[PATCH v2] KVM/arm64: reconfigurate the event filters for guest context

From: Huang Shijie
Date: Thu Aug 10 2023 - 03:33:56 EST


1.) Background.
1.1) In arm64, start a guest with Qemu which is running as a VMM of KVM,
and bind the guest to core 33 and run program "a" in guest.
The code of "a" shows below:
----------------------------------------------------------
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
unsigned long i = 0;

for (;;) {
i++;
}

printf("i:%ld\n", i);
return 0;
}
----------------------------------------------------------

1.2) Use the following perf command in host:
#perf stat -e cycles:G,cycles:H -C 33 -I 1000 sleep 1
# time counts unit events
1.000817400 3,299,471,572 cycles:G
1.000817400 3,240,586 cycles:H

This result is correct, my cpu's frequency is 3.3G.

1.3) Use the following perf command in host:
#perf stat -e cycles:G,cycles:H -C 33 -d -d -I 1000 sleep 1
time counts unit events
1.000831480 153,634,097 cycles:G (70.03%)
1.000831480 3,147,940,599 cycles:H (70.03%)
1.000831480 1,143,598,527 L1-dcache-loads (70.03%)
1.000831480 9,986 L1-dcache-load-misses # 0.00% of all L1-dcache accesses (70.03%)
1.000831480 <not supported> LLC-loads
1.000831480 <not supported> LLC-load-misses
1.000831480 580,887,696 L1-icache-loads (70.03%)
1.000831480 77,855 L1-icache-load-misses # 0.01% of all L1-icache accesses (70.03%)
1.000831480 6,112,224,612 dTLB-loads (70.03%)
1.000831480 16,222 dTLB-load-misses # 0.00% of all dTLB cache accesses (69.94%)
1.000831480 590,015,996 iTLB-loads (59.95%)
1.000831480 505 iTLB-load-misses # 0.00% of all iTLB cache accesses (59.95%)

This result is wrong. The "cycle:G" should be nearly 3.3G.

2.) Root cause.
There is only 7 counters in my arm64 platform:
(one cycle counter) + (6 normal counters)

In 1.3 above, we will use 10 event counters.
Since we only have 7 counters, the perf core will trigger
multiplexing in hrtimer:
perf_mux_hrtimer_restart() --> perf_rotate_context().

If the hrtimer occurs when the host is running, it's fine.
If the hrtimer occurs when the guest is running,
the perf_rotate_context() will program the PMU with filters for
host context. The KVM does not have a chance to restore
PMU registers with kvm_vcpu_pmu_restore_guest().
The PMU does not work correctly, so we got wrong result.

3.) About this patch.
Make a KVM_REQ_RELOAD_PMU request before reentering the
guest. The request will call kvm_vcpu_pmu_restore_guest()
to reconfigurate the filters for guest context.

4.) Test result of this patch:
#perf stat -e cycles:G,cycles:H -C 33 -d -d -I 1000 sleep 1
time counts unit events
1.001006400 3,298,348,656 cycles:G (70.03%)
1.001006400 3,144,532 cycles:H (70.03%)
1.001006400 941,149 L1-dcache-loads (70.03%)
1.001006400 17,937 L1-dcache-load-misses # 1.91% of all L1-dcache accesses (70.03%)
1.001006400 <not supported> LLC-loads
1.001006400 <not supported> LLC-load-misses
1.001006400 1,101,889 L1-icache-loads (70.03%)
1.001006400 121,638 L1-icache-load-misses # 11.04% of all L1-icache accesses (70.03%)
1.001006400 1,031,228 dTLB-loads (70.03%)
1.001006400 26,952 dTLB-load-misses # 2.61% of all dTLB cache accesses (69.93%)
1.001006400 1,030,678 iTLB-loads (59.94%)
1.001006400 338 iTLB-load-misses # 0.03% of all iTLB cache accesses (59.94%)

The result is correct. The "cycle:G" is nearly 3.3G now.

Signed-off-by: Huang Shijie <shijie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
v1 --> v2:
Do not change perf/core code, only change the ARM64 kvm code.
v1: https://lkml.org/lkml/2023/8/8/1465

---
arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c | 11 ++++++++++-
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c
index c2c14059f6a8..475a2f0e0e40 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/arm.c
@@ -919,8 +919,17 @@ int kvm_arch_vcpu_ioctl_run(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
if (!ret)
ret = 1;

- if (ret > 0)
+ if (ret > 0) {
+ /*
+ * The perf_rotate_context() may rotate the events and
+ * reprogram PMU with filters for host context.
+ * So make a request before reentering the guest to
+ * reconfigurate the event filters for guest context.
+ */
+ kvm_make_request(KVM_REQ_RELOAD_PMU, vcpu);
+
ret = check_vcpu_requests(vcpu);
+ }

/*
* Preparing the interrupts to be injected also
--
2.39.2