Re: [RFC] [PATCH 0/2] Futex fault injection

From: Sripathi Kodi
Date: Wed Dec 02 2009 - 00:58:21 EST


On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 17:23:59 +0100
Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> * Darren Hart <dvhltc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > I don't think the "butt-ugly" argument is enough to reject the patch.
>
> It is in my book - i dont ever apply ugly patches intentionally.
>
> > It's a fairly subjective metric and I don't think the proposed
> > solution results in "pretty" code either. In fact the super long
> > function names and multi-line conditionals are arguably "ugly" (maybe
> > not "butt-ugly" though). :-)
> >
> > However, the arguments are solid and I understand wanting to introduce
> > a new feature in a particular way. Has there been any work done on
> > perf event injection up to this point or would this be a completely
> > new perf feature?
>
> Yeah, it would be a brand new one.
>

Fault injection framework currently in the kernel provides an
infrastructure to set parameters like 'probability', 'interval',
'times' as well as a task filter. I think a fault injection mechanism
using tracepoints-perf will also need to provide such a framework,
because without that the faults become too predictable. For example, if
there are 20 fault points in the kernel, we should be able to trigger
any one of them with a given probability, possibly for a particular
task alone. This infrastructure will have to be built in perf tools in
user space. Do you agree?

Thanks,
Sripathi.

> There's a couple of other usecases as well:
>
> - User space logging: apps want to define tracepoints and want to
> inject events as they happen - mixed properly into the regular perf
> events flow.
>
> - MCE logging: hw faults are so rare that injection is desired to make
> sure the policy action chain is working properly.
>
> - Some of the other fault injection sites could be converted to
> tracepoints + injection-conditions as well, perhaps. That would give
> a more programmable interface and a generic event logging framework.
>
> So it's nice and important work (and by no means trivial - that comes
> with the territory) - in case you are interested.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ingo
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