Re: [RFC PATCH] hwmon: (peci/cputemp) Number cores as seen by host system

[Winiarska, Iwona]

On Fri, 2023-02-10 at 10:45 -0800, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 09, 2023 at 05:48:41PM -0800, Zev Weiss wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 09, 2023 at 04:26:47PM PST, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> > > On 2/9/23 16:14, Zev Weiss wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Feb 09, 2023 at 09:50:01AM PST, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Feb 08, 2023 at 05:16:32PM -0800, Zev Weiss wrote:
> > > > > > While porting OpenBMC to a new platform with a Xeon Gold 6314U CPU
> > > > > > (Ice Lake, 32 cores), I discovered that the core numbering used by
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > PECI interface appears to correspond to the cores that are present
> > > > > > in
> > > > > > the physical silicon, rather than those that are actually enabled
> > > > > > and
> > > > > > usable by the host OS (i.e. it includes cores that the chip was
> > > > > > manufactured with but later had fused off).
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Thus far the cputemp driver has transparently exposed that numbering
> > > > > > to userspace in its 'tempX_label' sysfs files, making the core
> > > > > > numbers
> > > > > > it reported not align with the core numbering used by the host
> > > > > > system,
> > > > > > which seems like an unfortunate source of confusion.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > We can instead use a separate counter to label the cores in a
> > > > > > contiguous fashion (0 through numcores-1) so that the core numbering
> > > > > > reported by the PECI cputemp driver matches the numbering seen by
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > host.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > I don't really have an opinion if this change is desirable or not.
> > > > > I suspect one could argue either way. I'l definitely want to see
> > > > > feedback from others. Any comments or thoughts, anyone ?
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Agreed, I'd definitely like to get some input from Intel folks on this.
> > > > 
> > > > Though since I realize my initial email didn't quite explain this
> > > > explicitly, I should probably clarify with an example how weird the
> > > > numbering can get with the existing code -- on the 32-core CPU I'm
> > > > working with at the moment, the tempX_label files produce the following
> > > > core numbers:
> > > > 
> > > >     Core 0
> > > >     Core 1
> > > >     Core 2
> > > >     Core 3
> > > >     Core 4
> > > >     Core 5
> > > >     Core 6
> > > >     Core 7
> > > >     Core 8
> > > >     Core 9
> > > >     Core 11
> > > >     Core 12
> > > >     Core 13
> > > >     Core 14
> > > >     Core 15
> > > >     Core 18
> > > >     Core 20
> > > >     Core 22
> > > >     Core 23
> > > >     Core 24
> > > >     Core 26
> > > >     Core 27
> > > >     Core 28
> > > >     Core 29
> > > >     Core 30
> > > >     Core 31
> > > >     Core 33
> > > >     Core 34
> > > >     Core 35
> > > >     Core 36
> > > >     Core 38
> > > >     Core 39
> > > > 
> > > > i.e. it's not just a different permutation of the expected core numbers,
> > > > we end up with gaps (e.g. the nonexistence of core 10), and core numbers
> > > > well in excess of the number of cores the processor really "has" (e.g.
> > > > number 39) -- all of which seems like a rather confusing thing to see in
> > > > your BMC's sensor readings.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Sure, but what do you see with /proc/cpuinfo and with coretemp
> > > on the host ? It might be even more confusing if the core numbers
> > > reported by the peci driver don't match the core numbers provided
> > > by other tools.
> > > 
> > 
> > The host sees them numbered as the usual 0-31 you'd generally expect, and
> > assigned to those cores in the same increasing order -- hence the patch
> > bringing the two into alignment with each other.  Currently only cores 0
> > through 9 match up between the two, and the rest are off by somewhere
> > between one and eight.
> > 
> 
> Hmm, interesting. It is not sequential on my large system (Intel(R) Xeon(R)
> Gold 6154). I also know for sure that core IDs on Intel server CPUs are
> typically not sequential. The processor number is sequential, but the core
> ID isn't. On my system, the output from the "sensors" command (that is,
> from the coretemp driver) matches the non-sequential core IDs from
> /proc/cpuinfo, which is exactly how I would expect it to be.
> 
> Guenter

On Linux, from host side, core ID is obtained from EDX of CPUID(EAX=0xb).
Unfortunately, the value exposed to the host (and whether it's in sequential or
non-sequential form) can vary from platform to platform (which BTW is why on
Linux, core ID shouldn't really be used for any logic related to task placement
- topology info should be used instead).
From BMC perspective - we'll always get the non-sequential form.

If we just apply the patch proposed by Zev, we'll end up being consistent on one
set of platforms and inconsistent on other set of platforms.
If we want to make things consistent, we need a different approach - either by
obtaining additional information over PECI or by limiting the scope of the
proposed change to specific platforms.

Thanks
-Iwona