Re: [PATCH 3/3 V2] alpha: Implement HW performance events on the EV67 and later CPUs.

[Michael Cree]

On 29/07/2010, at 7:53 AM, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:29:39 +1200
> Michael Cree <mcree@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > This implements hardware performance events for the EV67 and later
> > CPUs within the Linux performance events subsystem.  Only using the
> > performance monitoring unit in HP/Compaq's so called "Aggregrate
> > mode" is supported.
> >
> > The code has been implemented in a manner that makes extension to
> > other older Alpha CPUs relatively straightforward should some mug
> > wish to indulge his or herself.
>
> Below is the incremental diff.
>
> I have a note here that Peter had issues with the earlier version of
> this patch.  But I see no info here regarding what those issues were,
> nor whether or how they were addressed.

Yeah, I addressed those in the cover letter, which I include here FYI:

On 04/05/10 19:40, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-05-01 at 11:55 +1200, Michael Cree wrote:
> > +/* I wonder what this is for ??? */
> > +void set_perf_event_pending(void)
> > +{
> > +}
>
> If the PMU Interrupt comes in as an NMI we cannot take locks and such
> from its handler. So what we do is queue that work to be ran later.  
> The
> kernel has a fallback to run this stuff from the timer hardirq, but if
> the PMI is IRQ context (like ARM) you can simply call
> perf_event_do_pending() at its tail.
>
> Alternatively you can self-IPI like x86 does and run
> perf_event_do_pending() from there.

OK, I couldn't see how to self-IPI on the Apha (there is no obvious  
way in
the Alpha arch code, and the Alpha HW Ref. Man. only describes such a
feature being supported by the PALcode for OpenVMS which we are  
obviously
not running) and the PMI on Alpha is at such a high priority there is no
chance that the lock can be freed while in the PMI handler, so I have  
put
the call to perf_event_do_pending() in the timer interrupt, but unlike  
the
PowerPC code I don't know any tricks to force the timer interrupt to  
happen
early when there is pending work, so there is a potential maximum  
delay of
1ms from pending work being notified to calling  
perf_event_do_pending().  Is
this delay acceptable?

I also fix a nasty, but heretofore hidden, bug that could completely  
lock up
a machine with continuous PMIs due to a throttled PMC being accidently
re-enabled by the other PMC. It only showed up when I set the NMI flag  
true
in the call to perf_event_overflow() and had two events counting
simultaneously with a very short sample period.

I also see the x86 and Sparc code in 2.6.35 have reimplemented
the call to hw_perf_group_sched_in() in terms of new functions  
start_txn(),
cancel_txn() and commit_txn().  Is this change necessary to get the  
Alpha
code accepted for 2.6.36?  If so it would be helpful if I could have a  
brief
description of what each function does.

Cheers
Michael.

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