From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ingo Molnar Subject: Re: Q: smp.c && barriers (Was: [PATCH 1/4] generic-smp: remove single ipi fallback for smp_call_function_many()) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:10:48 +0100 Message-ID: <20090218171048.GA12299@elte.hu> References: <20090217192810.GA4980@redhat.com> <20090217213256.GJ6761@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <20090217214518.GA13189@redhat.com> <20090217223910.GM6761@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <20090218135212.GB23125@wotan.suse.de> <20090218162116.GC29863@elte.hu> <20090218165808.GA9120@elte.hu> <20090218170517.GA9769@elte.hu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Return-path: Received: from mx2.mail.elte.hu ([157.181.151.9]:56380 "EHLO mx2.mail.elte.hu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752815AbZBRRLX (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:11:23 -0500 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20090218170517.GA9769@elte.hu> Sender: linux-arch-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Suresh Siddha , "Pallipadi, Venkatesh" , Yinghai Lu , Nick Piggin , "Paul E. McKenney" , Oleg Nesterov , Peter Zijlstra , Jens Axboe , Rusty Russell , Steven Rostedt , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-arch@vger.kernel.org ok, it's documented: Intel=C2=AE 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer=E2=80=99s Manual Volume 3A: System Programming Guide, Part 1 9.5.3 MSR Access in x2APIC Mode To allow for efficient access to the APIC registers in x2APIC=20 mode, the serializing semantics of WRMSR are relaxed when=20 writing to the APIC registers. Thus, system software should not=20 use =E2=80=9CWRMSR to APIC registers in x2APIC mode=E2=80=9D as a seri= alizing=20 instruction. Read and write accesses to the APIC registers will=20 occur in program order. A WRMSR to an APIC register may=20 complete before all preceding stores are globally visible;=20 software can prevent this by inserting a serializing=20 instruction or MFENCE before the WRMSR. Ingo