Re: [PATCH 0/6] x86/microcode: Support for Intel Staging Feature

[Dave Hansen]

On 2/28/25 14:52, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 28, 2025 at 02:27:15PM -0800, Colin Mitchell wrote:
>> As a potential user, I'd advocate for an option to disable legacy
>> loading if staging is supported.
> What happens if staging is failing indefinitely, for whatever reason?
> 
> You can't load any microcode anymore if you've disabled the legacy method
> too.

Yeah, I'm perplexed by this choice too.

You seem to be saying that you'd rather be (for instance) insecure
running old microcode than have the latency blip from a legacy microcode
load.

What action would you take if a staging-load fails? Retry again a few
times? Go back to the CPU vendor and get a new image? Or just ignore it?