Re: [PATCH RFC 3/3] arm64: Add HOTPLUG_PARALLEL support for secondary CPUs

[Jinjie Ruan]

On 6/18/2026 8:21 PM, Will Deacon wrote:
> Hi Jinjie,
> 
> On Mon, Jun 15, 2026 at 04:51:48PM +0800, Jinjie Ruan wrote:
>> On 6/12/2026 11:45 PM, Michael Kelley wrote:
>>> From: Jinjie Ruan <ruanjinjie@xxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2026 6:38 AM
>>>>
>>>> Support for parallel secondary CPU bringup is already utilized by x86,
>>>> MIPS, and RISC-V. This patch brings this capability to the arm64
>>>> architecture.
>>>>
>>>> Rework the global `secondary_data` accessed during early boot into
>>>> a per-CPU array. This array maps logical CPU IDs to MPIDR_EL1 values,
>>>> enabling the early boot code in head.S to resolve each secondary CPU's
>>>> logical ID concurrently.
>>>>
>>>> To fully enable HOTPLUG_PARALLEL, this patch implements:
>>>> 1) An arm64-specific arch_cpuhp_kick_ap_alive() handler.
>>>> 2) Callbacks to cpuhp_ap_sync_alive() inside secondary_start_kernel().
>>>>
>>>> Successfully tested on QEMU ARM64 virt machine (KVM on, 128 vCPUs).
>>>>
>>>> |     test kernel	   | secondary CPUs boot time |
>>>> |  ---------------------   |	--------------------  |
>>>> |   Without this patch     |		155.672	      |
>>>> |   cpuhp.parallel=0	   |		62.897	      |
>>>> |   cpuhp.parallel=1	   |		166.703	      |
>>>
>>> The last two rows seem mixed up. I would expect parallel=0 to
>>> result in a longer boot time.
>>
>> Hi, Michael,
>>
>> The results are correct and not mixed up.
>>
>> Compared to the original non‑HOTPLUG_PARALLEL approach, the advantage of
>> cpuhp.parallel=0 lies in its use of cpu_relax(`yield` on arm64) instead
>> of the wait_for_completion_timeout() mechanism (which may cause sleep
>> and context switching). This significantly reduces the overhead of VM
>> exits and context switches in a KVM guest, thereby cutting the secondary
>> CPU boot time by more than half.
> 
> I don't think that's a particularly compelling reason to enable this for
> arm64, in all honesty. The yield instruction typically doesn't do
> anything on actual arm64 silicon, so this probably means that you're
> introducing busy-loops which tend to be bad for power and scalability.

After updating the implementation in v2, the performance gains are
primarily observed on actual hardware.

> 
> I implemented this a while ago [1] but didn't manage to see much in terms
> of performance improvement and so I didn't bother to send the patches out

As shown in v2 below, on actual hardware, this results in a 40%–60%
reduction in boot time.

Bringup Time Comparison (ms, lower is better):

|     Platform		| Baseline|   P=0   |   P=1  | Delta(%)|
| --------------------- | ------- | ------- | ------ | ------- |
| 64-core ATF QEMU	| 2075.8  | 2080.7  | 1653.4 | 20.34%  |
| 192-core server(HIP12)| 14619.2 | 14619.1 | 8589.4 | 41.21%  |
| 32-core board	        | 2776.5  | 2881.0  | 1045.0 | 62.36%  |

Link:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260618092444.1316336-5-ruanjinjie@xxxxxxxxxx/

> after talking about it at KVM forum [2]. However, as mentioned at the end
> of that talk, it _is_ still useful for confidential VMs using PSCI so
> let me dust off my old series and send it out to see what you think.
> 
> It relies on PSCI v0.2, which means we don't need the NR_CPUS size array
> for secondary_data and I also have some support for error handling (it
> doesn't look like you handle __early_cpu_boot_status properly).

I need some time to look closely at your patch. Alternatively, I will
integrate your changes, re-test everything on actual hardware, and then
send out a revised version.

> 
> It looks like I could include your first patch, though!

Thank you very much.

> 
> Will
> 
> [1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/will/linux.git/log/?h=cpu-hotplug

It seems that the following patch removing
`rcutree_report_cpu_starting()` will reintroduce the original issue as
commit ce3d31ad3cac ("arm64/smp: Move
rcu_cpu_starting() earlier") soloved.

Link:
https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/will/linux.git/commit/?h=cpu-hotplug&id=bba4b62f45f2614bf6085e6cd3f233528f85bf26

Indeed, I also noticed that the invocation order of
rcutree_report_cpu_starting() on arm64 is somewhat suboptimal. It
hinders the implementation of parallel bringup on arm64 and could
potentially lead to RCU stalls.

Link:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260618092444.1316336-4-ruanjinjie@xxxxxxxxxx/

[    0.329017] smp: Bringing up secondary CPUs ...
[    0.343628] Detected VIPT I-cache on CPU1
[    0.343788]
[    0.343806] =============================
[    0.343816] WARNING: suspicious RCU usage
[    0.343966] 7.1.0-rc1-g27c1871848a2 #109 Not tainted
[    0.344087] -----------------------------
[    0.344098] kernel/locking/lockdep.c:3801 RCU-list traversed in
non-reader section!!
[    0.344112]
[    0.344112] other info that might help us debug this:
[    0.344112]
[    0.344135]
[    0.344135] RCU used illegally from offline CPU!
[    0.344135] rcu_scheduler_active = 1, debug_locks = 1
[    0.344174] no locks held by swapper/1/0.
[    0.344204]
[    0.344204] stack backtrace:
[    0.344611] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted
7.1.0-rc1-g27c1871848a2 #109 PREEMPT
[    0.344707] Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT)
[    0.345267] Call trace:
[    0.345436]  show_stack+0x18/0x24 (C)
[    0.345593]  dump_stack_lvl+0x90/0xd0
[    0.345620]  dump_stack+0x18/0x24
[    0.345639]  lockdep_rcu_suspicious+0x170/0x234
[    0.345665]  __lock_acquire+0xdd4/0x2078
[    0.345688]  lock_acquire+0x1c4/0x3f0
[    0.345711]  _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x60/0x88
[    0.345736]  down_trylock+0x18/0x48
[    0.345758]  __down_trylock_console_sem+0x38/0xc4
[    0.345782]  vprintk_emit+0x23c/0x3d0
[    0.345802]  vprintk_default+0x38/0x44
[    0.345822]  vprintk+0x28/0x34
[    0.345841]  _printk+0x5c/0x84
[    0.345864]  cpuinfo_store_cpu+0x174/0x298
[    0.345884]  secondary_start_kernel+0xbc/0x150
[    0.345905]  __secondary_switched+0xc0/0xc4
[    0.350307] GICv3: CPU1: found redistributor 1 region
0:0x00000000080c0000
[    0.350523] GICv3: CPU1: using allocated LPI pending table
@0x00000001042f0000
[    0.351303] CPU1: Booted secondary processor 0x0000000001 [0x410fd034]
[    0.387425] Detected VIPT I-cache on CPU2


> [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6kOshnnQuE
>