[PATCH 13/33] perf, x86: Avoid checkpointed counters causing excessive TSX aborts v3

Andi Kleen
2012-10-26T20:34:28Z

With checkpointed counters there can be a situation where the counter
is overflowing, aborts the transaction, is set back to a non overflowing
checkpoint, causes interupt. The interrupt doesn't see the overflow
because it has been checkpointed. This is then a spurious PMI, typically with a
ugly NMI message. It can also lead to excessive aborts.

Avoid this problem by:
- Using the full counter width for counting counters (previous patch)
- Forbid sampling for checkpointed counters. It's not too useful anyways,
checkpointing is mainly for counting.
- On a PMI always set back checkpointed counters to zero.

v2: Add unlikely. Add comment
v3: Allow large sampling periods with CP for KVM
Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
---
arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 files changed, 33 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c
index 9bff694..bbd00cc 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_event_intel.c
@@ -1079,6 +1079,17 @@ static void intel_pmu_enable_event(struct perf_event *event)
int intel_pmu_save_and_restart(struct perf_event *event)
{
x86_perf_event_update(event);
+ /*
+ * For a checkpointed counter always reset back to 0. This
+ * avoids a situation where the counter overflows, aborts the
+ * transaction and is then set back to shortly before the
+ * overflow, and overflows and aborts again.
+ */
+ if (unlikely(event->hw.config & HSW_INTX_CHECKPOINTED)) {
+ /* No race with NMIs because the counter should not be armed */
+ wrmsrl(event->hw.event_base, 0);
+ local64_set(&event->hw.prev_count, 0);
+ }
return x86_perf_event_set_period(event);
}

@@ -1162,6 +1173,15 @@ again:
x86_pmu.drain_pebs(regs);
}

+ /*
+ * To avoid spurious interrupts with perf stat always reset checkpointed
+ * counters.
+ *
+ * XXX move somewhere else.
+ */
+ if (cpuc->events[2] && (cpuc->events[2]->hw.config & HSW_INTX_CHECKPOINTED))
+ status |= (1ULL << 2);
+
for_each_set_bit(bit, (unsigned long *)&status, X86_PMC_IDX_MAX) {
struct perf_event *event = cpuc->events[bit];

@@ -1635,6 +1655,19 @@ static int hsw_hw_config(struct perf_event *event)
((event->hw.config & ARCH_PERFMON_EVENTSEL_ANY) ||
event->attr.precise_ip > 0))
return -EIO;
+ if (event->hw.config & HSW_INTX_CHECKPOINTED) {
+ /*
+ * Sampling of checkpointed events can cause situations where
+ * the CPU constantly aborts because of a overflow, which is
+ * then checkpointed back and ignored. Forbid checkpointing
+ * for sampling.
+ *
+ * But still allow a long sampling period, so that perf stat
+ * from KVM works.
+ */
+ if (event->attr.sample_period < 0x7fffffff)
+ return -EIO;
+ }
return 0;
}

--
1.7.7.6