:40 +0200, Stephane Eranian wrote:
>> >> Ok, so can we play the same trick you're playing with the sampling
>> >> buffer, i.e., you use alloc_pages_node() for one page at a time, and
>> >> then you stitch them on demand via SW?
>> >
>> > Not for BTS, it wants a linear range, getting the vmalloc vs NMI thing
>> > sorted would be best I think.
>> >
>> What is annoying in this is that you run into the problem even though
>> you may not be using BTS nor PEBS.
>
> Yes, one thing we could do is simply disable BTS when we fail that
> alloc, instead of fail everything.
>
>> What mitigates the problem, I think, is the NMI watchdog. It is the first
>> user of perf_events. As such, the BTS and PEBS buffers get allocated
>> during kernel initialization thereby increasing the chances of finding
>> contiguous chunks of memory. What would partly help would be to use of
>> kmalloc_node() to at least balance allocations amongst the various NUMA
>> nodes. That would be until the vmalloc() vs. NMI is sorted out.
>
> Right, that would be a simple change to make.
>

Ok, I will resubmit with those changes.
Thanks.