HWLATDETECT(8)              System Manager's Manual             HWLATDETECT(8)

NAME
       hwlatdetect - program to control the ftrace kernel hardware latency
       detection

SYNOPSIS
       hwlatdetect [ --duration=<time> ] [--threshold=<usecs> ]
       [--window=<time interval> ] [--width=<time interval> ]
       [--hardlimit=<microsecond value> ] [--report=<path> ] [--debug ]
       [--quiet ] [--watch]


DESCRIPTION
       hwlatdetect is a program that controls the ftrace kernel hardware
       latency detector (hwlatdetector).hwlatdetector is used to detect large
       system latencies induced by the behavior of certain underlying hardware
       or firmware, independent of Linux itself.  The code was developed
       originally to detect SMIs (System Management Interrupts) on x86
       systems, however there is nothing x86 specific about it.  It was
       originally written for use by the "RT" patch set since the Real Time
       kernel is highly latency sensitive.

       SMIs are usually not serviced by the Linux kernel, which typically does
       not even know that they are occurring. SMIs are instead are set up by
       BIOS code and are serviced by BIOS code, usually for "critical" events
       such as management of thermal sensors and fans. Sometimes though, SMIs
       are used for other tasks and those tasks can spend an inordinate amount
       of time in the handler (sometimes measured in milliseconds). Obviously
       this is a problem if you are trying to keep event service latencies
       down in the microsecond range.

       The ftrace hardware latency detector works by hogging all of the cpus
       for configurable amounts of time (by calling stop_machine()), polling
       the CPU Time Stamp Counter for some period, then looking for gaps in
       the TSC data. Any gap indicates a time when the polling was interrupted
       and since the machine is stopped and interrupts turned off the only
       thing that could do that would be an SMI.

       The hwlatdetector script manages the mounting/unmounting of the debugfs
       as well as interacting with the ftrace hwlatdetector If the debugfs is
       already mounted then hwlatdetector will not unmount it after a run.


OPTIONS
       --duration=<time>{s,m,d}
              Run the detector logic in for the specified duration. The
              duration is a base 10 integer number that defaults to a value in
              seconds. An optional suffix may be specified to indicate
              minutes, hours or days.


       --threshold=<microsecond value>
              Specify the TSC gap used to detect an SMI. Any gap value greater
              than <threshold> is considered to be the result of an SMI
              occurring.


       --hardlimit=<microsecond value>
              The test is considered to fail if a value above the hardlimit
              occurs.  This affects the exit value of hwlatdetect


       --window=<time value>{us,ms,s,m,d}
              specify the size of the sample window. Converted to microseconds
              when passed to the kernel.


       --width=<time value>{us,ms,s,m,d}
              The amount of time within the sample window where the detector
              is actually sampling. Must be less than the --window value.

       --report=FILENAME
              Specify the output filename of the detector report. Default
              behavior is to print to standard output

       --cpu-list=CPU-LIST
              Specify the CPUs for hwlat thread to move across.

       --debug
              Turn on debug prints

       --quiet
              Turn off all information prints

       --watch
              print sample data to stdout as it arrives


AUTHOR
       hwlatdetect was written by Clark Williams <williams@redhat.com>
       hwlat_detector.ko was written by Jon Masters <jcm@redhat.com>

                                 May 12, 2009                   HWLATDETECT(8)