Re: [PATCH v2] x86/smpboot: Make logical package management more robust

From: Boris Ostrovsky
Date: Tue Jun 06 2017 - 21:51:11 EST




On 06/06/2017 09:39 AM, Max Vozeler wrote:
Hi Thomas,

there is a problem booting recent kernels on some Xen domUs hosted by
provider JiffyBox.

The kernel seems to crash just after logging
[ 0.038700] SMP alternatives: switching to SMP code


Do you have the crash splat? Stack trace and such.

In fact, full boot log might be useful.


We started seeing this with 4.9.2 and bisecting the 4.9 stable kernels
determined that this commit introduced the problem. Reverting it from 4.9.2
makes the kernel boot again.

Older kernels (starting from 3.16 up to and including 4.9.1) were running
fine in this setup. But recent mainline (tested 4.12-rc3) and 4.9.x both
fail to boot there.

Unfortunately we have no detailed information about the hypervisor or
setup and the provider is not very forthcoming with details. I'm attaching
dmesg of a successful boot (4.9.2 with this commit reverted).

It shows a fairly old XEN version:

[ 0.000000] Xen version: 3.1.2-416.el5 (preserve-AD)


This is a 10 year old hypervisor so it's not especially surprising that newer kernels don't work. (If anything, I am surprised that you actually booted 4.9 at all).

There have been a bunch of problems in this area (topology) on PV guests.


-boris