[PATCH v1] perf/core: fix restoring of Intel LBR call stack on a context switch

From: Alexey Budankov
Date: Mon Oct 14 2019 - 02:08:47 EST



Restore Intel LBR call stack from cloned inactive task perf context on
a context switch. This change inherently addresses inconsistency in LBR
call stack data provided on a sample in record profiling mode for
example like this:

$ perf record -N -B -T -R --call-graph lbr \
-e cpu/period=0xcdfe60,event=0x3c,name=\'CPU_CLK_UNHALTED.THREAD\'/Duk \
--clockid=monotonic_raw -- ./miniFE.x nx 25 ny 25 nz 25

Let's assume threads A, B, C belonging to the same process.
B and C are siblings of A and their perf contexts are treated as equivalent.
At some point B blocks on a futex (non preempt context switch).
B's LBRs are preserved at B's perf context task_ctx_data and B's events
are removed from PMU and disabled. B's perf context becomes inactive.

Later C gets on a cpu, runs, gets profiled and eventually switches to
the awaken but not yet running B. The optimized context switch path is
executed coping B's task_ctx_data to C's one and updating B's perf context
pointer to refer to C's task_ctx_data that contains preserved B's LBRs
after coping.

However, as far B's perf context is inactive there is no enabled events
in there and B's task_ctx_data->lbr_callstack_users is equal to 0.
When B gets on the cpu B's events reviving is skipped following
the optimized context switch path and B's task_ctx_data->lbr_callstack_users
remains 0. Thus B's LBR's are not restored by pmu sched_task() code called
in the end of perf context switch sched_in callback for B.

In the report that manifests as having short fragments of B's
call stack, still tracked by LBR's HW between adjacent samples,
but the whole thread call tree doesn't aggregate.

The fix has been evaluated when profiling miniFE [1] (C++, OpenMP)
workload running 64 threads on Intel Skylake EP(64 core, 2 sockets):

$ perf report --call-graph callee,flat

5.3.0-rc6+ (tip perf/core) - fixed

- 92.66% 82.64% miniFE.x libiomp5.so [.] _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
- 69.14% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_fork_barrier
__kmp_launch_thread
_INTERNAL_24_______src_z_Linux_util_c_3e0095e6::__kmp_launch_worker
start_thread
__clone
- 21.89% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_barrier
__kmpc_reduce_nowait
miniFE::cg_solve<miniFE::CSRMatrix<double, int, int>, miniFE::Vector<double, int, int>, miniFE::matvec_std<miniFE::CSRMatrix<double, int, int>, miniFE::Vector<double, int, in
__kmp_invoke_microtask
__kmp_invoke_task_func
__kmp_launch_thread
_INTERNAL_24_______src_z_Linux_util_c_3e0095e6::__kmp_launch_worker
start_thread
__clone
- 1.63% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_barrier
__kmpc_reduce_nowait
main
__kmp_invoke_microtask
__kmp_invoke_task_func
__kmp_launch_thread
_INTERNAL_24_______src_z_Linux_util_c_3e0095e6::__kmp_launch_worker
start_thread
__clone

5.0.13-300.fc30.x86_64 - no fix

- 90.29% 81.01% miniFE.x libiomp5.so [.] _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
- 33.45% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_fork_barrier
__kmp_launch_thread
_INTERNAL_24_______src_z_Linux_util_c_3e0095e6::__kmp_launch_worker
start_thread
__clone
87.63% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
- 54.79% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_fork_barrier
__kmp_launch_thread
- 9.18% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_barrier
__kmpc_reduce_nowait
miniFE::cg_solve<miniFE::CSRMatrix<double, int, int>, miniFE::Vector<double, int, int>, miniFE::matvec_std<miniFE::CSRMatrix<double, int, int>, miniFE::Vector<double, int, in
__kmp_invoke_microtask
__kmp_invoke_task_func
__kmp_launch_thread
_INTERNAL_24_______src_z_Linux_util_c_3e0095e6::__kmp_launch_worker
start_thread
__clone
- 41.28% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_fork_barrier
__kmp_launch_thread
_INTERNAL_24_______src_z_Linux_util_c_3e0095e6::__kmp_launch_worker
- 15.77% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_barrier
__kmpc_reduce_nowait
miniFE::cg_solve<miniFE::CSRMatrix<double, int, int>, miniFE::Vector<double, int, int>, miniFE::matvec_std<miniFE::CSRMatrix<double, int, int>, miniFE::Vector<double, int, in
__kmp_invoke_microtask
__kmp_invoke_task_func
__kmp_launch_thread
- 11.56% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_barrier
__kmpc_reduce_nowait
miniFE::cg_solve<miniFE::CSRMatrix<double, int, int>, miniFE::Vector<double, int, int>, miniFE::matvec_std<miniFE::CSRMatrix<double, int, int>, miniFE::Vector<double, int, in
__kmp_invoke_microtask
__kmp_invoke_task_func
__kmp_launch_thread
_INTERNAL_24_______src_z_Linux_util_c_3e0095e6::__kmp_launch_worker
- 2.33% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_release
__kmp_barrier
__kmpc_reduce_nowait
main
__kmp_invoke_microtask
__kmp_invoke_task_func
__kmp_launch_thread
_INTERNAL_24_______src_z_Linux_util_c_3e0095e6::__kmp_launch_worker
start_thread
__clone
0.67% _INTERNAL_25_______src_kmp_barrier_cpp_1d20fae8::__kmp_hyper_barrier_gather
0.57% __kmp_hardware_timestamp

[1] https://www.hpcadvisorycouncil.com/pdf/miniFE_Analysis_and_Profiling.pdf

Signed-off-by: Alexey Budankov <alexey.budankov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/events/core.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/kernel/events/core.c b/kernel/events/core.c
index 2aad959e6def..74c2ff38e079 100644
--- a/kernel/events/core.c
+++ b/kernel/events/core.c
@@ -3181,7 +3181,7 @@ static void perf_event_context_sched_out(struct task_struct *task, int ctxn,

rcu_read_lock();
next_ctx = next->perf_event_ctxp[ctxn];
- if (!next_ctx)
+ if (!next_ctx || !next_ctx->is_active)
goto unlock;

parent = rcu_dereference(ctx->parent_ctx);
--
2.20.1