It is useful to get the running time of a thread. Doing so in an
efficient manner can be important for performance of user applications.
Avoiding system calls in `clock_gettime` when handling
CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID is important. Other clocks are handled in the
VDSO, but CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID falls back on the system call.
CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID is not handled in the VDSO since it would have
costs associated with maintaining updated user space accessible time
offsets. These offsets have to be updated everytime the a thread is
scheduled/descheduled. However, for programs regularly checking the
running time of a thread, this is a performance improvement.
This patch takes a middle ground, and adds support for cap_user_time an
optional feature of the perf_event API. This way costs are only
incurred when the perf_event api is enabled. This is done the same way
as it is in x86.
Ultimately this allows calculating the thread running time in userspace
on aarch64 as follows (adapted from perf_event_open manpage):
u32 seq, time_mult, time_shift;
u64 running, count, time_offset, quot, rem, delta;
struct perf_event_mmap_page *pc;
pc = buf; // buf is the perf event mmaped page as documented in the API.
if (pc->cap_usr_time) {
do {
seq = pc->lock;
barrier();
running = pc->time_running;
count = readCNTVCT_EL0(); // Read ARM hardware clock.
time_offset = pc->time_offset;
time_mult = pc->time_mult;
time_shift = pc->time_shift;
barrier();
} while (pc->lock != seq);
quot = (count >> time_shift);
rem = count & (((u64)1 << time_shift) - 1);
delta = time_offset + quot * time_mult +
((rem * time_mult) >> time_shift);
running += delta;
// running now has the current nanosecond level thread time.
}
Summary of changes in the patch:
For aarch64 systems, make arch_perf_update_userpage update the timing
information stored in the perf_event page. Requiring the following
calculations:
- Calculate the appropriate time_mult, and time_shift factors to convert
ticks to nano seconds for the current clock frequency.
- Adjust the mult and shift factors to avoid shift factors of 32 bits.
(possibly unnecessary)
- The time_offset userspace should apply when doing calculations:
negative the current sched time (now), because time_running and
time_enabled fields of the perf_event page have just been updated.
Toggle bits to appropriate values:
- Enable cap_user_time
Signed-off-by: Michael O'Farrell <micpof@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
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