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Rob Herring (Arm) 58074a0fce perf: arm_pmuv3: Add support for the Branch Record Buffer Extension (BRBE)
The ARMv9.2 architecture introduces the optional Branch Record Buffer
Extension (BRBE), which records information about branches as they are
executed into set of branch record registers. BRBE is similar to x86's
Last Branch Record (LBR) and PowerPC's Branch History Rolling Buffer
(BHRB).

BRBE supports filtering by exception level and can filter just the
source or target address if excluded to avoid leaking privileged
addresses. The h/w filter would be sufficient except when there are
multiple events with disjoint filtering requirements. In this case, BRBE
is configured with a union of all the events' desired branches, and then
the recorded branches are filtered based on each event's filter. For
example, with one event capturing kernel events and another event
capturing user events, BRBE will be configured to capture both kernel
and user branches. When handling event overflow, the branch records have
to be filtered by software to only include kernel or user branch
addresses for that event. In contrast, x86 simply configures LBR using
the last installed event which seems broken.

It is possible on x86 to configure branch filter such that no branches
are ever recorded (e.g. -j save_type). For BRBE, events with a
configuration that will result in no samples are rejected.

Recording branches in KVM guests is not supported like x86. However,
perf on x86 allows requesting branch recording in guests. The guest
events are recorded, but the resulting branches are all from the host.
For BRBE, events with branch recording and "exclude_host" set are
rejected. Requiring "exclude_guest" to be set did not work. The default
for the perf tool does set "exclude_guest" if no exception level
options are specified. However, specifying kernel or user events
defaults to including both host and guest. In this case, only host
branches are recorded.

BRBE can support some additional exception branch types compared to
x86. On x86, all exceptions other than syscalls are recorded as IRQ.
With BRBE, it is possible to better categorize these exceptions. One
limitation relative to x86 is we cannot distinguish a syscall return
from other exception returns. So all exception returns are recorded as
ERET type. The FIQ branch type is omitted as the only FIQ user is Apple
platforms which don't support BRBE. The debug branch types are omitted
as there is no clear need for them.

BRBE records are invalidated whenever events are reconfigured, a new
task is scheduled in, or after recording is paused (and the records
have been recorded for the event). The architecture allows branch
records to be invalidated by the PE under implementation defined
conditions. It is expected that these conditions are rare.

Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Co-developed-by: Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual@arm.com>
Co-developed-by: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Tested-by: James Clark <james.clark@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Rob Herring (Arm) <robh@kernel.org>
tested-by: Adam Young <admiyo@os.amperecomputing.com>
Acked-by: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250611-arm-brbe-v19-v23-4-e7775563036e@kernel.org
[will: Fix sparse warnings about mixed declarations and code.
       Fix C99 comment syntax.]
Signed-off-by: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
2025-07-08 17:58:49 +01:00
arch KVM: arm64: nvhe: Disable branch generation in nVHE guests 2025-07-08 16:11:27 +01:00
block treewide, timers: Rename from_timer() to timer_container_of() 2025-06-08 09:07:37 +02:00
certs sign-file,extract-cert: use pkcs11 provider for OPENSSL MAJOR >= 3 2024-09-20 19:52:48 +03:00
crypto EFI updates for v6.16 2025-05-30 12:42:57 -07:00
Documentation arm64: Handle BRBE booting requirements 2025-07-08 16:11:27 +01:00
drivers perf: arm_pmuv3: Add support for the Branch Record Buffer Extension (BRBE) 2025-07-08 17:58:49 +01:00
fs The delayed from_timer() API cleanup: 2025-06-08 11:33:00 -07:00
include perf: arm_pmuv3: Add support for the Branch Record Buffer Extension (BRBE) 2025-07-08 17:58:49 +01:00
init Rust changes for v6.16 2025-06-04 21:18:37 -07:00
io_uring io_uring-6.16-20250606 2025-06-06 13:09:03 -07:00
ipc - The 3 patch series "hung_task: extend blocking task stacktrace dump to 2025-05-31 19:12:53 -07:00
kernel watchdog/perf: Provide function for adjusting the event period 2025-07-04 13:17:30 +01:00
lib 13 hotfixes. 6 are cc:stable and the remainder address post-6.15 issues 2025-06-06 21:45:45 -07:00
LICENSES LICENSES: add CC0-1.0 license text 2025-05-21 14:54:17 +02:00
mm treewide, timers: Rename from_timer() to timer_container_of() 2025-06-08 09:07:37 +02:00
net treewide, timers: Rename from_timer() to timer_container_of() 2025-06-08 09:07:37 +02:00
rust Char/Misc/IIO pull request for 6.16-rc1 2025-06-06 11:50:47 -07:00
samples - The 3 patch series "hung_task: extend blocking task stacktrace dump to 2025-05-31 19:12:53 -07:00
scripts Kbuild updates for v6.16 2025-06-07 10:05:35 -07:00
security require gcc-8 and binutils-2.30 2025-05-31 08:16:52 -07:00
sound treewide, timers: Rename from_timer() to timer_container_of() 2025-06-08 09:07:37 +02:00
tools turbostat v2025.06.08 2025-06-08 11:44:41 -07:00
usr usr/include: openrisc: don't HDRTEST bpf_perf_event.h 2025-05-12 15:03:17 +09:00
virt Merge branch 'kvm-lockdep-common' into HEAD 2025-05-28 06:29:17 -04:00
.clang-format Linux 6.15-rc5 2025-05-06 16:39:25 +10:00
.clippy.toml rust: clean Rust 1.88.0's warning about clippy::disallowed_macros configuration 2025-05-07 00:11:47 +02:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.editorconfig .editorconfig: remove trim_trailing_whitespace option 2024-06-13 16:47:52 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore MAINTAINERS: Retire Ralf Baechle 2024-11-12 15:48:59 +01:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set diff driver for Rust source code files 2023-05-31 17:48:25 +02:00
.gitignore .gitignore: ignore Python compiled bytecode 2025-04-24 10:12:46 -06:00
.mailmap fourteen smb3 client fixes, most smbdirect related 2025-06-08 10:20:21 -07:00
.pylintrc docs: add a .pylintrc file with sys path for docs scripts 2025-04-09 12:10:33 -06:00
.rustfmt.toml rust: add .rustfmt.toml 2022-09-28 09:02:20 +02:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS Update Christoph's Email address and make it consistent 2025-05-12 23:50:31 -07:00
Kbuild drm: ensure drm headers are self-contained and pass kernel-doc 2025-02-12 10:44:43 +02:00
Kconfig io_uring: Rename KConfig to Kconfig 2025-02-19 14:53:27 -07:00
MAINTAINERS fourteen smb3 client fixes, most smbdirect related 2025-06-08 10:20:21 -07:00
Makefile Linux 6.16-rc1 2025-06-08 13:44:43 -07:00
README README: Fix spelling 2024-03-18 03:36:32 -06:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the reStructuredText markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.