linux-kernel - Re: [RFD] perf syscall error handling

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Message-ID: <20141031072109.GD12706@worktop.programming.kicks-ass.net>
Date:	Fri, 31 Oct 2014 08:21:09 +0100
From:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:	Vince Weaver <vince@...ter.net>
Cc:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
	Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...radead.org>,
	Jiri Olsa <jolsa@...hat.com>,
	Matt Fleming <matt@...sole-pimps.org>,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Stephane Eranian <eranian@...gle.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFD] perf syscall error handling

On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 09:16:36PM -0400, Vince Weaver wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Oct 2014, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> 
> > So would something simple, like an offset into the struct
> > perf_event_attr pointing at the current field we're trying to process
> > make sense? Maybe with negative offsets to indicate the syscall
> > arguments?
> > 
> > That would narrow down the 'WTF is wrong noaw' a lot I think. But then,
> > I've not actually done a lot of userspace the last few years, so maybe
> > I'm just dreaming things.
> 
> well, as someone who spends a lot of time in userspace trying to help 
> people who report probems like 'perf_event_open() returns EINVAL, what's 
> wrong' I can say pretty much anything will be an improvement.

Right, the situation is dire indeed :/

> What would really help is if we could somehow return the 
> filename/line-number of whatever source code file that's setting errno.
> 
> Even if perf_event_open() told me that hey, we're getting EOPNOTSUPP due 
> to the precise_ip parameter (something that happened just yesterday) it's 
> still a lot of grepping and poking around source files to find out what's 
> going on.  It would be much better if it just told me the issue was at
> kernel/events/core.c line 995 or so, but I'm not sure how you could pass 
> that back to the user, and one could argue it wouldn't help much the 
> average user without a kernel tree lying around.

Would an additional bit mask help? With that we'd be able to finger
the exact flag that causes pain.
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