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 V6 0/8] KVM: x86/pmu: Add hardware Topdown metrics support
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:19:29 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260629231938.15129-1-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 large 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 Sapphire Rapids. 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
Rebased to kvm-x86/next: 50406d35f563
v6 changes:
- patch 6/8: New patch to refactor rdpmc emulation code.
- patch 7/8: More strict handling of RDPMC ECX argument.
- patch 8/8: Move perf metrics out of test_arch_events().
- patch 2/8: Minor fix of comments.
v5 changes:
- patch 3,5,6/7: new patches to handle RDPMC on metrics.
- patch 6/7: remove host_initiated check.
v4 changes:
- patch 3/4: Remove WARN_ON_ONCE() and simply reject the guest accesses
by checking host_initiated. (Sashiko)
- patch 3/4: Passthru MSR_PERF_METRICS only if has_mediated_pmu is
true. (Sashiko)
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.
v5:
https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20260625034555.141453-1-zide.chen@intel.com/
v4:
https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20260623041927.178256-1-zide.chen@intel.com/
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
Mingwei Zhang (1):
KVM: x86/pmu: Snapshot host IA32_PERF_CAPABILITIES in kvm_host
Zide Chen (5):
KVM: x86/pmu: Do not map fixed counters >= 3 to generic perf events
KVM: x86/pmu: Rename and move vcpu_get_perf_capabilities() to pmu.h
KVM: x86/pmu: Move RDPMC emulation into per-vendor callbacks
KVM: x86/pmu: Emulate RDPMC on performance metrics
KVM: selftests: Add PERF_METRICS and fixed counter 3 tests
arch/x86/include/asm/kvm-x86-pmu-ops.h | 2 +-
arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h | 4 +-
arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h | 1 +
arch/x86/include/asm/perf_event.h | 1 +
arch/x86/kvm/msrs.c | 10 +-
arch/x86/kvm/pmu.c | 37 +++++--
arch/x86/kvm/pmu.h | 16 ++-
arch/x86/kvm/svm/pmu.c | 13 ++-
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/pmu_intel.c | 99 +++++++++++++------
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/pmu_intel.h | 10 +-
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c | 15 +--
arch/x86/kvm/x86.c | 4 +
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 +++++++++++++-
15 files changed, 220 insertions(+), 68 deletions(-)
--
2.54.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-06-29 23:28 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 18+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-06-29 23:19 Zide Chen [this message]
2026-06-29 23:19 ` [PATCH v6 1/8] KVM: x86/pmu: Do not map fixed counters >= 3 to generic perf events Zide Chen
2026-06-30 2:13 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-06-29 23:19 ` [PATCH v6 2/8] KVM: x86/pmu: Support Intel fixed counter 3 on mediated vPMU Zide Chen
2026-06-30 2:16 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-06-29 23:19 ` [PATCH v6 3/8] KVM: x86/pmu: Rename and move vcpu_get_perf_capabilities() to pmu.h Zide Chen
2026-06-30 2:18 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-06-29 23:19 ` [PATCH v6 4/8] KVM: x86/pmu: Snapshot host IA32_PERF_CAPABILITIES in kvm_host Zide Chen
2026-06-30 2:19 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-06-29 23:19 ` [PATCH v6 5/8] KVM: x86/pmu: Support PERF_METRICS MSR in mediated vPMU Zide Chen
2026-06-30 2:20 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-06-29 23:19 ` [PATCH v6 6/8] KVM: x86/pmu: Move RDPMC emulation into per-vendor callbacks Zide Chen
2026-06-30 2:23 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-06-29 23:19 ` [PATCH v6 7/8] KVM: x86/pmu: Emulate RDPMC on performance metrics Zide Chen
2026-06-30 2:23 ` Mi, Dapeng
2026-06-29 23:19 ` [PATCH v6 8/8] KVM: selftests: Add PERF_METRICS and fixed counter 3 tests Zide Chen
2026-06-29 23:45 ` sashiko-bot
2026-06-30 2:36 ` Mi, Dapeng
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