Date:   Fri, 5 May 2023 11:39:16 +0200
From:   Jiri Olsa <olsajiri@...il.com>
To:     Ian Rogers <irogers@...gle.com>
Cc:     Jiri Olsa <olsajiri@...il.com>,
        Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...nel.org>,
        Andrii Nakryiko <andrii.nakryiko@...il.com>,
        Namhyung Kim <namhyung@...nel.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Song Liu <song@...nel.org>,
        Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@...nel.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Clark Williams <williams@...hat.com>,
        Kate Carcia <kcarcia@...hat.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-perf-users@...r.kernel.org,
        Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@...el.com>,
        Changbin Du <changbin.du@...wei.com>,
        Hao Luo <haoluo@...gle.com>, James Clark <james.clark@....com>,
        Kan Liang <kan.liang@...ux.intel.com>,
        Roman Lozko <lozko.roma@...il.com>,
        Stephane Eranian <eranian@...gle.com>,
        Thomas Richter <tmricht@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...hat.com>,
        bpf <bpf@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: BPF skels in perf .Re: [GIT PULL] perf tools changes for v6.4

On Thu, May 04, 2023 at 04:19:47PM -0700, Ian Rogers wrote:
> On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 4:03 PM Jiri Olsa <olsajiri@...il.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, May 04, 2023 at 03:03:42PM -0700, Ian Rogers wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 2:48 PM Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...nel.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Em Thu, May 04, 2023 at 04:07:29PM -0300, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo escreveu:
> > > > > Em Thu, May 04, 2023 at 11:50:07AM -0700, Andrii Nakryiko escreveu:
> > > > > > On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 10:52 AM Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...nel.org> wrote:
> > > > > > > Andrii, can you add some more information about the usage of vmlinux.h
> > > > > > > instead of using kernel headers?
> > > > >
> > > > > > I'll just say that vmlinux.h is not a hard requirement to build BPF
> > > > > > programs, it's more a convenience allowing easy access to definitions
> > > > > > of both UAPI and kernel-internal structures for tracing needs and
> > > > > > marking them relocatable using BPF CO-RE machinery. Lots of real-world
> > > > > > applications just check-in pregenerated vmlinux.h to avoid build-time
> > > > > > dependency on up-to-date host kernel and such.
> > > > >
> > > > > > If vmlinux.h generation and usage is causing issues, though, given
> > > > > > that perf's BPF programs don't seem to be using many different kernel
> > > > > > types, it might be a better option to just use UAPI headers for public
> > > > > > kernel type definitions, and just define CO-RE-relocatable minimal
> > > > > > definitions locally in perf's BPF code for the other types necessary.
> > > > > > E.g., if perf needs only pid and tgid from task_struct, this would
> > > > > > suffice:
> > > > >
> > > > > > struct task_struct {
> > > > > >     int pid;
> > > > > >     int tgid;
> > > > > > } __attribute__((preserve_access_index));
> > > > >
> > > > > Yeah, that seems like a way better approach, no vmlinux involved, libbpf
> > > > > CO-RE notices that task_struct changed from this two integers version
> > > > > (of course) and does the relocation to where it is in the running kernel
> > > > > by using /sys/kernel/btf/vmlinux.
> > > >
> > > > Doing it for one of the skels, build tested, runtime untested, but not
> > > > using any vmlinux, BTF to help, not that bad, more verbose, but at least
> > > > we state what are the fields we actually use, have those attribute
> > > > documenting that those offsets will be recorded for future use, etc.
> > > >
> > > > Namhyung, can you please check that this works?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >
> > > > - Arnaldo
> > > >
> > > > diff --git a/tools/perf/util/bpf_skel/bperf_cgroup.bpf.c b/tools/perf/util/bpf_skel/bperf_cgroup.bpf.c
> > > > index 6a438e0102c5a2cb..f376d162549ebd74 100644
> > > > --- a/tools/perf/util/bpf_skel/bperf_cgroup.bpf.c
> > > > +++ b/tools/perf/util/bpf_skel/bperf_cgroup.bpf.c
> > > > @@ -1,11 +1,40 @@
> > > >  // SPDX-License-Identifier: (GPL-2.0-only OR BSD-2-Clause)
> > > >  // Copyright (c) 2021 Facebook
> > > >  // Copyright (c) 2021 Google
> > > > -#include "vmlinux.h"
> > > > +#include <linux/types.h>
> > > > +#include <linux/bpf.h>
> > >
> > > Compared to vmlinux.h here be dragons. It is easy to start dragging in
> > > all of libc and that may not work due to missing #ifdefs, etc.. Could
> > > we check in a vmlinux.h like libbpf-tools does?
> > > https://github.com/iovisor/bcc/tree/master/libbpf-tools#vmlinuxh-generation
> > > https://github.com/iovisor/bcc/tree/master/libbpf-tools/arm64
> > >
> > > This would also remove some of the errors that could be introduced by
> > > copy+pasting enums, etc. and also highlight issues with things being
> > > renamed as build time rather than runtime failures.
> >
> > we already have to deal with that, right? doing checks on fields in
> > structs like mm_struct___old
> 
> We do, but the way I detected the problems in the first place was by
> building against older kernels. Now the build will always succeed but
> fail at runtime.
> 
> > > Could this be some shared resource for the different linux tools
> > > projects using a vmlinux.h? e.g. tools/lib/vmlinuxh with an
> > > install_headers target that builds a vmlinux.h.
> >
> > I tried to do the minimal header and it's not too big,
> > I pushed it in here:
> >   https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jolsa/perf.git/log/?h=perf/vmlinux_h
> >
> > compile tested so far
> >
> > jirka
> 
> Cool, could we just call it vmlinux.h rather than perf-defs.h?

right, it also makes the change smaller

> 
> I notice cgroup_subsys_id is in there which is called out in Andrii's
> CO-RE  guide/blog:
> https://nakryiko.com/posts/bpf-core-reference-guide/#relocatable-enums
> perhaps we can do something with names/types to make sure a helper is
> being used for these enum values.

ok, I'll check on that..  so far I made some clean ups and updated the branch

thanks,
jirka

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