linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RESEND] x86: kernel/microcode_core.c simple

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Date:	Tue, 08 May 2012 14:42:43 -0600
From:	Shuah Khan <shuahkhan@...il.com>
To:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>
Cc:	shuahkhan@...il.com, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@....eng.br>,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, mingo@...hat.com,
	tglx@...utronix.de, tigran@...azian.fsnet.co.uk,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RESEND] x86: kernel/microcode_core.c simple_strtoul
 cleanup

On Tue, 2012-05-08 at 06:00 +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> * Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@....eng.br> wrote:
> 
> > > Of course, one can iterate over each core in a shell-loop 
> > > and write into the reload file to reload ucode after having 
> > > updated the ucode image in /lib/firmware but removing and 
> > > then modprobing the module is shorter :-)
> > 
> > Can we PLEASE fix it properly by adding a new node (which is 
> > _not_ per-cpu) that requests the microcode core to refresh all 
> > cpus?  Preferably by invalidating the microcode cache, THEN 
> > fetching each required microcode just once for the first core 
> > that needs it, and caching it for use the other cores.  You 
> > can leave the (IMHO mostly useless) per-cpu sysfs nodes alone, 
> > so as to not break ABI, or deprecate them for an year or 
> > something.
> > 
> > I am speaking this with my userland maintainer hat.  I *do 
> > NOT* want to rmmod crap in a production server to update 
> > microcode.  And I want to be able to support static-compiled 
> > microcode.
> 
> Seconded. There's also the ability to disable module unloading.

I will take a stab at the disabling module unloading if I may. The rest
of the tasks are a bit out of my league at this time. :)

Thanks,
-- Shuah


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