ecadmin(1)

NAME
     ecadmin - configure and control the global event counters

SYNOPSIS
     ecadmin [-aDlr] [-d event[,event...]]  [-e event[,event...]]

DESCRIPTION
     ecadmin may be used on systems with R10000 processors to configure the
     global event counters maintained by IRIX using the underlying hardware
     event counter mechanisms.  The global event counters are maintained on a
     system-wide basis, aggregated over all processes and for all user and
     system mode execution.

     The event arguments identify hardware-specific event types.  These may be
     either integers or mnemonic, case-insensitive names.  In conjunction with
     the -e option, a single event specification of ? (with appropriate shell
     escape) will cause ecadmin to list all known event types, and then exit.

     The normal usage would be to enable global event counters with ecadmin
     and then to monitor the event counters with ecstats(1) or the Performance
     Co-Pilot tools.

     The options to ecadmin are as follows;

     -a   Enable all event counters; this is an abbreviation for using -e with
          all of the possible event types enumerated.

     -D   Turn on diagnostic output associated with the control operations.

     -d   Disable event counting for the nominated event types.

     -e   Enable event counting for the nominated event types.

     -l   List all event types for which counting is currently enabled.

     -r   Disable (and release the allocation for) all global event counters.

CAVEAT
     The underlying hardware event counters are a finite resource, to be
     shared amongst multiple competing uses.  If global event counting is
     enabled via ecadmin then this will augment any concurrent use resulting
     from an earlier use of ecadmin, and/or pre-empt any concurrent use of the
     process-oriented event counters via either perfex(1) or the counter-based
     SpeedShop profiling tools.

     Once any global event counters have been enabled with ecadmin, then any
     future attempts to use either perfex(1) or the counter-based Workshop
     profiling tools will be unsuccessful, until all global event counters are
     released, either with -r or by disabling all active counters via -d.
     For this reason, the user of ecadmin must be root to use any option other
     than -l or -e ?.

SEE ALSO
     ecstats(1), perfex(1), pminfo(1), speedshop(1) and r10k_counters(5).

     The specifications for the R10000 event counters may be found at
     http://www.sgi.com/MIPS/products/r10k/Perf_Cnt/R10K_PF_Count.doc.html

CAVEATS
     Depending on the revision of the R10000 CPUs there is a difference in the
     interpretation of counter number 14 (``Virtual coherency condition'' for
     parts before revision 3.1 or ``ALU/FPU completion cycles'' for parts at
     revision 3.1 or later).  There are also some subtle differences in the
     semantics of some of the counters.

     In systems with a homogeneous deployment of CPUs at the same revision,
     ecadmin will adjust the reported information accordingly.

     For systems with a mixed deployment of CPU revisions including some
     before 3.1 and some at or after 3.1, the interpretation of counter 14 is
     undefined, and there may be some slight inaccuracies due to aggregation
     of counters with different semantics across all CPUs.

     Identification of the revisions for all CPUs can be made using the -v
     option to hinv(1).