[PATCH V2 0/1] kvm/vmx: Output TSC offset

[Yoshihiro YUNOMAE]

Hi All,

I'd like to propose a patch which adds a tracepoint at write_tsc_offset for
tracing guests TSC offset changes. It is required for sorting the trace data of
a guest and the host in chronological order.

In a virtualization environment, it is difficult to analyze performance
problems, such as a delay of I/O request on a guest. This is because multiple
guests operate on the host. One of approaches for solving such kind of problems
is to sort trace data of guests and the host in chronological order.

Raw TSC can be chosen as a timestamp of ftrace. I think TSC is useful for
merging trace data in chronological order by two reasons. One of the reasons is 
that guests can directly read raw TSC from the CPU using rdtsc operation. This
means that raw TSC value is not software clock like sched_clock, so we don't
need to consider about how the timestamp is calculated. The other is that TSC
of recent x86 CPUs is constantly incremented. This means that we don't need to
worry about pace of the timestamp. Therefore, choosing TSC as a timestamp for
tracing is reasonable to integrate trace data of guests and a host.

Here, we need to consider about just one matter for using TSC on guests. TSC
value on a guest is always the host TSC plus the guest's "TSC offset". In other
words, to merge trace data using TSC as timestamp in chronological order, we
need to consider TSC offset of the guest.

However, only the host kernel can read the TSC offset from VMCS and TSC offset
is not output in anywhere now. In other words, tools in userland cannot get
the TSC offset value, so we cannot merge trace data of guest and the host in
chronological order. Therefore, I think the TSC offset should be exported for
userland tools.

In this patch, TSC offset is exported by the tracepoint kvm_write_tsc_offset
on the host. TSC offset events will be very rare event because guests may
seldom execute write_tsc. So if we enable this event for a normal buffer of
ftrace, the events will be overwritten by other events. For a recent linux
kernel, a multiple buffer function is available. So, I recommend to enable
this event for a sub buffer of ftrace.

<Example>
We assume that wakeup-latency for a command is big on a guest. Normally
we will use ftrace's wakeup-latency tracer or event tracer on the guest, but we
may not be able to solve this problem. This is because guests often exit to
the host for several reasons. In the next, we will use TSC as ftrace's timestamp
and record the trace data on the guest and the host. Then, we get following
data:

 /* guest data */
            comm-3826  [000] d...49836825726903: sched_wakeup: [detail]
            comm-3826  [000] d...49836832225344: sched_switch: [detail]
 /* host data */
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079203669: kvm_exit: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079206816: kvm_entry: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079240656: kvm_exit: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079243467: kvm_entry: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079256103: kvm_exit: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079268391: kvm_entry: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079280829: kvm_exit: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079286028: kvm_entry: [detail]

Since TSC offset is not considered, these data cannot be merged. If this trace
data is shown like as follows, we will be able to understand the reason:

        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079203669: kvm_exit: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079206816: kvm_entry: [detail]
            comm-3826  [000] d.h.49836825726903: sched_wakeup: [detail] <=
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079240656: kvm_exit: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079243467: kvm_entry: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079256103: kvm_exit: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079268391: kvm_entry: [detail]
            comm-3826  [000] d...49836832225344: sched_switch: [detail] <=
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079280829: kvm_exit: [detail]
        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079286028: kvm_entry: [detail]

In this case, we can understand wakeup-latency was big due to exit to host
twice. Getting this data sorted in chronological order is our goal.

To merge the data like previous pattern, we apply this patch. Then, we can
get TSC offset of the guest as follows:

# cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/instances/tsc_offset/trace
.. d...4300151845072: kvm_write_tsc_offset: previous 0 next 18446739773557710924
                                                     ^      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

We use this TSC offset value to a merge script and obtain the following data:

$ ./trace-merge.pl -g guest_data -h host_data -t 18446739773557710924

h        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079203669: kvm_exit: [detail]
h        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079206816: kvm_entry: [detail]
g            comm-3826  [000] d.h.50550079226331: sched_wakeup: [detail] <=
h        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079240656: kvm_exit: [detail]
h        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079243467: kvm_entry: [detail]
h        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079256103: kvm_exit: [detail]
h        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079268391: kvm_entry: [detail]
g            comm-3826  [000] d...50550079279266: sched_switch: [detail] <=
h        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079280829: kvm_exit: [detail]
h        qemu-kvm-2687  [003] d...50550079286028: kvm_entry: [detail]
|
\----guest/host

In this summary, I suggest the patch which TSC offset for each guest can be
output on the host.

As one example, I will send a merge tool. This tool is not considered
executing write_tsc on a guest yet.

Changes in V2:
- Use tracepoint for outputting TSC offset value instead of printk() [1/1]

Thanks!

---

Yoshihiro YUNOMAE (1):
      kvm/vmx: Add a tracepoint write_tsc_offset


 arch/x86/kvm/trace.h |   18 ++++++++++++++++++
 arch/x86/kvm/vmx.c   |    3 +++
 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c   |    1 +
 3 files changed, 22 insertions(+)

-- 
Yoshihiro YUNOMAE
Software Platform Research Dept. Linux Technology Center
Hitachi, Ltd., Yokohama Research Laboratory
E-mail: yoshihiro.yunomae.ez@xxxxxxxxxxx
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