perf_counter: Dynamically allocate tasks' perf_counter_context struct

This replaces the struct perf_counter_context in the task_struct with
a pointer to a dynamically allocated perf_counter_context struct.  The
main reason for doing is this is to allow us to transfer a
perf_counter_context from one task to another when we do lazy PMU
switching in a later patch.

This has a few side-benefits: the task_struct becomes a little smaller,
we save some memory because only tasks that have perf_counters attached
get a perf_counter_context allocated for them, and we can remove the
inclusion of <linux/perf_counter.h> in sched.h, meaning that we don't
end up recompiling nearly everything whenever perf_counter.h changes.

The perf_counter_context structures are reference-counted and freed
when the last reference is dropped.  A context can have references
from its task and the counters on its task.  Counters can outlive the
task so it is possible that a context will be freed well after its
task has exited.

Contexts are allocated on fork if the parent had a context, or
otherwise the first time that a per-task counter is created on a task.
In the latter case, we set the context pointer in the task struct
locklessly using an atomic compare-and-exchange operation in case we
raced with some other task in creating a context for the subject task.

This also removes the task pointer from the perf_counter struct.  The
task pointer was not used anywhere and would make it harder to move a
context from one task to another.  Anything that needed to know which
task a counter was attached to was already using counter->ctx->task.

The __perf_counter_init_context function moves up in perf_counter.c
so that it can be called from find_get_context, and now initializes
the refcount, but is otherwise unchanged.

We were potentially calling list_del_counter twice: once from
__perf_counter_exit_task when the task exits and once from
__perf_counter_remove_from_context when the counter's fd gets closed.
This adds a check in list_del_counter so it doesn't do anything if
the counter has already been removed from the lists.

Since perf_counter_task_sched_in doesn't do anything if the task doesn't
have a context, and leaves cpuctx->task_ctx = NULL, this adds code to
__perf_install_in_context to set cpuctx->task_ctx if necessary, i.e. in
the case where the current task adds the first counter to itself and
thus creates a context for itself.

This also adds similar code to __perf_counter_enable to handle a
similar situation which can arise when the counters have been disabled
using prctl; that also leaves cpuctx->task_ctx = NULL.

[ Impact: refactor counter context management to prepare for new feature ]

Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl>
Cc: Corey Ashford <cjashfor@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Marcelo Tosatti <mtosatti@redhat.com>
Cc: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>
LKML-Reference: <18966.10075.781053.231153@cargo.ozlabs.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/fork.c b/kernel/fork.c
index d32fef4d38e..e72a09f5355 100644
--- a/kernel/fork.c
+++ b/kernel/fork.c
@@ -63,6 +63,7 @@
 #include <linux/fs_struct.h>
 #include <trace/sched.h>
 #include <linux/magic.h>
+#include <linux/perf_counter.h>
 
 #include <asm/pgtable.h>
 #include <asm/pgalloc.h>