On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 11:33:50AM -0700, Song Liu wrote:

The typical way to access branch record (e.g. Intel LBR) is via hardware
perf_event. For CPUs with FREEZE_LBRS_ON_PMI support, PMI could capture
reliable LBR. On the other hand, LBR could also be useful in non-PMI
scenario. For example, in kretprobe or bpf fexit program, LBR could
provide a lot of information on what happened with the function. Add API
to use branch record for software use.

Note that, when the software event triggers, it is necessary to stop the
branch record hardware asap. Therefore, static_call is used to remove some
branch instructions in this process.

Suggested-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Acked-by: John Fastabend <john.fastabend@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Song Liu <redacted>

Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>