Re: [PATCH 1/2] x86/microcode: Update late microcode in parallel

From: Raj, Ashok
Date: Tue Aug 27 2019 - 20:56:34 EST


On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 02:25:01PM +0200, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 01:23:39PM -0700, Raj, Ashok wrote:
> > > Cloud customers have expressed discontent as services disappear for a
> > > prolonged time. The restriction is that only one core goes through the
> > s/one core/one thread of a core/
> >
> > > update while other cores are quiesced.
> > s/cores/other thread(s) of the core
>
> Changed it to:
>
> "Cloud customers have expressed discontent as services disappear for
> a prolonged time. The restriction is that only one core (or only one
> thread of a core in the case of an SMT system) goes through the update
> while other cores (or respectively, SMT threads) are quiesced."

the last line seems to imply that only one core can be updated at a time.
But the only requirement is on a per-core basis, the HT thread sharing
a core must be quiesced while the microcode update is performed.

for ex. if you have 2 cores, you can update microcode on both cores
at the same time.

C0T0, C0T1 - If you are updating on C0T0, C0T1 must be waiting for the update
to complete

But You can initiate the microcode update on C1T0 simultaneously.


>
> Thx.
>
> --
> Regards/Gruss,
> Boris.
>
> Good mailing practices for 400: avoid top-posting and trim the reply.