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kernel/linux-rt-4.4.41/Documentation/hwlat_detector.txt 3.2 KB
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  Introduction:
  -------------
  
  The module hwlat_detector is a special purpose kernel module that is used to
  detect large system latencies induced by the behavior of certain underlying
  hardware or firmware, independent of Linux itself. The code was developed
  originally to detect SMIs (System Management Interrupts) on x86 systems,
  however there is nothing x86 specific about this patchset. It was
  originally written for use by the "RT" patch since the Real Time
  kernel is highly latency sensitive.
  
  SMIs are usually not serviced by the Linux kernel, which typically does not
  even know that they are occuring. SMIs are instead are set up by BIOS code
  and are serviced by BIOS code, usually for "critical" events such as
  management of thermal sensors and fans. Sometimes though, SMIs are used for
  other tasks and those tasks can spend an inordinate amount of time in the
  handler (sometimes measured in milliseconds). Obviously this is a problem if
  you are trying to keep event service latencies down in the microsecond range.
  
  The hardware latency detector works by hogging all of the cpus for configurable
  amounts of time (by calling stop_machine()), polling the CPU Time Stamp Counter
  for some period, then looking for gaps in the TSC data. Any gap indicates a
  time when the polling was interrupted and since the machine is stopped and
  interrupts turned off the only thing that could do that would be an SMI.
  
  Note that the SMI detector should *NEVER* be used in a production environment.
  It is intended to be run manually to determine if the hardware platform has a
  problem with long system firmware service routines.
  
  Usage:
  ------
  
  Loading the module hwlat_detector passing the parameter "enabled=1" (or by
  setting the "enable" entry in "hwlat_detector" debugfs toggled on) is the only
  step required to start the hwlat_detector. It is possible to redefine the
  threshold in microseconds (us) above which latency spikes will be taken
  into account (parameter "threshold=").
  
  Example:
  
  	# modprobe hwlat_detector enabled=1 threshold=100
  
  After the module is loaded, it creates a directory named "hwlat_detector" under
  the debugfs mountpoint, "/debug/hwlat_detector" for this text. It is necessary
  to have debugfs mounted, which might be on /sys/debug on your system.
  
  The /debug/hwlat_detector interface contains the following files:
  
  count			- number of latency spikes observed since last reset
  enable			- a global enable/disable toggle (0/1), resets count
  max			- maximum hardware latency actually observed (usecs)
  sample			- a pipe from which to read current raw sample data
  			  in the format <timestamp> <latency observed usecs>
  			  (can be opened O_NONBLOCK for a single sample)
  threshold		- minimum latency value to be considered (usecs)
  width			- time period to sample with CPUs held (usecs)
  			  must be less than the total window size (enforced)
  window			- total period of sampling, width being inside (usecs)
  
  By default we will set width to 500,000 and window to 1,000,000, meaning that
  we will sample every 1,000,000 usecs (1s) for 500,000 usecs (0.5s). If we
  observe any latencies that exceed the threshold (initially 100 usecs),
  then we write to a global sample ring buffer of 8K samples, which is
  consumed by reading from the "sample" (pipe) debugfs file interface.