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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2012-03-20 10:29:15 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2012-03-20 10:29:15 -0700
commit9c2b957db1772ebf942ae7a9346b14eba6c8ca66 (patch)
tree0dbb83e57260ea7fc0dc421f214d5f1b26262005 /Documentation/lockup-watchdogs.txt
parent0bbfcaff9b2a69c71a95e6902253487ab30cb498 (diff)
parentbea95c152dee1791dd02cbc708afbb115bb00f9a (diff)
downloadlinux-9c2b957db1772ebf942ae7a9346b14eba6c8ca66.tar.bz2
Merge branch 'perf-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip
Pull perf events changes for v3.4 from Ingo Molnar: - New "hardware based branch profiling" feature both on the kernel and the tooling side, on CPUs that support it. (modern x86 Intel CPUs with the 'LBR' hardware feature currently.) This new feature is basically a sophisticated 'magnifying glass' for branch execution - something that is pretty difficult to extract from regular, function histogram centric profiles. The simplest mode is activated via 'perf record -b', and the result looks like this in perf report: $ perf record -b any_call,u -e cycles:u branchy $ perf report -b --sort=symbol 52.34% [.] main [.] f1 24.04% [.] f1 [.] f3 23.60% [.] f1 [.] f2 0.01% [k] _IO_new_file_xsputn [k] _IO_file_overflow 0.01% [k] _IO_vfprintf_internal [k] _IO_new_file_xsputn 0.01% [k] _IO_vfprintf_internal [k] strchrnul 0.01% [k] __printf [k] _IO_vfprintf_internal 0.01% [k] main [k] __printf This output shows from/to branch columns and shows the highest percentage (from,to) jump combinations - i.e. the most likely taken branches in the system. "branches" can also include function calls and any other synchronous and asynchronous transitions of the instruction pointer that are not 'next instruction' - such as system calls, traps, interrupts, etc. This feature comes with (hopefully intuitive) flat ascii and TUI support in perf report. - Various 'perf annotate' visual improvements for us assembly junkies. It will now recognize function calls in the TUI and by hitting enter you can follow the call (recursively) and back, amongst other improvements. - Multiple threads/processes recording support in perf record, perf stat, perf top - which is activated via a comma-list of PIDs: perf top -p 21483,21485 perf stat -p 21483,21485 -ddd perf record -p 21483,21485 - Support for per UID views, via the --uid paramter to perf top, perf report, etc. For example 'perf top --uid mingo' will only show the tasks that I am running, excluding other users, root, etc. - Jump label restructurings and improvements - this includes the factoring out of the (hopefully much clearer) include/linux/static_key.h generic facility: struct static_key key = STATIC_KEY_INIT_FALSE; ... if (static_key_false(&key)) do unlikely code else do likely code ... static_key_slow_inc(); ... static_key_slow_inc(); ... The static_key_false() branch will be generated into the code with as little impact to the likely code path as possible. the static_key_slow_*() APIs flip the branch via live kernel code patching. This facility can now be used more widely within the kernel to micro-optimize hot branches whose likelihood matches the static-key usage and fast/slow cost patterns. - SW function tracer improvements: perf support and filtering support. - Various hardenings of the perf.data ABI, to make older perf.data's smoother on newer tool versions, to make new features integrate more smoothly, to support cross-endian recording/analyzing workflows better, etc. - Restructuring of the kprobes code, the splitting out of 'optprobes', and a corner case bugfix. - Allow the tracing of kernel console output (printk). - Improvements/fixes to user-space RDPMC support, allowing user-space self-profiling code to extract PMU counts without performing any system calls, while playing nice with the kernel side. - 'perf bench' improvements - ... and lots of internal restructurings, cleanups and fixes that made these features possible. And, as usual this list is incomplete as there were also lots of other improvements * 'perf-core-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip: (120 commits) perf report: Fix annotate double quit issue in branch view mode perf report: Remove duplicate annotate choice in branch view mode perf/x86: Prettify pmu config literals perf report: Enable TUI in branch view mode perf report: Auto-detect branch stack sampling mode perf record: Add HEADER_BRANCH_STACK tag perf record: Provide default branch stack sampling mode option perf tools: Make perf able to read files from older ABIs perf tools: Fix ABI compatibility bug in print_event_desc() perf tools: Enable reading of perf.data files from different ABI rev perf: Add ABI reference sizes perf report: Add support for taken branch sampling perf record: Add support for sampling taken branch perf tools: Add code to support PERF_SAMPLE_BRANCH_STACK x86/kprobes: Split out optprobe related code to kprobes-opt.c x86/kprobes: Fix a bug which can modify kernel code permanently x86/kprobes: Fix instruction recovery on optimized path perf: Add callback to flush branch_stack on context switch perf: Disable PERF_SAMPLE_BRANCH_* when not supported perf/x86: Add LBR software filter support for Intel CPUs ...
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+===============================================================
+Softlockup detector and hardlockup detector (aka nmi_watchdog)
+===============================================================
+
+The Linux kernel can act as a watchdog to detect both soft and hard
+lockups.
+
+A 'softlockup' is defined as a bug that causes the kernel to loop in
+kernel mode for more than 20 seconds (see "Implementation" below for
+details), without giving other tasks a chance to run. The current
+stack trace is displayed upon detection and, by default, the system
+will stay locked up. Alternatively, the kernel can be configured to
+panic; a sysctl, "kernel.softlockup_panic", a kernel parameter,
+"softlockup_panic" (see "Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt" for
+details), and a compile option, "BOOTPARAM_HARDLOCKUP_PANIC", are
+provided for this.
+
+A 'hardlockup' is defined as a bug that causes the CPU to loop in
+kernel mode for more than 10 seconds (see "Implementation" below for
+details), without letting other interrupts have a chance to run.
+Similarly to the softlockup case, the current stack trace is displayed
+upon detection and the system will stay locked up unless the default
+behavior is changed, which can be done through a compile time knob,
+"BOOTPARAM_HARDLOCKUP_PANIC", and a kernel parameter, "nmi_watchdog"
+(see "Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt" for details).
+
+The panic option can be used in combination with panic_timeout (this
+timeout is set through the confusingly named "kernel.panic" sysctl),
+to cause the system to reboot automatically after a specified amount
+of time.
+
+=== Implementation ===
+
+The soft and hard lockup detectors are built on top of the hrtimer and
+perf subsystems, respectively. A direct consequence of this is that,
+in principle, they should work in any architecture where these
+subsystems are present.
+
+A periodic hrtimer runs to generate interrupts and kick the watchdog
+task. An NMI perf event is generated every "watchdog_thresh"
+(compile-time initialized to 10 and configurable through sysctl of the
+same name) seconds to check for hardlockups. If any CPU in the system
+does not receive any hrtimer interrupt during that time the
+'hardlockup detector' (the handler for the NMI perf event) will
+generate a kernel warning or call panic, depending on the
+configuration.
+
+The watchdog task is a high priority kernel thread that updates a
+timestamp every time it is scheduled. If that timestamp is not updated
+for 2*watchdog_thresh seconds (the softlockup threshold) the
+'softlockup detector' (coded inside the hrtimer callback function)
+will dump useful debug information to the system log, after which it
+will call panic if it was instructed to do so or resume execution of
+other kernel code.
+
+The period of the hrtimer is 2*watchdog_thresh/5, which means it has
+two or three chances to generate an interrupt before the hardlockup
+detector kicks in.
+
+As explained above, a kernel knob is provided that allows
+administrators to configure the period of the hrtimer and the perf
+event. The right value for a particular environment is a trade-off
+between fast response to lockups and detection overhead.