perf core: Allow setting up max frame stack depth via sysctl

The default remains 127, which is good for most cases, and not even hit
most of the time, but then for some cases, as reported by Brendan, 1024+
deep frames are appearing on the radar for things like groovy, ruby.

And in some workloads putting a _lower_ cap on this may make sense. One
that is per event still needs to be put in place tho.

The new file is:

  # cat /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack
  127

Chaging it:

  # echo 256 > /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack
  # cat /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack
  256

But as soon as there is some event using callchains we get:

  # echo 512 > /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack
  -bash: echo: write error: Device or resource busy
  #

Because we only allocate the callchain percpu data structures when there
is a user, which allows for changing the max easily, its just a matter
of having no callchain users at that point.

Reported-and-Tested-by: Brendan Gregg <brendan.d.gregg@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
Acked-by: David Ahern <dsahern@gmail.com>
Cc: Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com>
Cc: Alexander Shishkin <alexander.shishkin@linux.intel.com>
Cc: He Kuang <hekuang@huawei.com>
Cc: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@redhat.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>
Cc: Milian Wolff <milian.wolff@kdab.com>
Cc: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Stephane Eranian <eranian@google.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Vince Weaver <vincent.weaver@maine.edu>
Cc: Wang Nan <wangnan0@huawei.com>
Cc: Zefan Li <lizefan@huawei.com>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160426002928.GB16708@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 14 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
index 57653a44b128..260cde08e92e 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ show up in /proc/sys/kernel:
 - panic_on_warn
 - perf_cpu_time_max_percent
 - perf_event_paranoid
+- perf_event_max_stack
 - pid_max
 - powersave-nap               [ PPC only ]
 - printk
@@ -654,6 +655,19 @@ users (without CAP_SYS_ADMIN).  The default value is 1.
 
 ==============================================================
 
+perf_event_max_stack:
+
+Controls maximum number of stack frames to copy for (attr.sample_type &
+PERF_SAMPLE_CALLCHAIN) configured events, for instance, when using
+'perf record -g' or 'perf trace --call-graph fp'.
+
+This can only be done when no events are in use that have callchains
+enabled, otherwise writing to this file will return -EBUSY.
+
+The default value is 127.
+
+==============================================================
+
 pid_max:
 
 PID allocation wrap value.  When the kernel's next PID value