Re: AVX "Sandy Bridge" hardware issue?

From: Chris Friesen
Date: Wed Jul 13 2011 - 12:19:46 EST


On 07/12/2011 06:49 PM, Andi Kleen wrote:
MK<mk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

In which Andreas Schwab points out (rightly or wrongly) that according
to the /proc/cpuinfo from the slice, the processor actually does not
support AVX. However, the "model name", "Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU
E31230", is according to this a Sandy Bridge processor with AVX:

If it's in a VM then the VM may not expose AVX to the guest
(the VMs have to do that explicitely because AVX has additional state).
If it's not in /proc/cpuinfo on the guest that's likely the case.

The OP mentioned that he's using OpenVZ, so it's running in a container (chroot on steroids), not a "true" VM.

Each instance runs the same kernel, they're isolated from the other instances using filesystem/process/network namespaces.

That said, /proc/cpuinfo is virtualized somehow by the containerization since it shows only the cpus assigned to the container--it seems plausible that they screwed up the cpu flags while doing it.

I think your suggestion of talking to the vendor is the correct next step.

Chris


--
Chris Friesen
Software Developer
GENBAND
chris.friesen@xxxxxxxxxxx
www.genband.com
--
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/