Date:	Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:59:05 +0100
From:	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>
To:	"K.Prasad" <prasad@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Li Zefan <lizf@...fujitsu.com>,
	Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...hat.com>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@....de>,
	Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@...il.com>, Avi Kivity <avi@...hat.com>,
	Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org>,
	Mike Galbraith <efault@....de>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...hat.com>,
	Paul Mundt <lethal@...ux-sh.org>,
	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...ux.intel.com>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL v6] hw-breakpoints: Rewrite on top of perf events v6

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 06:51:27PM +0530, K.Prasad wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 11:13:42AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > 
> > * K.Prasad <prasad@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > Hi Frederic, Ingo,
> > > 		Here are a few concerns (roughly in decreasing order of
> > > priority) about the perf-events integrated hw-breakpoint feature.
> > > 
> > > - Freeze the breakpoint interfaces: Owing to the many 
> > > current/potential users of hw-breakpoint feature it is important to 
> > > provide a stable interface to the end-user. Changes underneath the 
> > > interface can be done in due course in a manner that does not affect 
> > > the end-user's behaviour or function signature. The present breakpoint 
> > > interface requires parameters that are best embedded in a structure 
> > > for extensibility.
> > 
> > Well we have PERF_TYPE_BREAKPOINT right now. I agree that it should be 
> > finalized in some sort of extensible ABI real soon - we dont want (and 
> > dont need to) add all features that might be possible in the future.
> > 
> 
> It is not about implementing futuristic features, but provide an
> interface which we know isn't going to change in the near future and
> will be flexible to accommodate arch-specific requirements. For
> instance the register_wide_hw_breakpoint() has an interface as below:
> 
> struct perf_event **
> register_wide_hw_breakpoint(unsigned long addr,
>                             int len,
>                             int type,
>                             perf_callback_t triggered,
>                             bool active)
> 
> Given the diversity seen in debug registers across processors, it isn't
> prudent to demand/limit the parameters required to those seen above.
> It can be made a part of one of perf-events' structures (with some fields
> in arch-specific structures) and the ABI can accept a pointer to one
> such structure.
> 
> In this way it would be easy to bring-in arch-specific quirks without
> altering the interface's signature.



Sure, I plan to convert all these parameters into a single one:
perf_event_attr.

 
> > > - Proposed migration of register allocation logic to arch-specific 
> > > files from kernel/hw_breakpoint.c. This is best done early to help 
> > > easy porting of code to other architectures (we have an active 
> > > interest in bringing support for PPC64 and S390). If done later, it 
> > > will entail additional effort in porting for each architecture.
> > 
> > I think the general direction should be towards librarized common 
> > frameworks.
> > 
> > If an architecture wants to do something special it should either extend 
> > the core code, or, if it's too weird to be added to the core, override 
> > it via its own implementation.
> > 
> 
> Given the feeling that the generic set of constraints in the re-written
> kernel/hw_breakpoint.c cannot accommodate the needs of various
> processors (LKML ref:20091117013959.GG5293@...her) and that
> the register allocation logic should move to arch-specific code, it is
> best done early to help easy porting for other archs. For instance
> there's already a port to PPC64 against the layered hw-breakpoint
> (found here: 20090903183930.GA4590@...ibm.com) and one from the
> community for SH (20091018062558.GA20535@...ux-sh.org).
> 
> If such code migration is done while porting of a new architecture, then
> it involves making changes to every other arch on which it is previously
> implemented (or workaround using #ifdef).


As I said, we can probably workaround it by keeping the most part
in the generic code and delegate special arch things to arch
constraints.


> > > - Fix ptrace bugs that potentially alter the semantics of ptrace.
> > 
> > Is there a specific list of these bugs?
> > 
> 
> As pointed out in 20091111130207.GA5676@...ibm.com and
> 20091112042502.GA3145@...ibm.com, ptrace requests can a) lose register
> slots when modifying the breakpoint addresses and b) new implementation
> assumes that every DR7 write to be preceded by a write on DR0-DR3 which
> need not be true.



The a) case is going to be fixed.
But the b) situation must be reported as a user mistake (which is what is
done currently): -EINVAL, -EIO or whatever. Enabling a breakpoint without
having given an address is a userland bug.



> > > - Bring either true system_wide support or atleast workaround the 
> > > side-effects of iterative per-cpu registration using single atomic 
> > > enablement of all per-cpu breakpoints. This can avoid stray exceptions 
> > > which would get delivered to the end-user even for failed breakpoint 
> > > requests.
> > 
> > That can certainly be done when users of such facilities emerge. Right 
> > now we have perf and ptrace as the two users - are they affected by 
> > these problems?
> > 
> 
> ksym_tracer - the ftrace plugin (kernel/trace/trace_ksym.c) using
> hw-breakpoints will be affected. Spurious exceptions due to partially
> registered breakpoint requests can be dangerous here.


Will be fixed too.

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