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Re: [Xen-devel] Branch Trace Storage for guests and VPMU initialization



On 02/24/2015 10:27 AM, Kevin.Mayer@xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi guys

I`m trying to set up the BTS so that I can log the branches taken in the guest using Xen 4.4.1 with a WinXP SP3 guest on a Core i7 Sandy Bridge.

I added the vpmu=bts boot parameter to my grub2 configuration and extended the libxl,libxc,domctl,â with an own command so that I can trigger the activation of the BTS whenever I want.



I am not sure why you are doing all these changes to Xen code. BTS is supposed to be managed from the guest. For example, a Fedora HVM guest will produce this:

[root@dhcp-burlington7-2nd-B-east-10-152-55-140 ~]# perf record -e branches:u -c 1 -d sleep 1
[ perf record: Woken up 3838 times to write data ]
[ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.704 MB perf.data (~30756 samples) ]
[root@dhcp-burlington7-2nd-B-east-10-152-55-140 ~]# perf script -f ip,addr,sym,dso,symoff --show-kernel-path ffffffff8167c347 native_irq_return_iret+0x0 (/proc/kcore) => 328c001590 [unknown] (/proc/kcore) ffffffff8167c347 native_irq_return_iret+0x0 (/proc/kcore) => 328c001590 [unknown] ([unknown]) 328c001593 [unknown] ([unknown]) => 328c004b70 [unknown] ([unknown])
...

In this command I do the following:

I set up the memory region for the BTS Buffer and the DS Buffer Management Area using xzalloc_bytes



I don't think you should be allocating BTS buffers in the hypervisor, they are in guest's memory.


Then I write the pointer to the BTS Buffer into the DS Buffer Management Area at +0x0 and +0x8 (BTS Buffer Base and BTS Index)

When I use vmx_msr_write_intercept to store the value in MSR_IA32_DS_AREA the host reboots (my idea is he tries to access a vpmu-struct that isnÂt there in the current vcpu and panics).


Can you post hypervisor log? (hard to say how helpful it will be without seeing your code changes though)

When I use a modified version of vmx_msr_write_intercept I donât get any crashes as long as I donât enable BTS and TR in the GUEST_IA32_DEBUGCTL (BTR works). When I enable the BTS (and TR) the guest crashes. I suppose he gets killed by the hypervisor for accessing forbidden memory.


Possibly because DS area point to hypervisor memory.


Having said all this, I am not sure how well BTS works. You did notice this in the hypervisor log:

(XEN) ******************************************************
(XEN) ** WARNING: Emulation of BTS Feature is switched on **
(XEN) ** Using this processor feature in a virtualized **
(XEN) ** environment is not 100% safe. **
(XEN) ** Setting the DS buffer address with wrong values **
(XEN) ** may lead to hypervisor hangs or crashes. **
(XEN) ** It is NOT recommended for production use! **
(XEN) ******************************************************


-boris


The modified version of vmx_msr_write_intercept takes a vcpu-struct as a parameter and uses this instead of the current vcpu.

Instead of

staticint vmx_msr_write_intercept(unsigned int msr, uint64_t msr_content)

{

    struct vcpu *v = current;

I just have

staticint own_vmx_msr_write_intercept(unsigned int msr, uint64_t msr_content, struct vcpu *v)

I get this vcpu by d->vcpu[0] as I have limited my guest domain to one vcpu atm.

Of course I also use similarly modified version of the called functions(vpmu_do_wrmsr,â).

IÂm pretty sure that my problem is with a wrong scope/usage of the vcpus/memory, but I have no idea how to fix this.

I can see a potential problem with the memory allocation (in the host) into which the cpu in guest-mode is supposed to write.

Or maybe I got the principle of a vcpu/vpmu all wrong.

Since I couldnât find any project that uses the BTS for the guest, I am wondering if anyone has ever done this and if it is possible at all.

Any input is welcome as I am pretty much stuck atmâ

Cheers

Kevin


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