Re: [RFC v2 PATCH 2/7] KVM: Track the pid of the VM process

[Punit Agrawal]

Christoffer Dall <christoffer.dall@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On Tue, Sep 06, 2016 at 12:07:59PM +0100, Punit Agrawal wrote:
>> Christoffer Dall <christoffer.dall@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>> 
>> > On Tue, Sep 06, 2016 at 10:51:27AM +0100, Punit Agrawal wrote:
>> >> Hi Christoffer,
>> >> 
>> >> Christoffer Dall <christoffer.dall@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>> >> 
>> >> > On Mon, Sep 05, 2016 at 05:31:32PM +0100, Punit Agrawal wrote:
>> >> >> Userspace tools such as perf can be used to profile individual
>> >> >> processes.
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> Track the PID of the virtual machine process to match profiling requests
>> >> >> targeted at it. This can be used to take appropriate action to enable
>> >> >> the requested profiling operations for the VMs of interest.
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> Signed-off-by: Punit Agrawal <punit.agrawal@xxxxxxx>
>> >> >> Cc: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> >> >> Cc: "Radim KrÄmÃÅ" <rkrcmar@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> >> >> Cc: Christoffer Dall <christoffer.dall@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> >> >> Cc: Marc Zyngier <marc.zyngier@xxxxxxx>
>> >> >> ---
>> >> >>  include/linux/kvm_host.h | 1 +
>> >> >>  virt/kvm/kvm_main.c      | 2 ++
>> >> >>  2 files changed, 3 insertions(+)
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> diff --git a/include/linux/kvm_host.h b/include/linux/kvm_host.h
>> >> >> index 9c28b4d..7c42c94 100644
>> >> >> --- a/include/linux/kvm_host.h
>> >> >> +++ b/include/linux/kvm_host.h
>> >> >> @@ -374,6 +374,7 @@ struct kvm_memslots {
>> >> >>  struct kvm {
>> >> >>  	spinlock_t mmu_lock;
>> >> >>  	struct mutex slots_lock;
>> >> >> +	struct pid *pid;
>> >> >>  	struct mm_struct *mm; /* userspace tied to this vm */
>> >> >>  	struct kvm_memslots *memslots[KVM_ADDRESS_SPACE_NUM];
>> >> >>  	struct srcu_struct srcu;
>> >> >> diff --git a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
>> >> >> index 1950782..ab2535a 100644
>> >> >> --- a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
>> >> >> +++ b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
>> >> >> @@ -613,6 +613,7 @@ static struct kvm *kvm_create_vm(unsigned long type)
>> >> >>  	spin_lock_init(&kvm->mmu_lock);
>> >> >>  	atomic_inc(&current->mm->mm_count);
>> >> >>  	kvm->mm = current->mm;
>> >> >> +	kvm->pid = get_task_pid(current, PIDTYPE_PID);
>> >> >
>> >> > How dooes this deal with threading?  Is the idea that the user by
>> >> > specifying the main thread's pid will enable trapping for all vcpu
>> >> > threads belonging to that VM?
>> >> 
>> >> Yes that's correct - specifying the main thread PID will enable trapping
>> >> for the VM (all vcpus).
>> >> 
>> >> I am happy to move to a more suitable identifier if available.
>> >> 
>> >
>> > What is the 'main thread' ?
>> >
>> > Does something mandate that the VM is created by the thread group
>> > leader?  If not, is it not a bit strange from a user perspective, that
>> > you have to find the specific subthread pid that created the vm to
>> > enable this tracing for all vcpu threads and that the tgid doesn't work
>> > in this case?
>> 
>> Let me correct my terminology usage - the value recorded above (and used
>> to identify the VM) should be the tgid. It is confusing because 'ps'
>> reports it as pid.
>> 
>> I picked the value as existing KVM code already uses the PID of the
>> creating task (see kvm_create_vm_debugfs) to export VM statistics in
>> debugfs.
>> 
>> If I've got this wrong, then kvm_create_vm_debugfs also likely needs an
>> update.
>> 
>> What do you think?
>> 
> When you do get_task_pid(current, PIDTYPE_PID) it actually gets the
> kernel view of a PID which is the thead-id from userspace's point of
> view, right?

That makes sense. It seems to works here because the pid of the first
task is also the tgid of the group. And I reckon it's the same
assumption being made with debugfs code (more below).

I've changed the first argument of the call to get_task_pid to
current->group_leader.

>
> I don't see why this has to be the same as the debugfs code, as there it
> makes potentially more sense to thread-specific, but for your case, are
> you not targeting the behavior that a user can do "ps aux | grep qemu"
> or whatever, and then set tracing for the reported PID (which is
> actually a tgid)?

The debugfs stats are not thread (vcpu) specific but for the VM.

Both values, debugfs and here, are being used to represent the VM to the
user. A mismatch in these identifiers will be very confusing.

If you agree, I can separately send a patch to address this for VM
debugfs directory as well.

>
> If this is indeed the case, then I don't think the current code supports
> this if QEMU was ever changed to create the VM with a different thread
> than the tgl.
>
> That being said, I'm typically wrong when I talk about userspace.
>
> -Christoffer
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