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diff --git a/Documentation/hwlat_detector.txt b/Documentation/hwlat_detector.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..cb61516483d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/hwlat_detector.txt @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ +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. |