Re: [PerfSuite-users] Probmes about perfsuite

[Rick K. <rk...@il...>]

Jie,

You have come across some "legacy" issues that remain in PerfSuite (but
will change in the future).

- the "Model(Type) Unknown" output from psinv is due to the psinv
implementation lagging in terms of newer processors. This type of
string-oriented output will be going away (to make maintenance easier),
and instead will show numeric family, model info similar to
/proc/cpuinfo. Since all recent Intel and AMD processors have the "brand
string" capability ("model name" in /proc/cpuinfo), that should be a
better description source.

- you are correct about the "-e" option to psinv, again this is an area
that has not been updated. Part of the reason is the current kernel
support situation (perf_events). papi_native_avail will provide similar
info, as you point out, and can be used to learn native event names.

- you are also correct about the current behavior of supplying native
event names as "preset"s. While this will work today (the parsing source
code is more lenient than it might be), I would not recommend relying on
this behavior, as it may go away in the future. Native events should be
specified with 'type="native'" and with the XML element content being
the event name.

Rick


JiangJie wrote:
> Hi Rick,
>
> Recently, I'm trying perfsuite-1.0.0a3 on Nehalem/Linux platform. All
> required software components (perfctr patch, papi-3.7.0, tcl, tk,
> tdom,expat) work well and perfsuite-1.0.0a3 can be built successfuly.
>
> However, there are some problems confusing me.
>
> 1. Nehalem (Core i7) processor has family 6, model 26, stepping 5 as
> shown by /proc/cpuinfo.
> But the psinv command shows "Model(Type) Unknown".
> I'm not clear about the "Model(Type)" in perfsuite. Should it be
> Corei7 for this processor?
> Perhaps psinv should be changed to support Core i7.
>
>
> [root@node2]cat /proc/cpuinfo
> processor : 0
> vendor_id : GenuineIntel
> cpu family : 6
> model : 26
> model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5540 @ 2.53GHz
> stepping : 5
> cpu M! Hz : 1600.000
> cache size : 8192 KB
> physical id : 0
> siblings : 4
> core id : 0
> cpu cores : 4
> apicid : 0
> initial apicid : 0
> fpu : yes
> fpu_exception : yes
> cpuid level : 11
> wp : yes
> flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov
> pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx
> rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl pni monitor
> ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm ida
> bogomips : 5066.82
> clflush size : 64
> cache_alignment : 64
> address sizes &nb! sp; : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
> power management:
> ..........
>
> [root@node2]psinv -e
> System Information -
> Node Name: node2
> OS Name: Linux
> OS Release: 2.6.27perfctr
> OS Build/Version: #1 SMP Fri Nov 6 11:38:00 CST 2009
> OS Machine: x86_64
> Processors: 8
> Total Memory (MB): 16078.68
> System Page Size (KB): 4.00
>
> Processor Information -
> Vendor: Intel
> Processor family: Pentium Pro (P6)
> Brand: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5540 @ 2.53GHz
> Model (Type): (unknown)!
> Revision: 5
> Clock Speed:&nbs! p; 1600.00 MHz
>
> Cache and TLB Information -
> Cache levels: 3
>
> Cache Details -
> Level 1:
> Type: Instruction
> Size: 32 KB
> Line size: 64 bytes
> Associativity: 4-way set associative
>
> Type: Data
> Size: 32 KB
> Line size: 64 bytes
> Associativity: 8-way set associative
>
> Level 2:
> Type: Unified
> Size: 256 KB
> Line size: 64 bytes
> Associ! ativity: 8-way set associative
>
> Level 3:
> Type: Unified
> Size: 8.00 MB
> Line size: 64 bytes
> Associativity: 16-way set associative
>
> TLB Details -
> Level 1:
> Type: Unified
> Entries: 512
> Pagesize (KB): 4
> Associativity: 4-way set associative
>
> Type: Instruction
> Entries: 128
> Pagesize (KB): 4
> Associativity: 4-way set associative
>
> Type: Instruc! tion
> Entries: 7
> ! Pagesize (KB): 2048 4096
> Associativity: Fully associative
>
> Type: Data
> Entries: 64
> Pagesize (KB): 4
> Associativity: 4-way set associative
>
> Type: Data
> Entries: 32
> Pagesize (KB): 2048 4096
> Associativity: 4-way set associative
>
> The "-e" (or "--events") option is not supported on this system
>
> 2. From the above psinv outputs, we can see that "-e"(or "--evetns")
> option only works if PERFMON is installed.
> This will confuse users because in fact native events list can be
> abtained by papi_native_avail on x86/x86_64 platform.
> Will you pla! n to change psinv to show the native event list for
> x86/x86_64 processsors?
> Or I can help to do this.
>
> 3. The third problem is about the psrun config files.
> As we know, there are preset events and native events in PAPI.
> Does the "event type" in config file determines preset/native events
> to be collected?
> However, when combine type=preset with native_event_name, psrun works
> well.
> Should native event name be used with native type?
>
> So confusing.
>
> Regards,
> Jie Jiang
>
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