Re: [PATCH] perf/x86: check ucode before disabling PEBS on SandyBridge

Peter Zijlstra
2012-06-12T17:26:55Z

On Tue, 2012-06-12 at 19:23 +0200, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 07:18:13PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > But the ucode loader can be (ab)used to only update one of the many
> > CPUs.
>
> Not if you don't support mixed ucode revisions. In that case, you want
> the same ucode patch applied to _all_ cores on the system. Otherwise,
> random freezes, explosions and other cataclysmic events can happen.

You want, yes, but afaict the stuff in
arch/x86/kernel/microcode_core.c:reload_store means you can force a
single cpu to update while leaving the others alone.

Afaict this is not a sane thing to do, but quite possible.