Re: [SeaBIOS] [PATCH] cpu hotplug issue

[Jan Kiszka]

On 2011-08-03 12:07, Vasilis Liaskovitis wrote:
> When rebooting after a CPU hotplug in qemu-kvm, Seabios can get stuck in smp_probe().
> Normally cmos_smp_count is read from cmos and the smp_ap_boot_code is run on all cpus 
> except bootstrap. The expected result is CountCPUs == cmos_smp_count + 1.  After a 
> cpu hotplug, more than cmos_smp_count cpus are active, so we get a situation where 
> CountCPUs > cmos_smp_count + 1 and Seabios keeps looping forever in smp_probe. In some
> cases, the while loop exit condition is tested before CountCPUs gets larger (i.e. 
> before smp_ap_boot_code runs on all CPUs), so the hang is not always reproducible.
>
> This patch introduces a new fw_cfg variable called hotplugged_cpus that gets updated from
> qemu-kvm hoplug code. Seabios reads this variable on each call to smp_probe() and adjusts
> the expected number of online CPUs.
>
> The qemu-kvm part of this patch is against Jan Kiszka's cpu-hotplug tree:
> git://git.kiszka.org/qemu-kvm.git queues/cpu-hotplug
> tested with qemu-system-x86_64.
>
> An alternative to this patch would be to update the smp_cpus variable in qemu-kvm and 
> do a "cmos update" to 0x5f from the cpu-hotplug code. Access to the rtc_state (cmos device) 
> would be required in hw/acpi_piix4.c.  This way no change to Seabios would be required.

...
> src/paravirt.c |   12 ++++++++++++
>  src/paravirt.h |    2 ++
>  src/smp.c      |    6 ++++--
>  3 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/src/paravirt.c b/src/paravirt.c
> index 9cf77de..3367609 100644
> --- a/src/paravirt.c
> +++ b/src/paravirt.c
> @@ -305,6 +305,18 @@ u16 qemu_cfg_get_max_cpus(void)
>      return cnt;
>  }
>
> +u16 qemu_cfg_get_hplug_cpus(void)
> +{
> u16 cnt;
> if (!qemu_cfg_present)
>    return 0;
> qemu_cfg_read_entry(&cnt, QEMU_CFG_HPLUG_CPUS, sizeof(cnt));

Why can't Seabios read to true number online CPUs from the PIIX4 device?
The information is there already, no need for addition PV here.

Jan