[PATCH v7 0/8] perf cs-etm: Support thread stack and callchain
Leo Yan
leo.yan at arm.com
Thu Jun 11 00:56:54 PDT 2026
This series adds thread-stack and synthesized callchain support for Arm
CoreSight, which comes from older series [1] but heavily rewritten.
CS ETM previously kept last-branch state in a per-trace-queue buffer.
That effectively makes the state per CPU, while the call/return history
belongs to a thread. This series moves branch tracking to the common
thread-stack code.
The series records CoreSight branches with thread_stack__event(), uses
thread_stack__br_sample() for last branch entries, flushes thread stacks
after decoder resets.
A decoder reset between AUX trace buffers is treated as a global trace
discontinuity, so all thread stacks are flushed, so avoids carrying
stale call/return history across a trace discontinuity.
One limitation remains for instructions emulated by the kernel. In that
case the exception return address may not match the return address
stored in the thread stack, because after exception return can be one
instruction ahead. The stack can still recover when a later return
matches an upper caller. Given emulated instructions are not the common
target for performance callchain analysis. Supporting this would require
extending the common thread-stack path to accept both the real target
address and an adjusted address for stack matching, so this series
leaves that extra complexity out.
The series has been tested on Orion6 board:
perf test 136 -vvv
136: CoreSight synthesized callchain:
--- start ---
test child forked, pid 3539
---- end(0) ----
136: CoreSight synthesized callchain : Ok
perf script --itrace=g16i10il64
callchain_test 17468 [005] 1031003.229943: 10 instructions:
aaaac32507c4 main+0x8 (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
ffff90bd225c __libc_start_call_main+0x7c (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6)
ffff90bd233c call_init+0x9c (inlined)
ffff90bd233c __libc_start_main_impl+0x9c (inlined)
aaaac3250670 _start+0x30 (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
callchain_test 17468 [005] 1031003.229943: 10 instructions:
aaaac3250774 do_svc+0xc (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
aaaac3250798 print+0xc (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
aaaac32507b0 foo+0xc (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
aaaac32507c8 main+0xc (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
ffff90bd225c __libc_start_call_main+0x7c (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6)
ffff90bd233c call_init+0x9c (inlined)
ffff90bd233c __libc_start_main_impl+0x9c (inlined)
aaaac3250670 _start+0x30 (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
callchain_test 17468 [005] 1031003.229944: 10 instructions:
ffff800080010c20 vectors+0x420 ([kernel.kallsyms])
aaaac3250784 do_svc+0x1c (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
aaaac3250798 print+0xc (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
aaaac32507b0 foo+0xc (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
aaaac32507c8 main+0xc (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
ffff90bd225c __libc_start_call_main+0x7c (/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6)
ffff90bd233c call_init+0x9c (inlined)
ffff90bd233c __libc_start_main_impl+0x9c (inlined)
aaaac3250670 _start+0x30 (/home/kernel/leoy/test_cs_callchain/callchain_test)
Note, the test fails on Juno board which is caused by many discontinuity
packets (mainly caused by NO_SYNC elem). This is likely caused by the
FIFO overflow on the path.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20200220052701.7754-1-leo.yan@linaro.org/
Signed-off-by: Leo Yan <leo.yan at arm.com>
---
Changes in v7:
- Rebased on the latest perf-tools-next.
- Used struct_size() for allocation callchain struct (James).
- Added a helper cs_etm__packet_has_taken_branch() (James).
- Minor improvements for the callchain test (used record-ctl FIFO and
reworked the validation callstack push / pop).
- Link to v6: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260526-b4-arm_cs_callchain_support_v1-v6-0-f9f49f53c9dd@arm.com
Changes in v6:
- Heavily rewrote the patches since restarted the work after 6 years.
- Changed to use the common thread-stack for branch stack and callchain
management.
- Added a callchain test.
- Link to v5: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20200220052701.7754-1-leo.yan@linaro.org/
Changes in v5:
- Addressed Mike's suggestion for performance improvement for function
cs_etm__instr_addr() for quick calculation for non T32;
- Removed the patch 'perf cs-etm: Synchronize instruction sample with
the thread stack' (Mike);
- Fixed the issue for exception is taken for branch target address
accessing, for the branch sample and stack thread handling, the
related patches are 01, 02, 07;
- Fixed the stack thread handling for instruction emulation and single
step with patches 08, 09.
- Link to v4: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20200203020716.31832-1-leo.yan@linaro.org/
Changes in v4:
- Split out separate patch set for instruction samples fixing.
- Rebased on latest perf/core branch.
- Link to v3: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20191005091614.11635-1-leo.yan@linaro.org/
---
Leo Yan (8):
perf cs-etm: Filter synthesized branch samples
perf cs-etm: Decode ETE exception packets
perf cs-etm: Refactor instruction size handling
perf cs-etm: Use thread-stack for last branch entries
perf cs-etm: Flush thread stacks after decoder reset
perf cs-etm: Support call indentation
perf cs-etm: Synthesize callchains for instruction samples
perf test: Add Arm CoreSight callchain test
tools/perf/Documentation/perf-test.txt | 6 +-
tools/perf/tests/builtin-test.c | 1 +
tools/perf/tests/shell/coresight/callchain.sh | 168 ++++++++++++
tools/perf/tests/tests.h | 1 +
tools/perf/tests/workloads/Build | 2 +
tools/perf/tests/workloads/callchain.c | 24 ++
tools/perf/util/cs-etm.c | 351 +++++++++++++++-----------
7 files changed, 410 insertions(+), 143 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: 7336514f41e75d44782fee7e0990d4195a3d3161
change-id: 20260521-b4-arm_cs_callchain_support_v1-2c2a70719bcc
Best regards,
--
Leo Yan <leo.yan at arm.com>
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