perfmon (4)
Leading comments
Copyright 1996 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that both the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies, that both the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all supporting documentation, and that the name of M.I.T. not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the softwar...
NAME
perfmon - CPU performance-monitoring interfaceSYNOPSIS
cpu I586_CPU cpu I686_CPU options PERFMONDESCRIPTION
The ifconfig driver provides access to the internal performance-monitoring capabilities of the Intel Pentium and Pentium Pro CPUs. These processors implement two internal counters which can be configured to measure a variety of events for either count or duration (in CPU cycles), as well as a cycle counter which counts clock cycles. The ifconfig driver provides a device-style interface to these capabilities.All access to the performance-monitoring counters is performed through the special device file ``/dev/perfmon '' This device supports a number of ioctl(2) requests, defined in In machine/perfmon.h along with the definitions of the various counters for both Pentium and Pentium Pro processors.
NOTA BENE The set of available events differs from processor to processor. It is the responsibility of the programmer to ensure that the event numbers used are the correct ones for the CPU type being measured.
The following ioctl(2) requests are defined:
- PMIOSETUP
-
(struct pmc
)
Set up a counter with parameters and flags defined in the structure.
The following fields are defined in
struct pmc
- int pmc_num
- the number of the counter in question; must be less than NPMC (currently 2).
- u_char pmc_event
- the particular event number to be monitored, as defined in In machine/perfmon.h .
- u_char pmc_unit
- the unit mask value, specific to the event type (see the Intel documentation).
- u_char pmc_flags
- flags modifying the operation of the counter (see below).
- u_char pmc_mask
- the counter mask value; essentially, this is a threshold used to restrict the count to events lasting more (or less) than the specified number of clocks.
The following pmc_flags values are defined:
- PMCF_USR
- count events in user mode
- PMCF_OS
- count events in kernel mode
- PMCF_E
- count number of events rather than their duration
- PMCF_INV
- invert the sense of the counter mask comparison
- PMIOGET
- (struct pmc ) returns the current configuration of the specified counter.
- PMIOSTART
- PMIOSTOP
- (int ) starts (stops) the specified counter. Due to hardware deficiencies, counters must be started and stopped in numerical order. (That is to say, counter 0 can never be stopped without first stopping counter 1.) The driver will not enforce this restriction (since it may not be present in future CPUs).
- PMIORESET
- (int ) reset the specified counter to zero. The counter should be stopped with PMIOSTOP before it is reset. All counters are automatically reset by PMIOSETUP
- PMIOREAD
-
(struct pmc_data
)
get the current value of the counter.
The
pmc_data
structure defines two fields:
- int pmcd_num
- the number of the counter to read
- quad_t pmcd_value
- the resulting value as a 64-bit signed integer
In the future, it may be possible to use the RDPMC instruction on Pentium Pro processors to read the counters directly.
- PMIOTSTAMP
-
(struct pmc_tstamp
)
read the time stamp counter.
The
pmc_tstamp
structure defines two fields:
- int pmct_rate
- the approximate rate of the counter, in MHz
- quad_t pmct_value
- the current value of the counter as a 64-bit integer
It is important to note that the counter rate, as provided in the pmct_rate field, is often incorrect because of calibration difficulties and non-integral clock rates. This field should be considered more of a hint or sanity-check than an actual representation of the rate of clock ticks.
FILES
- /dev/perfmon
- character device interface to counters
- /usr/include/machine/perfmon.h
- include file with definitions of structures and event types
- /usr/share/examples/perfmon
- sample source code demonstrating use of all the Fn ioctl commands
SEE ALSO
ioctl(2), hwpmc(4)- Intel Corporation Pentium Pro Family Developer's Manual January 1996 vol. 3 Operating System Writer's Manual