Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] x86/cpuid: Deal with broken firmware once more

["M. Vefa Bicakci" <m.v.b@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/13/2016 09:04 PM, Boris Ostrovsky wrote:
> On 11/12/2016 05:05 PM, M. Vefa Bicakci wrote:
>> On 11/10/2016 06:31 PM, Boris Ostrovsky wrote:
>>> On 11/10/2016 10:05 AM, Charles (Chas) Williams wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 11/10/2016 09:02 AM, Boris Ostrovsky wrote:
>>>>> On 11/10/2016 06:13 AM, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, 10 Nov 2016, M. Vefa Bicakci wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have found that your patch unfortunately does not improve the
>>>>>>> situation
>>>>>>> for me. Here is an excerpt obtained from the dmesg of a kernel
>>>>>>> compiled
>>>>>>> with this patch *as well as* Sebastian's patch:
>>>>>>> [    0.002561] CPU: Physical Processor ID: 0
>>>>>>> [    0.002566] CPU: Processor Core ID: 0
>>>>>>> [    0.002572] [Firmware Bug]: CPU0: APIC id mismatch. Firmware:
>>>>>>> ffff CPUID: 2
>>>>>> So apic->cpu_present_to_apicid() gives us a completely bogus APIC id
>>>>>> which
>>>>>> translates to a bogus package id. And looking at the XEN code:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>    xen_pv_apic.cpu_present_to_apicid = xen_cpu_present_to_apicid,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> and xen_cpu_present_to_apicid does:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> static int xen_cpu_present_to_apicid(int cpu)
>>>>>> {
>>>>>>         if (cpu_present(cpu))
>>>>>>                 return xen_get_apic_id(xen_apic_read(APIC_ID));
>>>>>>         else
>>>>>>                 return BAD_APICID;
>>>>>> }
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So independent of which present CPU we query we get just some random
>>>>>> information, in the above case we get BAD_APICID from
>>>>>> xen_apic_read() not
>>>>>> from the else path as this CPU _IS_ present.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What's so wrong with storing the fricking firmware supplied APICid as
>>>>>> everybody else does and report it back when queried?
>>>>> By firmware you mean ACPI? It is most likely not available to PV guests.
>>>>> How about returning cpu_data(cpu).initial_apicid?
>>>>>
>>>>> And what was the original problem?
>>>> The original issue I found was that VMware was returning a different set
>>>> of APIC id's in the ACPI tables than what it advertised on the CPU's.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg1266716.html
>>> For Xen, we recently added a6a198bc60e6 ("xen/x86: Update topology map
>>> for PV VCPUs") to at least temporarily work around some topology map
>>> problems that PV guests have with RAPL (which I think is what Vefa's
>>> problem was).
>> Hello Boris,
>>
>> (Sorry for the delay!)
>>
>> It appears that the problem is a bit different compared to the one
>> corrected by a6a198bc60e6, because my kernel tree -- based on 4.8.6 --
>> already includes the -stable backport of that commit, i.e.
>>   88540ad0820ddfb05626e0136c0e5a79cea85fd1
>>
>> The patch I included in my previous e-mail (dated 2016-11-10) corrects
>> root cause of the issue I am having with 4.8.6. Sebastian's original
>> patch adding error checking to the RAPL module prevents the RAPL module
>> from causing a kernel oops without my patch.
> 
> I don't see any messages from you on that date. Can you provide a link
> to it (and to Sebastian's patch)?
> 
> (BTW, generally it's a good idea to copy xen-devel list on any
> Xen-related issues).

As I explain below, it turns out that my issue was 'only' a kernel
configuration issue.

For reference, I had unknowingly solved my kernel-configuration-induced
issue via the patch at:
  https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=147875027314638&w=2

Sebastian's patch (which adds error handling to the RAPL module) is at:
  https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=147739814217598&w=2

>> The issue I am experiencing is caused by the boot-up code in the
>> 'init_apic_mappings' function switching the APIC ops structure from
>> Xen's structure to a no-op structure by calling the 'apic_disable'
>> function. Please let me know if I can clarify or elaborate.
> 
> apic_disable() is only invoked if there is no APIC present (i.e.
> detect_init_APIC() returns a non-zero value) and I don't think this can
> happen. Is your CPUID[1].edx[9] not set?

I found out that my domU kernels invoke the 'apic_disable' function
because CONFIG_X86_MPPARSE was not enabled in my kernel configuration,
which would cause the 'smp_found_config' bit to be unset at boot-up.

This would cause 'init_apic_mappings' to call 'apic_disable', which
would cause Xen's 'apic' ops structure pointer to be replaced with the
no-op APIC ops structure's pointer.

The use of the no-op APIC ops structure would in turn cause invalid
virtual CPU package identifiers to be generated. Invalid CPU package
identifiers would in turn cause the RAPL module to produce a kernel oops
due to potentially missing error handling.

It looks like I have been ignoring the following kernel warning which I
should have noticed a long time ago:

  MPS support code is not built-in.
  Using acpi=off or acpi=noirq or pci=noacpi may have problem

To all on this e-mail thread, I learned a bit through this exercise, but
I have also taken a lot of everyone's time and created quite a bit of
e-mail traffic because of a kernel configuration issue on my end.

My apologies.

Vefa

_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.xen.org/xen-devel