linux-kernel - Re: [GIT pull] x86/cache: Updates for 4.10

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Message-ID: <20161213080414.GT3207@twins.programming.kicks-ass.net>
Date:   Tue, 13 Dec 2016 09:04:14 +0100
From:   Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Subject: Re: [GIT pull] x86/cache: Updates for 4.10

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 08:26:50PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 1:53 AM, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de> wrote:
> >
> > This update provides the support for Intel Cache Allocation Technology, a
> > cache partitioning mechanism.
> 
> Ugh, this is some funky stuff. And it's entirely x86-specific, with a
> rather odd special filesystem interface.
> 
> It looks pretty self-contained (good), but it also looks majorly
> strange. I will have to think about this. What are the main/expected
> users?

>From what I know its aimed at two groups of users:

Firstly the Virtual Machine usecase, where, by assigning cache masks to
individual VMs you avoid one highly active VM trashing the cache of
another.

Secondly the Real-Time usecase, where we can assign cache slices to
individual CPUs such that we can better isolate RT and !RT workloads
running on the same cache domain (socket).