linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v5 00/12] x86/microcode: Early load microcode

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Message-ID: <20130108200432.GE15194@phenom.dumpdata.com>
Date:	Tue, 8 Jan 2013 15:04:33 -0500
From:	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad@...nel.org>
To:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Cc:	Fenghua Yu <fenghua.yu@...el.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Asit K Mallick <asit.k.mallick@...el.com>,
	Tigran Aivazian <tigran@...azian.fsnet.co.uk>,
	Yinghai Lu <yinghai@...nel.org>,
	Andreas Herrmann <andreas.herrmann3@....com>,
	Borislav Petkov <borislav.petkov@....com>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, x86 <x86@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 00/12] x86/microcode: Early load microcode

On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:47:39AM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 01/08/2013 11:46 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> > 
> > OK. I am trying to figure out whether this usage of native_* for the
> > MSRs was done on purpose - and it sounds like the answer is no. If so -
> > can it be done using the normal 'safe_rdmsr' and 'wrmsr'?
> > 
> > That would allow at least in the case of Xen, to omit a whole bunch
> > of MSR writes/reads during the boot that are not neccessary as we would
> > not trap in the hypervisor - but could use the pvops version of
> > read/write MSR calls to just do a nop.
> > 
> 
> Why is this code invoked on Xen at all?  That seems crazy.

 [PATCH v4 09/11] x86/head64.c: Early update ucode in 64-bit

has this in x86_64_start_kernel:

..
        load_idt((const struct desc_ptr *)&idt_descr);

+       /*
+        * Load microcode early on BSP.
+        */
+       load_ucode_bsp(__va(real_mode_data));
+
        copy_bootdata(__va(real_mode_data));

Which gets called after xen_start_kernel has setup pagetables,
bootparams, etc ready for the generic code to be invoked.

Or am I looking at an old version of these patches.
> 
> 	-hpa
> 
> 
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