Re: [PATCH v3 11/19] unwind: Add deferred user space unwinding API

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 01:47:59PM -0400, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> On 2024-10-29 13:17, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 02:56:17PM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > > On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 02:47:38PM -0700, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > > 
> > > > + * The only exception is when the task has migrated to another CPU, *and* this
> > > > + * is called while the task work is running (or has already run).  Then a new
> > > > + * cookie will be generated and the callback will be called again for the new
> > > > + * cookie.
> > > 
> > > So that's a bit crap. The user stack won't change for having been
> > > migrated.
> > > 
> > > So perf can readily use the full u64 cookie value as a sequence number,
> > > since the whole perf record will already have the TID of the task in.
> > > Mixing in this CPU number for no good reason and causing trouble like
> > > this just doesn't make sense to me.
> > > 
> > > If ftrace needs brain damage like this, can't we push this to the user?
> > > 
> > > That is, do away with the per-cpu sequence crap, and add a per-task
> > > counter that is incremented for every return-to-userspace.
> > 
> > That would definitely make things easier for me, though IIRC Steven and
> > Mathieu had some concerns about TID wrapping over days/months/years.
> > 
> > With that mindset I suppose the per-CPU counter could also wrap, though
> > that could be mitigated by making the cookie a struct with more bits.
> > 
> 
> AFAIR, the scheme we discussed in Prague was different than the
> implementation here.
> 
> We discussed having a free-running counter per-cpu, and combining it
> with the cpu number as top (or low) bits, to effectively make a 64-bit
> value that is unique across the entire system, but without requiring a
> global counter with its associated cache line bouncing.
> 
> Here is part where the implementation here differs from our discussion:
> I recall we discussed keeping a snapshot of the counter value within
> the task struct of the thread. So we only snapshot the per-cpu value
> on first use after entering the kernel, and after that we use the same
> per-cpu value snapshot (from task struct) up until return to userspace.
> We clear the task struct cookie snapshot on return to userspace.
> 
> This way, even if the thread is migrated during the system call, the
> cookie value does not change: it simply depends on the point where it
> was first snapshotted (either before or after migration). From that
> point until return to userspace, we just use the per-thread snapshot
> value.
> 
> This should allow us to keep a global cookie semantic (no need to
> tie this to tracer-specific knowledge about current TID), without the
> migration corner cases discussed in the comment above.

The 48:16 bit split gives you uniqueness for around 78 hours at 1GHz.

But seriously, perf doesn't need this. It really only needs a sequence
number if you care to stitch over a LOST packet (and I can't say I care
about that case much) -- and doing that right doesn't really take much
at all.