Re: [RESEND PATCH] perf/x86/intel: Fix unchecked MSR access error for Alder Lake N

From: Andi Kleen
Date: Mon Aug 22 2022 - 15:26:17 EST




Checking X86_FEATURE_HYPERVISOR in the guest won't handle things like trying to
run a non-hyrbid vCPU model on a hybrid CPU, because IIUC, the "is_hybrid()" is
purely based on FMS, i.e. will be false if someone enumerates a big core vCPU on
a hybrid CPU.

So until KVM gets sane handling, shouldn't this be?

diff --git a/arch/x86/events/core.c b/arch/x86/events/core.c
index f969410d0c90..0a8accfc3018 100644
--- a/arch/x86/events/core.c
+++ b/arch/x86/events/core.c
@@ -2999,12 +2999,8 @@ void perf_get_x86_pmu_capability(struct x86_pmu_capability *cap)
}

cap->version = x86_pmu.version;
- /*
- * KVM doesn't support the hybrid PMU yet.
- * Return the common value in global x86_pmu,
- * which available for all cores.
- */
- cap->num_counters_gp = x86_pmu.num_counters;
+ /* KVM doesn't support the hybrid PMU yet. */
+ cap->num_counters_gp = is_hybrid() ? 0 : x86_pmu.num_counters;

That's just the PMU. Arguably if you don't handle hybrid affinity you shouldn't report the hybrid bit ever to the guest. So need more than that.

But I guess Peter is concerned about the case when an old KVM is the host.  I think a short term workaround for that is fine, but I don't think it's a good idea to completely disable it since that will break future setups with correct hybrid hypervisor too. We already probe the PMU MSRs, can't we detect this case there too?

-Andi