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Thomas Gleixner 2207def700 x86/apic: Ignore secondary threads if nosmt=force
nosmt on the kernel command line merely prevents the onlining of the
secondary SMT siblings.

nosmt=force makes the APIC detection code ignore the secondary SMT siblings
completely, so they even do not show up as possible CPUs. That reduces the
amount of memory allocations for per cpu variables and saves other
resources from being allocated too large.

This is not fully equivalent to disabling SMT in the BIOS because the low
level SMT enabling in the BIOS can result in partitioning of resources
between the siblings, which is not undone by just ignoring them. Some CPUs
can use the full resources when their sibling is not onlined, but this is
depending on the CPU family and model and it's not well documented whether
this applies to all partitioned resources. That means depending on the
workload disabling SMT in the BIOS might result in better performance.

Linus analysis of the Intel manual:

  The intel optimization manual is not very clear on what the partitioning
  rules are.

  I find:

    "In general, the buffers for staging instructions between major pipe
     stages  are partitioned. These buffers include µop queues after the
     execution trace cache, the queues after the register rename stage, the
     reorder buffer which stages instructions for retirement, and the load
     and store buffers.

     In the case of load and store buffers, partitioning also provided an
     easier implementation to maintain memory ordering for each logical
     processor and detect memory ordering violations"

  but some of that partitioning may be relaxed if the HT thread is "not
  active":

    "In Intel microarchitecture code name Sandy Bridge, the micro-op queue
     is statically partitioned to provide 28 entries for each logical
     processor,  irrespective of software executing in single thread or
     multiple threads. If one logical processor is not active in Intel
     microarchitecture code name Ivy Bridge, then a single thread executing
     on that processor  core can use the 56 entries in the micro-op queue"

  but I do not know what "not active" means, and how dynamic it is. Some of
  that partitioning may be entirely static and depend on the early BIOS
  disabling of HT, and even if we park the cores, the resources will just be
  wasted.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Reviewed-by: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
2018-06-21 14:21:00 +02:00
arch x86/apic: Ignore secondary threads if nosmt=force 2018-06-21 14:21:00 +02:00
block for-linus-20180616 2018-06-17 05:37:55 +09:00
certs docs: Fix some broken references 2018-06-15 18:10:01 -03:00
crypto docs: Fix some broken references 2018-06-15 18:10:01 -03:00
Documentation cpu/hotplug: Provide knobs to control SMT 2018-06-21 14:20:58 +02:00
drivers x86/speculation/l1tf: Add sysfs reporting for l1tf 2018-06-20 19:10:00 +02:00
firmware kbuild: remove all dummy assignments to obj- 2017-11-18 11:46:06 +09:00
fs Solve a series of broken links for files under Documentation: 2018-06-17 05:25:18 +09:00
include cpu/hotplug: Provide knobs to control SMT 2018-06-21 14:20:58 +02:00
init Kbuild updates for v4.18 (2nd) 2018-06-13 08:40:34 -07:00
ipc ipc: use new return type vm_fault_t 2018-06-15 07:55:25 +09:00
kernel cpu/hotplug: Provide knobs to control SMT 2018-06-21 14:20:58 +02:00
lib docs: Fix some broken references 2018-06-15 18:10:01 -03:00
LICENSES LICENSES: Add Linux-OpenIB license text 2018-04-27 16:41:53 -06:00
mm x86/speculation/l1tf: Limit swap file size to MAX_PA/2 2018-06-20 19:10:01 +02:00
net Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2018-06-16 07:39:34 +09:00
samples VFIO updates for v4.18 2018-06-12 13:11:26 -07:00
scripts scripts/documentation-file-ref-check: check tools/*/Documentation 2018-06-15 18:10:01 -03:00
security docs: Fix some broken references 2018-06-15 18:10:01 -03:00
sound docs: Fix some broken references 2018-06-15 18:10:01 -03:00
tools Solve a series of broken links for files under Documentation: 2018-06-17 05:25:18 +09:00
usr kbuild: rename built-in.o to built-in.a 2018-03-26 02:01:19 +09:00
virt - Error path bug fix for overflow tests (Dan) 2018-06-12 18:28:00 -07:00
.clang-format clang-format: add configuration file 2018-04-11 10:28:35 -07:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set git diff driver for C source code files 2016-10-07 18:46:30 -07:00
.gitignore Kbuild updates for v4.17 (2nd) 2018-04-15 17:21:30 -07:00
.mailmap Merge branch 'asoc-4.17' into asoc-4.18 for compress dependencies 2018-04-26 12:24:28 +01:00
COPYING COPYING: use the new text with points to the license files 2018-03-23 12:41:45 -06:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS/CREDITS: Drop METAG ARCHITECTURE 2018-03-05 16:34:24 +00:00
Kbuild Kbuild updates for v4.15 2017-11-17 17:45:29 -08:00
Kconfig kconfig: add basic helper macros to scripts/Kconfig.include 2018-05-29 03:31:19 +09:00
MAINTAINERS Solve a series of broken links for files under Documentation: 2018-06-17 05:25:18 +09:00
Makefile Linux 4.18-rc1 2018-06-17 08:04:49 +09:00
README Docs: Added a pointer to the formatted docs to README 2018-03-21 09:02:53 -06:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what is contained in each file.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.