Re: [PATCH v1 1/2] perf/core: Use sysctl to turn on/off dropping leaked kernel samples

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Mon Jun 18 2018 - 06:46:00 EST


On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 02:55:32PM +0800, Jin, Yao wrote:
> Thanks for providing the patch. I understand this approach.
>
> In my opinion, the skid window is from counter overflow to interrupt
> delivered. While if the skid window is too *big* (e.g. user -> kernel), it
> should be not very useful. So personally, I'd prefer to drop the samples.

I really don't get your insitence on dropping the sample. Dropping
samples is bad. Furthermore, doing what Mark suggests actually improves
the result by reducing the skid, if the event happened before we entered
(as it damn well should) then the user regs, which point at the entry
site, are a better approximation than our in-kernel set.

So not only do you not loose the sample, you actually get a better
sample.