KVM: stats: Add documentation for binary statistics interface

This new API provides a file descriptor for every VM and VCPU to read
KVM statistics data in binary format.
It is meant to provide a lightweight, flexible, scalable and efficient
lock-free solution for user space telemetry applications to pull the
statistics data periodically for large scale systems. The pulling
frequency could be as high as a few times per second.
The statistics descriptors are defined by KVM in kernel and can be
by userspace to discover VM/VCPU statistics during the one-time setup
stage.
The statistics data itself could be read out by userspace telemetry
periodically without any extra parsing or setup effort.
There are a few existed interface protocols and definitions, but no
one can fulfil all the requirements this interface implemented as
below:
1. During high frequency periodic stats reading, there should be no
   extra efforts except the stats data read itself.
2. Support stats annotation, like type (cumulative, instantaneous,
   peak, histogram, etc) and unit (counter, time, size, cycles, etc).
3. The stats data reading should be free of lock/synchronization. We
   don't care about the consistency between all the stats data. All
   stats data can not be read out at exactly the same time. We really
   care about the change or trend of the stats data. The lock-free
   solution is not just for efficiency and scalability, also for the
   stats data accuracy and usability. For example, in the situation
   that all the stats data readings are protected by a global lock,
   if one VCPU died somehow with that lock held, then all stats data
   reading would be blocked, then we have no way from stats data that
   which VCPU has died.
4. The stats data reading workload can be handed over to other
   unprivileged process.

Reviewed-by: David Matlack <dmatlack@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Ricardo Koller <ricarkol@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Krish Sadhukhan <krish.sadhukhan@oracle.com>
Reviewed-by: Fuad Tabba <tabba@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Jing Zhang <jingzhangos@google.com>
Message-Id: <20210618222709.1858088-6-jingzhangos@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 170 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
index dd3fe231e435..b87fa32835f2 100644
--- a/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
+++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
@@ -5081,6 +5081,176 @@ Writes special registers into the vcpu.
 See KVM_GET_SREGS2 for the data structures.
 This ioctl (when supported) replaces the KVM_SET_SREGS.
 
+4.133 KVM_GET_STATS_FD
+----------------------
+
+:Capability: KVM_CAP_STATS_BINARY_FD
+:Architectures: all
+:Type: vm ioctl, vcpu ioctl
+:Parameters: none
+:Returns: statistics file descriptor on success, < 0 on error
+
+Errors:
+
+  ======     ======================================================
+  ENOMEM     if the fd could not be created due to lack of memory
+  EMFILE     if the number of opened files exceeds the limit
+  ======     ======================================================
+
+The returned file descriptor can be used to read VM/vCPU statistics data in
+binary format. The data in the file descriptor consists of four blocks
+organized as follows:
+
++-------------+
+|   Header    |
++-------------+
+|  id string  |
++-------------+
+| Descriptors |
++-------------+
+| Stats Data  |
++-------------+
+
+Apart from the header starting at offset 0, please be aware that it is
+not guaranteed that the four blocks are adjacent or in the above order;
+the offsets of the id, descriptors and data blocks are found in the
+header.  However, all four blocks are aligned to 64 bit offsets in the
+file and they do not overlap.
+
+All blocks except the data block are immutable.  Userspace can read them
+only one time after retrieving the file descriptor, and then use ``pread`` or
+``lseek`` to read the statistics repeatedly.
+
+All data is in system endianness.
+
+The format of the header is as follows::
+
+	struct kvm_stats_header {
+		__u32 flags;
+		__u32 name_size;
+		__u32 num_desc;
+		__u32 id_offset;
+		__u32 desc_offset;
+		__u32 data_offset;
+	};
+
+The ``flags`` field is not used at the moment. It is always read as 0.
+
+The ``name_size`` field is the size (in byte) of the statistics name string
+(including trailing '\0') which is contained in the "id string" block and
+appended at the end of every descriptor.
+
+The ``num_desc`` field is the number of descriptors that are included in the
+descriptor block.  (The actual number of values in the data block may be
+larger, since each descriptor may comprise more than one value).
+
+The ``id_offset`` field is the offset of the id string from the start of the
+file indicated by the file descriptor. It is a multiple of 8.
+
+The ``desc_offset`` field is the offset of the Descriptors block from the start
+of the file indicated by the file descriptor. It is a multiple of 8.
+
+The ``data_offset`` field is the offset of the Stats Data block from the start
+of the file indicated by the file descriptor. It is a multiple of 8.
+
+The id string block contains a string which identifies the file descriptor on
+which KVM_GET_STATS_FD was invoked.  The size of the block, including the
+trailing ``'\0'``, is indicated by the ``name_size`` field in the header.
+
+The descriptors block is only needed to be read once for the lifetime of the
+file descriptor contains a sequence of ``struct kvm_stats_desc``, each followed
+by a string of size ``name_size``.
+
+	#define KVM_STATS_TYPE_SHIFT		0
+	#define KVM_STATS_TYPE_MASK		(0xF << KVM_STATS_TYPE_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_TYPE_CUMULATIVE	(0x0 << KVM_STATS_TYPE_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_TYPE_INSTANT		(0x1 << KVM_STATS_TYPE_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_TYPE_PEAK		(0x2 << KVM_STATS_TYPE_SHIFT)
+
+	#define KVM_STATS_UNIT_SHIFT		4
+	#define KVM_STATS_UNIT_MASK		(0xF << KVM_STATS_UNIT_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_UNIT_NONE		(0x0 << KVM_STATS_UNIT_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_UNIT_BYTES		(0x1 << KVM_STATS_UNIT_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_UNIT_SECONDS		(0x2 << KVM_STATS_UNIT_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_UNIT_CYCLES		(0x3 << KVM_STATS_UNIT_SHIFT)
+
+	#define KVM_STATS_BASE_SHIFT		8
+	#define KVM_STATS_BASE_MASK		(0xF << KVM_STATS_BASE_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_BASE_POW10		(0x0 << KVM_STATS_BASE_SHIFT)
+	#define KVM_STATS_BASE_POW2		(0x1 << KVM_STATS_BASE_SHIFT)
+
+	struct kvm_stats_desc {
+		__u32 flags;
+		__s16 exponent;
+		__u16 size;
+		__u32 offset;
+		__u32 unused;
+		char name[];
+	};
+
+The ``flags`` field contains the type and unit of the statistics data described
+by this descriptor. Its endianness is CPU native.
+The following flags are supported:
+
+Bits 0-3 of ``flags`` encode the type:
+  * ``KVM_STATS_TYPE_CUMULATIVE``
+    The statistics data is cumulative. The value of data can only be increased.
+    Most of the counters used in KVM are of this type.
+    The corresponding ``size`` field for this type is always 1.
+    All cumulative statistics data are read/write.
+  * ``KVM_STATS_TYPE_INSTANT``
+    The statistics data is instantaneous. Its value can be increased or
+    decreased. This type is usually used as a measurement of some resources,
+    like the number of dirty pages, the number of large pages, etc.
+    All instant statistics are read only.
+    The corresponding ``size`` field for this type is always 1.
+  * ``KVM_STATS_TYPE_PEAK``
+    The statistics data is peak. The value of data can only be increased, and
+    represents a peak value for a measurement, for example the maximum number
+    of items in a hash table bucket, the longest time waited and so on.
+    The corresponding ``size`` field for this type is always 1.
+
+Bits 4-7 of ``flags`` encode the unit:
+  * ``KVM_STATS_UNIT_NONE``
+    There is no unit for the value of statistics data. This usually means that
+    the value is a simple counter of an event.
+  * ``KVM_STATS_UNIT_BYTES``
+    It indicates that the statistics data is used to measure memory size, in the
+    unit of Byte, KiByte, MiByte, GiByte, etc. The unit of the data is
+    determined by the ``exponent`` field in the descriptor.
+  * ``KVM_STATS_UNIT_SECONDS``
+    It indicates that the statistics data is used to measure time or latency.
+  * ``KVM_STATS_UNIT_CYCLES``
+    It indicates that the statistics data is used to measure CPU clock cycles.
+
+Bits 8-11 of ``flags``, together with ``exponent``, encode the scale of the
+unit:
+  * ``KVM_STATS_BASE_POW10``
+    The scale is based on power of 10. It is used for measurement of time and
+    CPU clock cycles.  For example, an exponent of -9 can be used with
+    ``KVM_STATS_UNIT_SECONDS`` to express that the unit is nanoseconds.
+  * ``KVM_STATS_BASE_POW2``
+    The scale is based on power of 2. It is used for measurement of memory size.
+    For example, an exponent of 20 can be used with ``KVM_STATS_UNIT_BYTES`` to
+    express that the unit is MiB.
+
+The ``size`` field is the number of values of this statistics data. Its
+value is usually 1 for most of simple statistics. 1 means it contains an
+unsigned 64bit data.
+
+The ``offset`` field is the offset from the start of Data Block to the start of
+the corresponding statistics data.
+
+The ``unused`` field is reserved for future support for other types of
+statistics data, like log/linear histogram. Its value is always 0 for the types
+defined above.
+
+The ``name`` field is the name string of the statistics data. The name string
+starts at the end of ``struct kvm_stats_desc``.  The maximum length including
+the trailing ``'\0'``, is indicated by ``name_size`` in the header.
+
+The Stats Data block contains an array of 64-bit values in the same order
+as the descriptors in Descriptors block.
 
 5. The kvm_run structure
 ========================