Re: [PATCH 2/2] perf/x86: Disable precise sampling for PERF_SAMPLE_STACK_USER

[Mi, Dapeng]

On 9/9/2026 4:56 AM, Ian Rogers wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2026 at 8:10 AM Andi Kleen <ak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> That's what we already do, no? I have distinct memories of making the
>>> stack unwind use the NMI regs rather then the PEBS regs.
>>>
>>>> In my opinion, it could even make the thing worse. User
>>>> requires to get precise samplings, but perf silently returns imprecise
>>>> records, this would mislead user.
>>> Mostly just the unwind might be off a little, the rest is accurate. This
>>> has been the case 'forever'. Performance analysis isn't for silly
>>> people, if they can't deal with a little fuzz then perhaps they're in
>>> the wrong business.
>> Is the main problem that the stack doesn't agree? Perhaps there
>> could be a check for regs->rsp == pebs->user rsp (if in user space)
>> to detect problematic samples.
>>
>> The question is how to report it and who should do the checking.
>>
>> It may need new fields in the ABI either to communicate the extra PEBS RSP
>> or a bit to indicate that there might be a mismatch.
>>
>> I guess checking in the kernel and reporting an error might be simpler
>> and maybe cleaner, but it would likely limit more advanced recovery
>> possibilities.
>>
>> Are there other mismatches that break the unwinding? Perhaps the same
>> for RBP?
> For DWARF unwinding any register may be the source of a frame pointer
> (e.g. the OpenSSL library would use R11 rather than RBP).
>
> There is redundancy on x86 you can sample the PERF_REG_X86_IP register
> in the user register and there is PERF_SAMPLE_IP in the sample event
> itself.
>
> My understanding is that IBS can only sample IP and so for precise
> samples we can use PERF_SAMPLE_IP as the precise location and the user
> register PERF_REG_X86_IP as the interrupt IP - this would match the
> other register values in the interrupt.
>
> In DWARF unwinding, we initialize the register state using the sampled
> user registers:
> https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/perf/perf-tools-next.git/tree/tools/perf/util/unwind-libdw.c?h=perf-tools-next#n270
> and on x86 we sample all registers for DWARF unwinding:
> https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/perf/perf-tools-next.git/tree/tools/perf/arch/x86/include/perf_regs.h?h=perf-tools-next#n20
> https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/perf/perf-tools-next.git/tree/tools/perf/util/perf-regs-arch/perf_regs_x86.c?h=perf-tools-next#n238
>
> Having PERF_SAMPLE_IP be precise and the user registers from the
> interrupt I believe works for AMD IBS and ARM SPE, but for Intel PEBS
> there is the ability to use the PEBS register samples for other
> non-redundant registers. In the x86 driver could we disable PEBS
> sampling for these registers when doing user stack sampling, so that
> the sampled user registers match the stack sample? We can keep the
> PERF_SAMPLE_IP precise, and make all the registers precise when there
> is no stack sampling.

That sounds the best way to fix this issue by decoupling PERF_SAMPLE_IP
with PERF_REG_X86_IP. Then we can keep the precise SAMPLE_IP and the PMI
context user register snapshot simultaneously.

I would post v2 patch with this fix. Thanks.


>
> Thanks,
> Ian