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From:   Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>
Date:   Tue, 19 Jan 2021 17:02:36 -0800
Message-ID: <CAKwvOd=BK3DBm0H9GiiicY2NWP9KLq7_Qtx5VY-iezW3o5zuTg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5] pgo: add clang's Profile Guided Optimization infrastructure
To:     Bill Wendling <morbo@google.com>
Cc:     Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
        Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>,
        Linux Doc Mailing List <linux-doc@vger.kernel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Linux Kbuild mailing list <linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org>,
        clang-built-linux <clang-built-linux@googlegroups.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        Nathan Chancellor <natechancellor@gmail.com>,
        Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com>
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On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 1:44 AM Bill Wendling <morbo@google.com> wrote:
>
> From: Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com>
>
> Enable the use of clang's Profile-Guided Optimization[1]. To generate a
> profile, the kernel is instrumented with PGO counters, a representative
> workload is run, and the raw profile data is collected from
> /sys/kernel/debug/pgo/profraw.
>
> The raw profile data must be processed by clang's "llvm-profdata" tool
> before it can be used during recompilation:
>
>   $ cp /sys/kernel/debug/pgo/profraw vmlinux.profraw
>   $ llvm-profdata merge --output=vmlinux.profdata vmlinux.profraw
>
> Multiple raw profiles may be merged during this step.
>
> The data can now be used by the compiler:
>
>   $ make LLVM=1 KCFLAGS=-fprofile-use=vmlinux.profdata ...
>
> This initial submission is restricted to x86, as that's the platform we
> know works. This restriction can be lifted once other platforms have
> been verified to work with PGO.
>
> Note that this method of profiling the kernel is clang-native, unlike
> the clang support in kernel/gcov.
>
> [1] https://clang.llvm.org/docs/UsersManual.html#profile-guided-optimization
>
> Signed-off-by: Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com>
> Co-developed-by: Bill Wendling <morbo@google.com>
> Signed-off-by: Bill Wendling <morbo@google.com>
> ---
> v2: - Added "__llvm_profile_instrument_memop" based on Nathan Chancellor's
>       testing.
>     - Corrected documentation, re PGO flags when using LTO, based on Fangrui
>       Song's comments.
> v3: - Added change log section based on Sedat Dilek's comments.
> v4: - Remove non-x86 Makfile changes and se "hweight64" instead of using our
>       own popcount implementation, based on Nick Desaulniers's comment.
> v5: - Correct padding calculation, discovered by Nathan Chancellor.

Specifically for v5:
Tested-by: Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>

If anything changes drastically, please drop that and I'll retest it;
otherwise for changes to the commit message or docs, feel free to
carry it forward.

I'll try to provide code review by EOW, assuming we can stop
regressing LLVM so I can focus. (Ha!)
-- 
Thanks,
~Nick Desaulniers