Re: [PATCH] perf/powerpc: Cache the DWARF debug info

[Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>]

Em Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 04:12:13PM +0200, Jiri Olsa escreveu:
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 10:37:24AM -0300, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo wrote:
> > Em Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 10:46:59AM -0700, Sukadev Bhattiprolu escreveu:
> > > Jiri Olsa [jolsa@redhat.com] wrote:
> > > | > +			goto out;
> > > | > +		}
> > > | > +		dso->dwfl = dwfl;

> > > | so by this we get powerpc arch code sharing dw handle via dso object,
> > > | but we have lot of generic code too ;-)

> > > Well, this applies to powerpc...

> > > | could you make this happen for unwind__get_entries.. probably
> > > | both sharing same generic code I guess

> > > and unwind_get_entries() applies only to x86 and arm right ? ;-)
> > > Or at least thats what the config/Makefile says.

> > > I can take a look at unwind_get_entries(), but can you please merge
> > > this fix for now, since the current performance is bad?

> > Right, I think the way it is now is a good compromise, i.e. you seem to
> > be using the right place to cache this, this is restricted to powerpc,
> > i.e. if leaks or excessive memory usage happens in workloads with lots
> > of DSOs having dwfl handlers open at the same times happens, it doesn't
> > affect users in other arches.
> > 
> > Jiri: do you agree?
> 
> well it's powerpc specific now.. anyway the code in the patch
> to open the dwfl is generic and should be in in generic
> place.. like in some extern function that the x86 would call
> to get the dwfl handle
> 
> also the current patch leaks the dso->dwfl, which is never freed -> dwfl_end-ed,
> dwfl_end should be called of in dso__delete I think

Yeah, as my comment implies, I guess those are all valid concerns, i.e.
the patch needs more work, I was willing to accept it as-is because it
would hurt just Sukadev (i.e. powerpc), as he seems to be in a hurry to
get the performance improved :-)

I will remove it from my tree for now, as in the end what I'm doing
doesn't touch those specific functions.

But I think this will go on dragging extra work, i.e.: how to limit the
number of dwfl handlers used? Should we have just a front end cache like
what is done for machine__findnew_thread() (with just the last hit) and
perhaps then have a few slots for keeping N dwfl open and when that
number is up we check the one with less queries and close it?

Jiri, are you doing that on that cache stuff you did? I mean how do
you keep this stuff:

/*
 * Global list of open DSOs and the counter.
 */
static LIST_HEAD(dso__data_open);
static long dso__data_open_cnt;

Also this should not be global at all, this should be on struct machine,
since a DSO that is present on a machine may have the same name as the
dso on another machine (two guests, hosts, etc) and thus should not be
kept on the same list, etc.

So reading a bit more you seem to check rlimit, do LRUing when hitting
the limit, etc, that is why I thought about that stuff when Sukadev
first posted this patch...

Sukadev, all this is in tools/perf/util/dso.c

That is why I thought it would be a compromise to put what he did, it
would not make the existing situation that much worse, work needs to be
done in this area :-\

- Arnaldo