[PATCH V2 00/13] export perf overheads information

[kan . liang]

From: Kan Liang <kan.liang@xxxxxxxxx>

Profiling brings additional overhead. High overhead may impacts the
behavior of the profiling object, impacts the accuracy of the
profiling result, and even hang the system.
Currently, perf has dynamic interrupt throttle mechanism to lower the
sample rate and overhead. But it has limitations.
 - The mechanism only focus in the sampling overhead. However, there
   are other parts which also bring big overhead. E.g, multiplexing.
 - The hint from the mechanism doesn't work on fixed period.
 - The system changes which caused by the mechanism are not recorded
   in the perf.data. Users have no idea about the overhead and its
   impact.
Acctually, any passive ways like dynamic interrupt throttle mechanism
are only palliative. The best way is to export overhead information,
provide more hints, and help the users design more proper perf command.

Both kernel and user tool can bring overhead.
For kernel, three parts can bring obvious overhead.
  - sample overhead: For x86, it's the time cost in perf NMI handler.
  - multiplexing overhead: The time cost spends on rotate context.
  - side-band events overhead: The time cost spends on iterating all
    events that need to receive side-band events.
All the time cost of those parts are recorded in new perf record type
PERF_RECORD_OVERHEAD.
For user, the perf record CPU time and elapsed time are recorded in new
perf record type PERF_RECORD_USER_OVERHEAD.


User can apply --show-profiling-cost in perf report to dump the overhead
details in the head of the output. The result is sorted by CPU, if CPU is
available. Otherwise, the accumulated result is printed.

perf report automatically checks the overhead information. If the kerenl
profiling cost is > 10% or perf record profiling cost > 50%. A warning
is printed. The kerenl profiling cost is from max of each CPU overhead /
perf monotonic wall time. The perf record profiling cost is from perf CPU
time / perf monotonic wall time.

Logging overhead information is default on. User can disable it by
applying --no-profile-cost-info in perf record.

User can use the overhead information to refine their perf command and get
accurate profiling result. For example, if there is high overhead warning,
user may reduce the number of events/increase the period/decrease the
frequency.
Developer can also use the overhead information to find bugs.

Here is an example.

 $ perf report --show-profiling-cost
 Warning:
 Perf kernel profiling cost is high! The cost rate is 15.30%

 Please consider reducing the number of events, or increasing the period,
 or decrease the frequency.

 # To display the perf.data header info, please use
 --header/--header-only options.
 #
 # ========
 # Elapsed time: 120345432522(ns)
 # Perf record cpu time: 505470324(ns)
 #
 # CPU       SAM    SAM cost(ns)       MUX    MUX cost(ns)        SB
 SB cost(ns)
 #  -1    2247030     1705370307     111354     3111550168    1237358
 13591276893
 # ========


Changes since V1:
 - fix u32 holes and remove duplicate CPU information
 - configurable overhead logging
 - Introduce the concept of PMU specific overhead and common core
   overhead. Rename NMI overhead to PMU sample overhead
 - Add log_overhead in perf_event_context to indicate the logging of
   overhead
 - Refine the output of overhead information
 - Use perf CPU time to replace perf write data overhead
 - Refine the formula of overhead evaluation
 - Refine perf script

Kan Liang (13):
  perf/core: Introduce PERF_RECORD_OVERHEAD
  perf/core: output overhead when sched out from context
  perf/x86: output sampling overhead
  perf/core: output multiplexing overhead
  perf/core: output side-band events overhead
  perf tools: option to disable overhead collection
  perf tools: handle PERF_RECORD_OVERHEAD record type
  perf tools: show kernel overhead
  perf script: show kernel overhead
  perf tools: add time related functions
  perf tools: introduce PERF_RECORD_USER_OVERHEAD
  perf tools: record user space profiling cost
  perf report: warn on high overhead

 arch/x86/events/core.c                   |  17 +++-
 arch/x86/events/perf_event.h             |   2 +
 include/linux/perf_event.h               |  15 +++
 include/uapi/linux/perf_event.h          |  42 ++++++++-
 kernel/events/core.c                     |  92 ++++++++++++++++++-
 tools/include/uapi/linux/perf_event.h    |  42 ++++++++-
 tools/perf/Documentation/perf-record.txt |   6 ++
 tools/perf/Documentation/perf-report.txt |  10 ++
 tools/perf/Documentation/perf-script.txt |   3 +
 tools/perf/builtin-record.c              |  63 ++++++++++++-
 tools/perf/builtin-report.c              |  16 +++-
 tools/perf/builtin-sched.c               |   2 +-
 tools/perf/builtin-script.c              |  32 +++++++
 tools/perf/builtin.h                     |   2 +
 tools/perf/perf.h                        |   1 +
 tools/perf/util/event.c                  |  39 ++++++++
 tools/perf/util/event.h                  |  31 +++++++
 tools/perf/util/evlist.c                 |   6 ++
 tools/perf/util/evlist.h                 |   1 +
 tools/perf/util/evsel.c                  |   1 +
 tools/perf/util/machine.c                |  37 ++++++++
 tools/perf/util/machine.h                |   3 +
 tools/perf/util/session.c                | 152 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 tools/perf/util/session.h                |   3 +
 tools/perf/util/symbol.h                 |   3 +-
 tools/perf/util/tool.h                   |   1 +
 26 files changed, 613 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

-- 
2.5.5