Re: [PATCH v3 4/5] perf kvm: Support sampling guest callchains

[Sean Christopherson]

On Sun, Dec 10, 2023, Tianyi Liu wrote:
> This patch provides support for sampling guests' callchains.
> 
> The signature of `get_perf_callchain` has been modified to explicitly
> specify whether it needs to sample the host or guest callchain. Based on
> the context, `get_perf_callchain` will distribute each sampling request
> to one of `perf_callchain_user`, `perf_callchain_kernel`,
> or `perf_callchain_guest`.
> 
> The reason for separately implementing `perf_callchain_user` and
> `perf_callchain_kernel` is that the kernel may utilize special unwinders
> like `ORC`. However, for the guest, we only support stackframe-based
> unwinding, so the implementation is generic and only needs to be
> separately implemented for 32-bit and 64-bit.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Tianyi Liu <i.pear@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  arch/x86/events/core.c     | 63 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
>  include/linux/perf_event.h |  3 +-
>  kernel/bpf/stackmap.c      |  8 ++---
>  kernel/events/callchain.c  | 27 +++++++++++++++-
>  kernel/events/core.c       |  7 ++++-
>  5 files changed, 91 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/arch/x86/events/core.c b/arch/x86/events/core.c
> index 40ad1425ffa2..4ff412225217 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/events/core.c
> +++ b/arch/x86/events/core.c
> @@ -2758,11 +2758,6 @@ perf_callchain_kernel(struct perf_callchain_entry_ctx *entry, struct pt_regs *re
>  	struct unwind_state state;
>  	unsigned long addr;
>  
> -	if (perf_guest_state()) {
> -		/* TODO: We don't support guest os callchain now */
> -		return;
> -	}
> -
>  	if (perf_callchain_store(entry, regs->ip))
>  		return;
>  
> @@ -2778,6 +2773,59 @@ perf_callchain_kernel(struct perf_callchain_entry_ctx *entry, struct pt_regs *re
>  	}
>  }
>  
> +static inline void
> +perf_callchain_guest32(struct perf_callchain_entry_ctx *entry,
> +		       const struct perf_kvm_guest_unwind_info *unwind_info)
> +{
> +	unsigned long ss_base, cs_base;
> +	struct stack_frame_ia32 frame;
> +	const struct stack_frame_ia32 *fp;
> +
> +	cs_base = unwind_info->segment_cs_base;
> +	ss_base = unwind_info->segment_ss_base;
> +
> +	fp = (void *)(ss_base + unwind_info->frame_pointer);
> +	while (fp && entry->nr < entry->max_stack) {
> +		if (!perf_guest_read_virt((unsigned long)&fp->next_frame,

This is extremely confusing and potentially dangerous.  ss_base and
unwind_info->frame_pointer are *guest* SS:RBP, i.e. this is referencing a guest
virtual address.  It works, but it _looks_ like the code is fully dereferencing
a guest virtual address in the hose kernel.  And I can only imagine what type of
speculative accesses this generates.

*If* we want to support guest callchains, I think it would make more sense to
have a single hook for KVM/virtualization to fill perf_callchain_entry_ctx.  Then
there's no need for "struct perf_kvm_guest_unwind_info", perf doesn't need a hook
to read guest memory, and KVM can decide/control what to do with respect to
mitigating speculatiion issues. 

> +					  &frame.next_frame, sizeof(frame.next_frame)))
> +			break;
> +		if (!perf_guest_read_virt((unsigned long)&fp->return_address,
> +					  &frame.return_address, sizeof(frame.return_address)))
> +			break;
> +		perf_callchain_store(entry, cs_base + frame.return_address);
> +		fp = (void *)(ss_base + frame.next_frame);
> +	}
> +}