Re: perf hw in kexeced kernel broken in tip

Vivek Goyal
2010-12-01T16:07:46Z

On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 12:27:47PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-12-01 at 00:00 -0800, Yinghai Lu wrote:
> > First kernel:
> > [ 1.139418] calling init_hw_perf_events+0x0/0xb77 @ 1
> > [ 1.159111] Performance Events: PEBS fmt1+, Nehalem events, Intel PMU
> > driver.
> > [ 1.159567] ... version: 3
> > [ 1.179121] ... bit width: 48
> > [ 1.179353] ... generic registers: 4
> > [ 1.179593] ... value mask: 0000ffffffffffff
> > [ 1.199211] ... max period: 000000007fffffff
> > [ 1.199554] ... fixed-purpose events: 3
> > [ 1.219108] ... event mask: 000000070000000f
> > [ 1.219454] initcall init_hw_perf_events+0x0/0xb77 returned 0 after
> > 11719 usecs
> >
> > .....
> > [ 20.220997] checking TSC synchronization [CPU#0 -> CPU#11]: passed.
> > [ 20.260818] NMI watchdog enabled, takes one hw-pmu counter.
> >
> > kexeced kernel.
> >
> >
> > [ 1.169470] calling init_hw_perf_events+0x0/0xb77 @ 1
> > [ 1.189265] Performance Events: PEBS fmt1+, Nehalem events, Broken
> > PMU hardware detected, software events only.
> > ...
> > [ 21.010407] NMI watchdog failed to create perf event on cpu14:
> > fffffffffffffffe
> >
> > caused by:
>
> *sigh*, and people ask me why kexec/kdump are such bad ideas..
>
> apparently kexec doesn't properly shut down the first kernel and leaves
> a counter running, then when we write and read the counter value they
> don't match because its still running and voila, crap happens.
>
> I've CC'ed the kexec people, maybe they got clue as to how to sort this.

So we can shutdown counters while first kernel is going down. Is there a
simple function already which I can call?

Thanks
Vivek