Re: [RFC/PATCHSET 0/9] perf record: Implement BPF sample filter (v4)

[Ravi Bangoria]

Hi Namhyung,

Sorry, I should have tried earlier prototypes but missed it.

> Maybe more useful example is when it deals with precise memory events.
> On AMD processors with IBS, you can filter only memory load with L1
> dTLB is missed like below.
> 
>   $ sudo ./perf record -ad -e ibs_op//p \
>   > --filter 'mem_op == load, mem_dtlb > l1_hit' sleep 1
>   [ perf record: Woken up 1 times to write data ]
>   [ perf record: Captured and wrote 1.338 MB perf.data (15 samples) ]

On my zen4 machine:

  $ sudo ./perf record -d -e ibs_op//p --filter 'mem_op == load' -c 100000 ~/test
  [ perf record: Woken up 6 times to write data ]
  [ perf record: Captured and wrote 1.436 MB perf.data (30966 samples) ]

  $ sudo ./perf mem report -F sample,mem --stdio
  #      Samples  Memory access
  # ............  ........................
           30325  L1 hit
             477  Local RAM hit
              89  L2 hit
              75  L3 hit

This looks good because IBS hw can't filter specific type of instruction
and thus unfiltered data will contain "NA" types of memory accesses, which
is absent here. So mem_op == load filter seems to be working.

However, if I add "mem_lvl == l1" (or l2 / ram) in the filter, I see mostly
all samples are getting lost:

  $ sudo ./perf record -d -e ibs_op//p --filter 'mem_op == load, mem_lvl == l1' -c 100000 ~/test
  [ perf record: Woken up 1 times to write data ]
  [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.019 MB perf.data ]

  $ sudo ./perf report --stat | grep SAMPLE
    LOST_SAMPLES events:          1  ( 0.8%)
    LOST_SAMPLES events:     136332

What am I missing?

2nd observation, invalid expressions like 'mem_op == load, mem_dtlb == l1'
are not failing, instead recording misleading data:

  $ sudo ./perf record -d -e ibs_op//p --filter 'mem_op == load, mem_dtlb == l1' -c 100000 ~/test
  [ perf record: Woken up 1 times to write data ]
  [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.047 MB perf.data (614 samples) ]

  $ sudo ./perf script -F data_src | grep "TLB N/A" | wc -l
  614

Thanks,
Ravi