Last Branch Records (LBR) registers are used to log taken branches and
other control flows. In perf with call stack mode, LBR information is
used to reconstruct a call stack. To get the complete call stack, perf
has to save/restore all LBR registers during a context switch. Due to
the large number of the LBR registers, e.g., the current platform has
96 LBR registers, this process causes a high CPU overhead. To reduce
the CPU overhead during a context switch, an LBR state component that
contains all the LBR related registers is introduced in hardware. All
LBR registers can be saved/restored together using one XSAVES/XRSTORS
instruction.

However, the kernel should not save/restore the LBR state component at
each context switch, like other state components, because of the
following unique features of LBR:
- The LBR state component only contains valuable information when LBR
  is enabled in the perf subsystem, but for most of the time, LBR is
  disabled.
- The size of the LBR state component is huge. For the current
  platform, it's 808 bytes.
If the kernel saves/restores the LBR state at each context switch, for
most of the time, it is just a waste of space and cycles.

To efficiently support the LBR state component, it is desired to have:
- only context-switch the LBR when the LBR feature is enabled in perf.
- only allocate an LBR-specific XSAVE buffer on demand.
  (Besides the LBR state, a legacy region and an XSAVE header have to be
   included in the buffer as well. There is a total of (808+576) byte
   overhead for the LBR-specific XSAVE buffer. The overhead only happens
   when the perf is actively using LBRs. There is still a space-saving,
   on average, when it replaces the constant 808 bytes of overhead for
   every task, all the time on the systems that support architectural
   LBR.)
- be able to use XSAVES/XRSTORS for accessing LBR at run time.
  However, the IA32_XSS should not be adjusted at run time.
  (The XCR0 | IA32_XSS are used to determine the requested-feature
  bitmap (RFBM) of XSAVES.)

A solution, called dynamic supervisor feature, is introduced to address
this issue, which
- does not allocate a buffer in each task->fpu;
- does not save/restore a state component at each context switch;
- sets the bit corresponding to the dynamic supervisor feature in
  IA32_XSS at boot time, and avoids setting it at run time.
- dynamically allocates a specific buffer for a state component
  on demand, e.g. only allocates LBR-specific XSAVE buffer when LBR is
  enabled in perf. (Note: The buffer has to include the LBR state
  component, a legacy region and a XSAVE header space.)
  (Implemented in a later patch)
- saves/restores a state component on demand, e.g. manually invokes
  the XSAVES/XRSTORS instruction to save/restore the LBR state
  to/from the buffer when perf is active and a call stack is required.
  (Implemented in a later patch)

A new mask XFEATURE_MASK_DYNAMIC and a helper xfeatures_mask_dynamic()
are introduced to indicate the dynamic supervisor feature. For the
systems which support the Architecture LBR, LBR is the only dynamic
supervisor feature for now. For the previous systems, there is no
dynamic supervisor feature available.
Signed-off-by: Kan Liang <kan.liang@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1593780569-62993-21-git-send-email-kan.liang@linux.intel.com