Re: PV-vNUMA issue: topology is misinterpreted by the guest

[Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com>]

On 07/16/2015 12:39 PM, Andrew Cooper wrote:
> On 16/07/15 17:29, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>>> On 16.07.15 at 17:50, <boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com> wrote:
>>> Can't we set leaf 1's EBX[32:16] to 1?

(I obviously fat-fingered this --- I meant EBX[23:16])

>> I don't think we should partially overwrite the relevant parts of
>> CPUID output - either all or nothing (so that things at least
>> remain consistent).

Possibly more, but specifically for Dario's problem I think this could 
resolve that.

> Also, there are no masking/override MSRs for that feature leaf on any
> hardware I am aware of, and a PV guest using plain `cpuid` will not
> observe any attempt of Xen's to control the value.

True, but we already modify other CPUID bits (e.g. we clear 
X86_FEATURE_TOPOEXT) so it won't make things much worse. (And again, for 
this specific problem CPUID is queried by guest kernel which uses PV 
CPUID instruction).

And in general (both for PV and HVM) --- is there any reason to expose 
CPU topology at all? I can see it being useful if VCPUs are pinned but 
if they are not then it can make performance worse.

-boris