Re: [PATCH] NMI/CMOS RTC race fix for x86-64

From: Andi Kleen
Date: Mon Mar 07 2005 - 14:16:45 EST


Corey Minyard <minyard@xxxxxxx> writes:

> This patch fixes a race between the CMOS clock setting and the NMI
> code. The NMI code indiscriminatly sets index registers and values
> in the same place the CMOS clock is set. If you are setting the
> CMOS clock and an NMI occurs, Bad values could be written to or
> read from the CMOS RAM, or the NMI operation might not occur
> correctly.
>

In general you should send all x86-64 patches to me. I would have
eventually merged it from i386 anyways if it was good.

But in this case it isnt. Instead of all this complexity
just remove the NMI reassert code from the NMI handler.
It is oudated and mostly useless on modern systems anyways.

Since the NMI watchdog runs regularly even if an NMI is missed
it will be eventually handled. And even when it doesn't run
it doesn't matter much because NMI does nothing essential.

-Andi
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/