What: /sys/bus/event_source/devices/cpu.../rdpmc Date: November 2011 KernelVersion: 3.10 Contact: Linux kernel mailing list linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Description: The /sys/bus/event_source/devices/cpu.../rdpmc attribute is used to show/manage if rdpmc instruction can be executed in user space. This attribute supports 3 numbers. - rdpmc = 0 user space rdpmc is globally disabled for all PMU counters. - rdpmc = 1 user space rdpmc is globally enabled only in event mmap ioctl called time window. If the mmap region is unmapped, user space rdpmc is disabled again. - rdpmc = 2 user space rdpmc is globally enabled for all PMU counters. In the Intel platforms supporting counter level's user space rdpmc disable feature (CPUID.23H.EBX[2] = 1), the meaning of 3 numbers is extended to - rdpmc = 0 global user space rdpmc and counter level's user space rdpmc of all counters are both disabled. - rdpmc = 1 No changes on behavior of global user space rdpmc. counter level's rdpmc of system-wide events is disabled but counter level's rdpmc of non-system-wide events is enabled. - rdpmc = 2 global user space rdpmc and counter level's user space rdpmc of all counters are both enabled unconditionally. The default value of rdpmc is 1. Please notice: - global user space rdpmc's behavior would change immediately along with the rdpmc value's change, but the behavior of counter level's user space rdpmc won't take effect immediately until the event is reactivated or recreated. - The rdpmc attribute is global, even for x86 hybrid platforms. For example, changing cpu_core/rdpmc will also change cpu_atom/rdpmc.