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| 1 | +Perf Event Attributes |
| 2 | +===================== |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | +Author: Andrew Murray < [email protected]> |
| 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. |
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