Re: [PATCH 1/4] perf stat: Basic support for TopDown in perf stat

[Nilay Vaish <nilayvaish@gmail.com>]

This patch looks fine to me.

--
Nilay

On 1 June 2016 at 10:24, Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com> wrote:
>
> Here's an updated patch addresses the duplicated issue and explicitly frees memory.
>
> ---
>
> Add basic plumbing for TopDown in perf stat
>
> TopDown is intended to replace the frontend cycles idle/
> backend cycles idle metrics in standard perf stat output.
> These metrics are not reliable in many workloads,
> due to out of order effects.
>
> This implements a new --topdown mode in perf stat
> (similar to --transaction) that measures the pipe line
> bottlenecks using standardized formulas. The measurement
> can be all done with 5 counters (one fixed counter)
>
> The result are four metrics:
> FrontendBound, BackendBound, BadSpeculation, Retiring
>
> that describe the CPU pipeline behavior on a high level.
>
> FrontendBound and BackendBound
> BadSpeculation is a higher
>
> The full top down methology has many hierarchical metrics.
> This implementation only supports level 1 which can be
> collected without multiplexing. A full implementation
> of top down on top of perf is available in pmu-tools toplev.
> (http://github.com/andikleen/pmu-tools)
>
> The current version works on Intel Core CPUs starting
> with Sandy Bridge, and Atom CPUs starting with Silvermont.
> In principle the generic metrics should be also implementable
> on other out of order CPUs.
>
> TopDown level 1 uses a set of abstracted metrics which
> are generic to out of order CPU cores (although some
> CPUs may not implement all of them):
>
> topdown-total-slots   Available slots in the pipeline
> topdown-slots-issued          Slots issued into the pipeline
> topdown-slots-retired         Slots successfully retired
> topdown-fetch-bubbles         Pipeline gaps in the frontend
> topdown-recovery-bubbles  Pipeline gaps during recovery
>                           from misspeculation
>
> These metrics then allow to compute four useful metrics:
> FrontendBound, BackendBound, Retiring, BadSpeculation.
>
> Add a new --topdown options to enable events.
> When --topdown is specified set up events for all topdown
> events supported by the kernel.
> Add topdown-* as a special case to the event parser, as is
> needed for all events containing -.
>
> The actual code to compute the metrics is in follow-on patches.
>
> v2: Use standard sysctl read function.
> v3: Move x86 specific code to arch/
> v4: Enable --metric-only implicitly for topdown.
> v5: Add --single-thread option to not force per core mode
> v6: Fix output order of topdown metrics
> v7: Allow combining with -d
> v8: Remove --single-thread again
> v9: Rename functions, adding arch_ and topdown_.
> v10: Expand man page and describe TopDown better
> Paste intro into commit description.
> Print error when malloc fails.
> v11:
> Free memory before exit
> Remove duplicate include.
> Acked-by: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@kernel.org>
> Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
> ---
>  tools/perf/Documentation/perf-stat.txt |  32 +++++++++
>  tools/perf/arch/x86/util/Build         |   1 +
>  tools/perf/arch/x86/util/group.c       |  27 ++++++++
>  tools/perf/builtin-stat.c              | 119 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
>  tools/perf/util/group.h                |   7 ++
>  tools/perf/util/parse-events.l         |   1 +
>  6 files changed, 184 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 tools/perf/arch/x86/util/group.c
>  create mode 100644 tools/perf/util/group.h
>
> diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-stat.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-stat.txt
> index 04f23b404bbc..d96ccd4844df 100644
> --- a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-stat.txt
> +++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf-stat.txt
> @@ -204,6 +204,38 @@ Aggregate counts per physical processor for system-wide mode measurements.
>  --no-aggr::
>  Do not aggregate counts across all monitored CPUs.
>
> +--topdown::
> +Print top down level 1 metrics if supported by the CPU. This allows to
> +determine bottle necks in the CPU pipeline for CPU bound workloads,
> +by breaking the cycles consumed down into frontend bound, backend bound,
> +bad speculation and retiring.
> +
> +Frontend bound means that the CPU cannot fetch and decode instructions fast
> +enough. Backend bound means that computation or memory access is the bottle
> +neck. Bad Speculation means that the CPU wasted cycles due to branch
> +mispredictions and similar issues. Retiring means that the CPU computed without
> +an apparently bottleneck. The bottleneck is only the real bottleneck
> +if the workload is actually bound by the CPU and not by something else.
> +
> +For best results it is usually a good idea to use it with interval
> +mode like -I 1000, as the bottleneck of workloads can change often.
> +
> +The top down metrics are collected per core instead of per
> +CPU thread. Per core mode is automatically enabled
> +and -a (global monitoring) is needed, requiring root rights or
> +perf.perf_event_paranoid=-1.
> +
> +Topdown uses the full Performance Monitoring Unit, and needs
> +disabling of the NMI watchdog (as root):
> +echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/nmi_watchdog
> +for best results. Otherwise the bottlenecks may be inconsistent
> +on workload with changing phases.
> +
> +This enables --metric-only, unless overriden with --no-metric-only.
> +
> +To interpret the results it is usually needed to know on which
> +CPUs the workload runs on. If needed the CPUs can be forced using
> +taskset.
>
>  EXAMPLES
>  --------
> diff --git a/tools/perf/arch/x86/util/Build b/tools/perf/arch/x86/util/Build
> index 465970370f3e..4cd8a16b1b7b 100644
> --- a/tools/perf/arch/x86/util/Build
> +++ b/tools/perf/arch/x86/util/Build
> @@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ libperf-y += tsc.o
>  libperf-y += pmu.o
>  libperf-y += kvm-stat.o
>  libperf-y += perf_regs.o
> +libperf-y += group.o
>
>  libperf-$(CONFIG_DWARF) += dwarf-regs.o
>  libperf-$(CONFIG_BPF_PROLOGUE) += dwarf-regs.o
> diff --git a/tools/perf/arch/x86/util/group.c b/tools/perf/arch/x86/util/group.c
> new file mode 100644
> index 000000000000..37f92aa39a5d
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/tools/perf/arch/x86/util/group.c
> @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
> +#include <stdio.h>
> +#include "api/fs/fs.h"
> +#include "util/group.h"
> +
> +/*
> + * Check whether we can use a group for top down.
> + * Without a group may get bad results due to multiplexing.
> + */
> +bool arch_topdown_check_group(bool *warn)
> +{
> +       int n;
> +
> +       if (sysctl__read_int("kernel/nmi_watchdog", &n) < 0)
> +               return false;
> +       if (n > 0) {
> +               *warn = true;
> +               return false;
> +       }
> +       return true;
> +}
> +
> +void arch_topdown_group_warn(void)
> +{
> +       fprintf(stderr,
> +               "nmi_watchdog enabled with topdown. May give wrong results.\n"
> +               "Disable with echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/nmi_watchdog\n");
> +}
> diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c b/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
> index 715a1128daeb..0e7d65969028 100644
> --- a/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
> +++ b/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
> @@ -59,10 +59,12 @@
>  #include "util/thread.h"
>  #include "util/thread_map.h"
>  #include "util/counts.h"
> +#include "util/group.h"
>  #include "util/session.h"
>  #include "util/tool.h"
>  #include "asm/bug.h"
>
> +#include <api/fs/fs.h>
>  #include <stdlib.h>
>  #include <sys/prctl.h>
>  #include <locale.h>
> @@ -98,6 +100,15 @@ static const char * transaction_limited_attrs = {
>         "}"
>  };
>
> +static const char * topdown_attrs[] = {
> +       "topdown-total-slots",
> +       "topdown-slots-retired",
> +       "topdown-recovery-bubbles",
> +       "topdown-fetch-bubbles",
> +       "topdown-slots-issued",
> +       NULL,
> +};
> +
>  static struct perf_evlist      *evsel_list;
>
>  static struct target target = {
> @@ -112,6 +123,7 @@ static volatile pid_t               child_pid                       = -1;
>  static bool                    null_run                        =  false;
>  static int                     detailed_run                    =  0;
>  static bool                    transaction_run;
> +static bool                    topdown_run                     = false;
>  static bool                    big_num                         =  true;
>  static int                     big_num_opt                     =  -1;
>  static const char              *csv_sep                        = NULL;
> @@ -124,6 +136,7 @@ static unsigned int         initial_delay                   = 0;
>  static unsigned int            unit_width                      = 4; /* strlen("unit") */
>  static bool                    forever                         = false;
>  static bool                    metric_only                     = false;
> +static bool                    force_metric_only               = false;
>  static struct timespec         ref_time;
>  static struct cpu_map          *aggr_map;
>  static aggr_get_id_t           aggr_get_id;
> @@ -1520,6 +1533,14 @@ static int stat__set_big_num(const struct option *opt __maybe_unused,
>         return 0;
>  }
>
> +static int enable_metric_only(const struct option *opt __maybe_unused,
> +                             const char *s __maybe_unused, int unset)
> +{
> +       force_metric_only = true;
> +       metric_only = !unset;
> +       return 0;
> +}
> +
>  static const struct option stat_options[] = {
>         OPT_BOOLEAN('T', "transaction", &transaction_run,
>                     "hardware transaction statistics"),
> @@ -1578,8 +1599,10 @@ static const struct option stat_options[] = {
>                      "aggregate counts per thread", AGGR_THREAD),
>         OPT_UINTEGER('D', "delay", &initial_delay,
>                      "ms to wait before starting measurement after program start"),
> -       OPT_BOOLEAN(0, "metric-only", &metric_only,
> -                       "Only print computed metrics. No raw values"),
> +       OPT_CALLBACK_NOOPT(0, "metric-only", &metric_only, NULL,
> +                       "Only print computed metrics. No raw values", enable_metric_only),
> +       OPT_BOOLEAN(0, "topdown", &topdown_run,
> +                       "measure topdown level 1 statistics"),
>         OPT_END()
>  };
>
> @@ -1772,12 +1795,62 @@ static int perf_stat_init_aggr_mode_file(struct perf_stat *st)
>         return 0;
>  }
>
> +static int topdown_filter_events(const char **attr, char **str, bool use_group)
> +{
> +       int off = 0;
> +       int i;
> +       int len = 0;
> +       char *s;
> +
> +       for (i = 0; attr[i]; i++) {
> +               if (pmu_have_event("cpu", attr[i])) {
> +                       len += strlen(attr[i]) + 1;
> +                       attr[i - off] = attr[i];
> +               } else
> +                       off++;
> +       }
> +       attr[i - off] = NULL;
> +
> +       *str = malloc(len + 1 + 2);
> +       if (!*str)
> +               return -1;
> +       s = *str;
> +       if (i - off == 0) {
> +               *s = 0;
> +               return 0;
> +       }
> +       if (use_group)
> +               *s++ = '{';
> +       for (i = 0; attr[i]; i++) {
> +               strcpy(s, attr[i]);
> +               s += strlen(s);
> +               *s++ = ',';
> +       }
> +       if (use_group) {
> +               s[-1] = '}';
> +               *s = 0;
> +       } else
> +               s[-1] = 0;
> +       return 0;
> +}
> +
> +__weak bool arch_topdown_check_group(bool *warn)
> +{
> +       *warn = false;
> +       return false;
> +}
> +
> +__weak void arch_topdown_group_warn(void)
> +{
> +}
> +
>  /*
>   * Add default attributes, if there were no attributes specified or
>   * if -d/--detailed, -d -d or -d -d -d is used:
>   */
>  static int add_default_attributes(void)
>  {
> +       int err;
>         struct perf_event_attr default_attrs0[] = {
>
>    { .type = PERF_TYPE_SOFTWARE, .config = PERF_COUNT_SW_TASK_CLOCK             },
> @@ -1896,7 +1969,6 @@ static int add_default_attributes(void)
>                 return 0;
>
>         if (transaction_run) {
> -               int err;
>                 if (pmu_have_event("cpu", "cycles-ct") &&
>                     pmu_have_event("cpu", "el-start"))
>                         err = parse_events(evsel_list, transaction_attrs, NULL);
> @@ -1909,6 +1981,47 @@ static int add_default_attributes(void)
>                 return 0;
>         }
>
> +       if (topdown_run) {
> +               char *str = NULL;
> +               bool warn = false;
> +
> +               if (stat_config.aggr_mode != AGGR_GLOBAL &&
> +                   stat_config.aggr_mode != AGGR_CORE) {
> +                       pr_err("top down event configuration requires --per-core mode\n");
> +                       return -1;
> +               }
> +               stat_config.aggr_mode = AGGR_CORE;
> +               if (nr_cgroups || !target__has_cpu(&target)) {
> +                       pr_err("top down event configuration requires system-wide mode (-a)\n");
> +                       return -1;
> +               }
> +
> +               if (!force_metric_only)
> +                       metric_only = true;
> +               if (topdown_filter_events(topdown_attrs, &str,
> +                               arch_topdown_check_group(&warn)) < 0) {
> +                       pr_err("Out of memory\n");
> +                       return -1;
> +               }
> +               if (topdown_attrs[0] && str) {
> +                       if (warn)
> +                               arch_topdown_group_warn();
> +                       err = parse_events(evsel_list, str, NULL);
> +                       if (err) {
> +                               fprintf(stderr,
> +                                       "Cannot set up top down events %s: %d\n",
> +                                       str, err);
> +                               free(str);
> +                               return -1;
> +                       }
> +               } else {
> +                       fprintf(stderr, "System does not support topdown\n");
> +                       free(str);
> +                       return -1;
> +               }
> +               free(str);
> +       }
> +
>         if (!evsel_list->nr_entries) {
>                 if (perf_evlist__add_default_attrs(evsel_list, default_attrs0) < 0)
>                         return -1;
> diff --git a/tools/perf/util/group.h b/tools/perf/util/group.h
> new file mode 100644
> index 000000000000..116debe7a995
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/tools/perf/util/group.h
> @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
> +#ifndef GROUP_H
> +#define GROUP_H 1
> +
> +bool arch_topdown_check_group(bool *warn);
> +void arch_topdown_group_warn(void);
> +
> +#endif
> diff --git a/tools/perf/util/parse-events.l b/tools/perf/util/parse-events.l
> index 1477fbc78993..744ebe3fa30f 100644
> --- a/tools/perf/util/parse-events.l
> +++ b/tools/perf/util/parse-events.l
> @@ -259,6 +259,7 @@ cycles-ct                                   { return str(yyscanner, PE_KERNEL_PMU_EVENT); }
>  cycles-t                                       { return str(yyscanner, PE_KERNEL_PMU_EVENT); }
>  mem-loads                                      { return str(yyscanner, PE_KERNEL_PMU_EVENT); }
>  mem-stores                                     { return str(yyscanner, PE_KERNEL_PMU_EVENT); }
> +topdown-[a-z-]+                                        { return str(yyscanner, PE_KERNEL_PMU_EVENT); }
>
>  L1-dcache|l1-d|l1d|L1-data             |
>  L1-icache|l1-i|l1i|L1-instruction      |
> --
> 2.5.5
>