[PATCH 0/2] Notifications for perf sideband events

[Naveen N. Rao]

Currently, there is no way to ask for signals to be delivered when a
certain number of sideband events have been logged into the ring buffer.
This is problematic if we are only interested in, say, context switch
events. Furthermore, signals are more useful (rather than polling) for
self-profiling. This series provides for a way to achieve this.

We ride on top of the existing support for ring buffer wakeup to
generate signals as desired. Counting sideband events still requires
some changes in the output path, but in normal cases, it ends up being
just a comparison.

The test program below demonstrates how a process can profile itself for
context switch events and how it can control notification through
signals. The key changes include the below perf_event_attr settings as
well as use of IOC_ENABLE:
	pe.signal_on_wakeup = 1;
	pe.count_sb_events = 1;
	pe.wakeup_events = 2;

To keep things simple, PERF_EVENT_IOC_REFRESH cannot be used if any of
the new attributes are set.

RFC v2:
https://www.mail-archive.com/linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg1420363.html
Changes:
  - Send HUP on perf_event_exit_event() (suggested by Jiri)
  - Disable use of IOC_REFRESH if signal_on_wakeup/count_sb_events is
    set.


- Naveen

---
Here is a sample program demonstrating the same:

    #define _GNU_SOURCE

    #include <stdlib.h>
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <unistd.h>
    #include <fcntl.h>
    #include <string.h>
    #include <signal.h>
    #include <sys/ioctl.h>
    #include <sys/mman.h>
    #include <linux/perf_event.h>
    #include <asm/unistd.h>

    static long
    perf_event_open(struct perf_event_attr *hw_event, pid_t pid,
		   int cpu, int group_fd, unsigned long flags)
    {
	return syscall(__NR_perf_event_open, hw_event, pid, cpu,
		      group_fd, flags);
    }

    static void sigio_handler(int n, siginfo_t *info, void *uc)
    {
	fprintf (stderr, "Caught %s\n", info->si_code == POLL_HUP ? "POLL_HUP" :
		       (info->si_code == POLL_IN ? "POLL_IN" : "other signal"));
    }

    int main(int argc, char **argv)
    {
	struct perf_event_attr pe;
	struct sigaction act;
	int fd;
	void *buf;

	memset(&act, 0, sizeof(act));
	act.sa_sigaction = sigio_handler;
	act.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO;
	sigaction(SIGIO, &act, 0);

	memset(&pe, 0, sizeof(struct perf_event_attr));
	pe.size = sizeof(struct perf_event_attr);
	pe.type = PERF_TYPE_SOFTWARE;
	pe.config = PERF_COUNT_SW_DUMMY;
	pe.disabled = 1;
	pe.sample_period = 1;
	pe.context_switch = 1;
	pe.signal_on_wakeup = 1;
	pe.count_sb_events = 1;
	pe.wakeup_events = 2;

	fd = perf_event_open(&pe, 0, -1, -1, 0);
	if (fd == -1) {
	    fprintf(stderr, "Error opening leader %lx\n", (unsigned long)pe.config);
	    exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	buf = mmap(NULL, sysconf(_SC_PAGESIZE) * 2, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
	if (buf == MAP_FAILED) {
	    fprintf(stderr, "Can't mmap buffer\n");
	    return -1;
	}

	if (fcntl(fd, F_SETFL, fcntl(fd, F_GETFL, 0) | O_ASYNC) == -1)
	    return -2;

	if (fcntl(fd, F_SETSIG, SIGIO) == -1)
	    return -3;

	if (fcntl(fd, F_SETOWN, getpid()) == -1)
	    return -4;

	if (ioctl(fd, PERF_EVENT_IOC_ENABLE, 0) == -1)
	    return -5;

	fprintf (stderr, "Sleep 1\n");
	sleep(1);
	fprintf (stderr, "Sleep 2\n");
	sleep(1);
	fprintf (stderr, "Sleep 3\n");
	sleep(1);

	/* Disable the event counter */
	ioctl(fd, PERF_EVENT_IOC_DISABLE, 1);

	close(fd);

	return 0;
    }


A sample output:
    $ time ./cs
    Sleep 1
    Caught POLL_IN
    Sleep 2
    Caught POLL_IN
    Sleep 3
    Caught POLL_IN

    real	0m3.040s
    user	0m0.001s
    sys	0m0.003s


Naveen N. Rao (2):
  kernel/events: Add option to notify through signals on wakeup
  kernel/events: Add option to enable counting sideband events in
    wakeup_events

 include/uapi/linux/perf_event.h |  4 +++-
 kernel/events/core.c            | 20 ++++++++++++--------
 kernel/events/ring_buffer.c     | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 31 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

-- 
2.13.1