linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v6 1/4] arm: introduce psci_smp

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Date:	Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:01:14 +0100
From:	Stefano Stabellini <stefano.stabellini@...citrix.com>
To:	Nicolas Pitre <nicolas.pitre@...aro.org>
CC:	Stefano Stabellini <Stefano.Stabellini@...citrix.com>,
	Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@....linux.org.uk>,
	"xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com" <xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org" 
	<linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>,
	"will.deacon@....com" <will.deacon@....com>,
	"arnd@...db.de" <arnd@...db.de>,
	"rob.herring@...xeda.com" <rob.herring@...xeda.com>,
	"marc.zyngier@....com" <marc.zyngier@....com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v6 1/4] arm: introduce psci_smp_ops

On Thu, 18 Apr 2013, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Apr 2013, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 18 Apr 2013, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> > > This should allow the Xen problem to be resolved, because Xen will
> > > provide the PSCI operations, and it's correct in that case to override
> > > the platform's SMP operations.
> > 
> > Yes, increasing the priority of PSCI helps Xen a lot.
> > In order to completely solve the issue for Xen though, another patch is
> > needed (http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=136630106201968&w=2) because
> > of the introduction of smp_init.
> 
> Please look at the latest smp_init patch version I sent to you.  It 
> shouldn't conflict with Xen any longer.  It now returns a bool result 
> depending on whether it did set up smp_ops or not.

CPUs are virtualized by Xen and do not reflect or expose the underlying
SMP hardware and firmware features, so an hardware specific smp_init
cannot run.

So the smp_init patch still breaks Xen because even if smp_init can fail
graciously, executing a platform specific smp_init function that tries
to access registers and memory regions that are not present is going to
cause an undefined behaviour.

Under Xen, smp_init won't have a chance to return any value because it
is going to crash first.
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