the buffer in an NMI handler. In this case, writing to the buffer by the NMI handler (x86) could occur also during critical sections when reading the buffer. To avoid this, there are 2 buffers for independent read and write access. Read access is in process context only, write access only in the NMI handler. If the read buffer runs empty, both buffers are swapped atomically. There is potentially a small window during swapping where the buffers are disabled and samples could be lost. Using 2 buffers is a little bit overhead, but the solution is clear and does not require changes in the ring buffer implementation. It can be changed to a single buffer solution when the ring buffer access is implemented as non-locking atomic code. The new buffer requires more size to store the same amount of samples because each sample includes an u32 header. Also, there is more code to execute for buffer access. Nonetheless, the buffer implementation is proven in the ftrace environment and worth to use also in oprofile. Patches that changes the internal IBS buffer usage will follow. Cc: Steven Rostedt Signed-off-by: Robert Richter B“ µ”