Hardware pmu counters are limited resources. When there are more pmu based perf events opened than available counters, kernel will multiplex these events so each event gets certain percentage (but not 100%) of the pmu time. In case that multiplexing happens, the number of samples or counter value will not reflect the case compared to no multiplexing. This makes comparison between different runs difficult. Typically, the number of samples or counter value should be normalized before comparing to other experiments. The typical normalization is done like: normalized_num_samples = num_samples * time_enabled / time_running normalized_counter_value = counter_value * time_enabled / time_running where time_enabled is the time enabled for event and time_running is the time running for event since last normalization.
This patch set implements two helper functions. The helper bpf_perf_read_counter_time reads counter/time_enabled/time_running for perf event array map. The helper bpf_perf_prog_read_time read time_enabled/time_running for bpf prog with type BPF_PROG_TYPE_PERF_EVENT. Yonghong Song (4): bpf: add helper bpf_perf_read_counter_time for perf event array map bpf: add a test case for helper bpf_perf_read_counter_time bpf: add helper bpf_perf_prog_read_time bpf: add a test case for helper bpf_perf_prog_read_time include/linux/perf_event.h | 3 ++ include/uapi/linux/bpf.h | 29 +++++++++++- kernel/bpf/verifier.c | 4 +- kernel/events/core.c | 3 +- kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c | 73 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-- samples/bpf/trace_event_kern.c | 5 +++ samples/bpf/tracex6_kern.c | 26 +++++++++++ samples/bpf/tracex6_user.c | 13 +++++- tools/testing/selftests/bpf/bpf_helpers.h | 7 +++ 9 files changed, 155 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) -- 2.9.5