From: Zide Chen <zide.chen@intel.com>
To: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>,
Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Cc: kvm@vger.kernel.org, Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>,
Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, 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 v7 0/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Add hardware Topdown metrics support
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:21:22 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260727192131.582105-1-zide.chen@intel.com> (raw)
The Topdown 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 a 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:
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: 567329869b9c
v7 changes:
- Add "reviewed-by" tags.
- patch 5/8: Optimize bit 48 handling in global_status_rsvd;
document the PERF_METRICS/FC3 write-order exception;
add nested_vmx_merge_msr_bitmaps_rw().
- patch 7/9: new patch to restrict RDPMC passthrough to known CPUs.
- patch 9/9: Use RDPMC instead of RDMSR in PERF_METRICS sanity test.
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.
v6: https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20260629231938.15129-1-zide.chen@intel.com/T/#t
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/
v3: https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20260615230118.50718-1-zide.chen@intel.com/T/#t
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
Mingwei Zhang (1):
KVM: x86/pmu: Snapshot host IA32_PERF_CAPABILITIES in kvm_host
Zide Chen (6):
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: Restrict RDPMC passthrough to known CPUs
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/kvm/msrs.c | 10 +-
arch/x86/kvm/pmu.c | 71 ++++++++++++--
arch/x86/kvm/pmu.h | 17 +++-
arch/x86/kvm/svm/pmu.c | 13 ++-
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c | 2 +
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/pmu_intel.c | 93 +++++++++++++-----
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 | 94 ++++++++++++++++++-
15 files changed, 278 insertions(+), 62 deletions(-)
--
2.54.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-07-27 19:32 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-07-27 19:21 Zide Chen [this message]
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 1/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Do not map fixed counters >= 3 to generic perf events Zide Chen
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 2/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Support Intel fixed counter 3 on mediated vPMU Zide Chen
2026-07-27 19:51 ` sashiko-bot
2026-07-27 22:44 ` Chen, Zide
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 3/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Rename and move vcpu_get_perf_capabilities() to pmu.h Zide Chen
2026-07-27 19:42 ` sashiko-bot
2026-07-27 22:19 ` Chen, Zide
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 4/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Snapshot host IA32_PERF_CAPABILITIES in kvm_host Zide Chen
2026-07-27 19:44 ` sashiko-bot
2026-07-27 23:16 ` Chen, Zide
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 5/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Support PERF_METRICS MSR in mediated vPMU Zide Chen
2026-07-27 19:50 ` sashiko-bot
2026-07-27 23:55 ` Chen, Zide
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 6/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Move RDPMC emulation into per-vendor callbacks Zide Chen
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 7/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Restrict RDPMC passthrough to known CPUs Zide Chen
2026-07-27 19:41 ` sashiko-bot
2026-07-27 21:41 ` Chen, Zide
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 8/9] KVM: x86/pmu: Emulate RDPMC on performance metrics Zide Chen
2026-07-27 19:21 ` [PATCH v7 9/9] KVM: selftests: Add PERF_METRICS and fixed counter 3 tests Zide Chen
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