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From: Zide Chen <zide.chen@intel.com>
To: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>,
	Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Cc: kvm@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>,
	Mingwei Zhang <mizhang@google.com>,
	Zide Chen <zide.chen@intel.com>,
	Das Sandipan <Sandipan.Das@amd.com>,
	Shukla Manali <Manali.Shukla@amd.com>,
	Dapeng Mi <dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com>,
	Falcon Thomas <thomas.falcon@intel.com>,
	Xudong Hao <xudong.hao@intel.com>
Subject: [PATCH V3 0/4] KVM: x86/pmu: Add hardware Topdown metrics support
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:01:14 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260615230118.50718-1-zide.chen@intel.com> (raw)

The Top-Down Microarchitecture Analysis (TMA) method is a structured
approach for identifying performance bottlenecks in out-of-order
processors.

Currently, guests support the TMA method by collecting Topdown events
using GP counters, which may trigger multiplexing.  To free up scarce
GP counters, eliminate multiplexing-induced skew, and obtain coherent
Topdown metric ratios, it is desirable to expose fixed counter 3 and
the IA32_PERF_METRICS MSR to guests.

Several attempts have been made to virtualize this under the legacy
vPMU model [1][2][3], but they were unsuccessful.  With the new mediated
vPMU, enabling TMA support in guests becomes much simpler.  It avoids
invasive changes to the perf core, eliminates CPU pinning and
fixed-counter affinity issues, and reduces the latge overhead of
trapping and emulating MSR accesses.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20231031090613.2872700-1-dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230927033124.1226509-1-dapeng1.mi@linux.intel.com/T/
[3] https://lwn.net/ml/linux-kernel/20221212125844.41157-1-likexu@tencent.com/

Tested on an SPR.  Without this series, only raw topdown.*_slots events
work in the guest, and metric events (e.g. cpu/topdown-bad-spec/) are
not available.

With this series, metric events are visible in the guest.  Run this
command on both host and guest:

$ perf stat --topdown --no-metric-only -- taskset -c 2 perf bench sched messaging

Host results:

# Running 'sched/messaging' benchmark:
# 20 sender and receiver processes per group
# 10 groups == 400 processes run

     Total time: 1.500 [sec]

 Performance counter stats for 'taskset -c 2 perf bench sched messaging':

     4,266,060,558      TOPDOWN.SLOTS:u              #     32.0 %  tma_frontend_bound
                                                     #      5.2 %  tma_bad_speculation
       588,397,905      topdown-retiring:u           #     13.8 %  tma_retiring
                                                     #     49.0 %  tma_backend_bound
     1,376,283,990      topdown-fe-bound:u
     2,096,827,304      topdown-be-bound:u
       217,425,841      topdown-bad-spec:u
         5,050,520      INT_MISC.UOP_DROPPING:u

Only minor changes in v3.

Rebased to kvm-x86/next: c1f730330292

v3 changes:
- patch 2/4: Move the non-contiguous counter filter code to pmu.c (Dapeng)
- patch 3/4: Replace WARN_ON() with WARN_ON_ONCE(). (Dapeng)
- patch 4/4: Change abs() with explicit bounds (sum >= 0xfd && sum <= 0x102).
- Minor comment cleanups.

v2 changes:
- As suggested by Dapeng, implement a new selftest patch.
- Don't advertise fixed counter 3 if the host doesn't support it.
- Minor change in patch 1 to remove a magic number.

v2:
https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20260423174639.56149-1-zide.chen@intel.com/T/#u
v1:
https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20260226230606.146532-1-zide.chen@intel.com/T/#t
QEMU:
https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/20260604025546.19378-7-zide.chen@intel.com/

Dapeng Mi (2):
  KVM: x86/pmu: Support Intel fixed counter 3 on mediated vPMU
  KVM: x86/pmu: Support PERF_METRICS MSR in mediated vPMU

Zide Chen (2):
  KVM: x86/pmu: Do not map fixed counters >= 3 to generic perf events
  KVM: selftests: Add perf_metrics and fixed counter 3 tests

 arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h               |  3 +-
 arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h              |  1 +
 arch/x86/include/asm/perf_event.h             |  1 +
 arch/x86/kvm/pmu.c                            | 18 +++++
 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/pmu_intel.c                  | 62 ++++++++++++----
 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/pmu_intel.h                  |  5 ++
 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c                        |  6 ++
 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c                            | 10 ++-
 tools/arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h        |  1 +
 tools/testing/selftests/kvm/include/x86/pmu.h |  3 +
 .../selftests/kvm/x86/pmu_counters_test.c     | 72 +++++++++++++++++--
 11 files changed, 161 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)

-- 
2.54.0


             reply	other threads:[~2026-06-15 23:10 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-06-15 23:01 Zide Chen [this message]
2026-06-15 23:01 ` [PATCH V3 1/4] KVM: x86/pmu: Do not map fixed counters >= 3 to generic perf events Zide Chen
2026-06-15 23:01 ` [PATCH V3 2/4] KVM: x86/pmu: Support Intel fixed counter 3 on mediated vPMU Zide Chen
2026-06-15 23:01 ` [PATCH V3 3/4] KVM: x86/pmu: Support PERF_METRICS MSR in " Zide Chen
2026-06-15 23:26   ` sashiko-bot
2026-06-16 16:29     ` Chen, Zide
2026-06-18  2:21       ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-06-15 23:01 ` [PATCH V3 4/4] KVM: selftests: Add perf_metrics and fixed counter 3 tests Zide Chen
2026-06-15 23:26   ` sashiko-bot
2026-06-16 16:32     ` Chen, Zide

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