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a9bf3130 AM |
1 | Perf Event Attributes |
2 | ===================== | |
3 | ||
4 | Author: Andrew Murray <andrew.murray@arm.com> | |
5 | Date: 2019-03-06 | |
6 | ||
7 | exclude_user | |
8 | ------------ | |
9 | ||
10 | This attribute excludes userspace. | |
11 | ||
12 | Userspace always runs at EL0 and thus this attribute will exclude EL0. | |
13 | ||
14 | ||
15 | exclude_kernel | |
16 | -------------- | |
17 | ||
18 | This attribute excludes the kernel. | |
19 | ||
20 | The kernel runs at EL2 with VHE and EL1 without. Guest kernels always run | |
21 | at EL1. | |
22 | ||
23 | For the host this attribute will exclude EL1 and additionally EL2 on a VHE | |
24 | system. | |
25 | ||
26 | For the guest this attribute will exclude EL1. Please note that EL2 is | |
27 | never counted within a guest. | |
28 | ||
29 | ||
30 | exclude_hv | |
31 | ---------- | |
32 | ||
33 | This attribute excludes the hypervisor. | |
34 | ||
35 | For a VHE host this attribute is ignored as we consider the host kernel to | |
36 | be the hypervisor. | |
37 | ||
38 | For a non-VHE host this attribute will exclude EL2 as we consider the | |
39 | hypervisor to be any code that runs at EL2 which is predominantly used for | |
40 | guest/host transitions. | |
41 | ||
42 | For the guest this attribute has no effect. Please note that EL2 is | |
43 | never counted within a guest. | |
44 | ||
45 | ||
46 | exclude_host / exclude_guest | |
47 | ---------------------------- | |
48 | ||
49 | These attributes exclude the KVM host and guest, respectively. | |
50 | ||
51 | The KVM host may run at EL0 (userspace), EL1 (non-VHE kernel) and EL2 (VHE | |
52 | kernel or non-VHE hypervisor). | |
53 | ||
54 | The KVM guest may run at EL0 (userspace) and EL1 (kernel). | |
55 | ||
56 | Due to the overlapping exception levels between host and guests we cannot | |
57 | exclusively rely on the PMU's hardware exception filtering - therefore we | |
58 | must enable/disable counting on the entry and exit to the guest. This is | |
59 | performed differently on VHE and non-VHE systems. | |
60 | ||
61 | For non-VHE systems we exclude EL2 for exclude_host - upon entering and | |
62 | exiting the guest we disable/enable the event as appropriate based on the | |
63 | exclude_host and exclude_guest attributes. | |
64 | ||
65 | For VHE systems we exclude EL1 for exclude_guest and exclude both EL0,EL2 | |
66 | for exclude_host. Upon entering and exiting the guest we modify the event | |
67 | to include/exclude EL0 as appropriate based on the exclude_host and | |
68 | exclude_guest attributes. | |
69 | ||
70 | The statements above also apply when these attributes are used within a | |
71 | non-VHE guest however please note that EL2 is never counted within a guest. | |
72 | ||
73 | ||
74 | Accuracy | |
75 | -------- | |
76 | ||
77 | On non-VHE hosts we enable/disable counters on the entry/exit of host/guest | |
78 | transition at EL2 - however there is a period of time between | |
79 | enabling/disabling the counters and entering/exiting the guest. We are | |
80 | able to eliminate counters counting host events on the boundaries of guest | |
81 | entry/exit when counting guest events by filtering out EL2 for | |
82 | exclude_host. However when using !exclude_hv there is a small blackout | |
83 | window at the guest entry/exit where host events are not captured. | |
84 | ||
85 | On VHE systems there are no blackout windows. |