perf unwind-libdw: Fix unwinding of multi-threaded processes

The libdw callback API has two levels: dwfl_getthread_frames() first finds
the requested thread using the next_thread() or get_thread() callback and
then walks its stack.

Since perf only has a snapshot of the stack of a single thread, it
provides a stubbed-out API that always returns the pid the Dwfl was
attached with (i.e. whatever was passed to dwfl_attach_state()), rather
than the actual sampled thread's TID.

Commit 6b2658b3f3 ("perf unwind-libdw: Don't discard loaded ELF/DWARF
after every unwind") changed libdw unwinding from recreating the Dwfl
object for each sample to caching it in struct maps, which is shared by
every thread in the process. It left next_thread() unchanged.

Since the pid passed to dwfl_attach_state() is only set at creation, only
the thread of the first sample is ever found. As a result,
dwfl_getthread_frames() fails with ESRCH when asked to unwind a sample
from another thread.

Make next_thread() return the current sample's TID, provide get_thread()
so libdw can find it directly, and pass the process PID expected by
dwfl_attach_state(). This allows libdw to unwind samples from every thread
in a multi-threaded process.

Add a shell regression test that records a four-thread workload and
verifies that libdw recovers the worker callchain for every worker TID.

Fixes: 6b2658b3f3 ("perf unwind-libdw: Don't discard loaded ELF/DWARF after every unwind")
Assisted-by: Codex:gpt-5.6-sol
Signed-off-by: Alessio Podda <aleph.pi.gh@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
This commit is contained in:
Alessio Podda
2026-07-24 17:40:57 +02:00
committed by Namhyung Kim
parent b56de9f262
commit f2effca1ef
2 changed files with 86 additions and 3 deletions

View File

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
#!/bin/sh
# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
# Test libdw unwinding of multi-threaded processes (exclusive)
set -e
if ! perf check feature -q libdw-dwarf-unwind; then
echo "Skip: libdw DWARF unwinding is not available"
exit 2
fi
tmpdir=$(mktemp -d /tmp/perf-test-dwarf-unwind-multithreaded.XXXXXX)
perf_data="$tmpdir/perf.data"
perf_script="$tmpdir/perf-script.txt"
nr_threads=4
nr_worker_threads=$((nr_threads - 1))
cleanup()
{
trap - EXIT TERM INT
rm -rf "$tmpdir"
}
trap cleanup EXIT TERM INT
if ! perf record -q -e task-clock:u -F 99 --call-graph dwarf,8192 \
-o "$perf_data" -- perf test -w thloop 2 "$nr_threads"
then
echo "Skip: failed to record task-clock:u"
exit 2
fi
if ! perf script --unwind-style=libdw \
-F comm,pid,tid,event,ip,sym -i "$perf_data" > "$perf_script"
then
echo "Error: failed to process the recording with libdw" >&2
exit 1
fi
nr_unwound_threads=$(
awk '
BEGIN { RS = "" }
# thfunc is the worker-only caller of test_loop. Finding it proves
# that libdw unwound beyond the sampled leaf for this worker TID.
/thfunc/ {
split($2, id, "/")
seen[id[2]] = 1
}
END {
for (tid in seen)
nr_tids++
print nr_tids + 0
}
' "$perf_script"
)
if [ "$nr_unwound_threads" -ne "$nr_worker_threads" ]; then
echo "Error: expected callchains for $nr_worker_threads worker TIDs," \
"found $nr_unwound_threads" >&2
exit 1
fi
exit 0

View File

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
#include <assert.h>
#include <linux/compiler.h>
#include <elfutils/libdw.h>
#include <elfutils/libdwfl.h>
@@ -173,14 +174,30 @@ static int entry(u64 ip, struct unwind_info *ui)
return 0;
}
static pid_t next_thread(Dwfl *dwfl, void *arg, void **thread_argp)
static pid_t next_thread(Dwfl *dwfl __maybe_unused, void *arg, void **thread_argp)
{
struct dwfl_ui_thread_info *dwfl_ui_ti = arg;
/* We want only single thread to be processed. */
if (*thread_argp != NULL)
return 0;
assert(dwfl_ui_ti->ui != NULL);
*thread_argp = arg;
return dwfl_pid(dwfl);
return thread__tid(dwfl_ui_ti->ui->thread);
}
static bool get_thread(Dwfl *dwfl __maybe_unused, pid_t tid, void *arg,
void **thread_argp)
{
struct dwfl_ui_thread_info *dwfl_ui_ti = arg;
assert(dwfl_ui_ti->ui != NULL);
if (tid != thread__tid(dwfl_ui_ti->ui->thread))
return false;
*thread_argp = arg;
return true;
}
static int access_dso_mem(struct unwind_info *ui, Dwarf_Addr addr,
@@ -306,6 +323,7 @@ static bool libdw_set_initial_registers(Dwfl_Thread *thread, void *arg)
static const Dwfl_Thread_Callbacks callbacks = {
.next_thread = next_thread,
.get_thread = get_thread,
.memory_read = memory_read,
.set_initial_registers = libdw_set_initial_registers,
};
@@ -400,7 +418,7 @@ int libdw__get_entries(unwind_entry_cb_t cb, void *arg,
if (err)
goto out;
dwfl_attach_state(dwfl, /*elf=*/NULL, thread__tid(thread), &callbacks,
dwfl_attach_state(dwfl, /*elf=*/NULL, thread__pid(thread), &callbacks,
/* Dwfl thread function argument*/dwfl_ui_ti);
// Ignore thread already attached error.