Re: [PATCH] x86: avoid confusion over the new RESCTRL config prompt

Borislav Petkov
2019-01-29T23:09:02Z

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 05:52:18PM -0500, Johannes Weiner wrote:
> "Resource Control" is a very broad term for this CPU feature, and a
> term that is also associated with containers, cgroups etc. This can
> easily cause confusion.
>
> Make the user prompt more specific.
>
> Signed-off-by: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>
> ---
> arch/x86/Kconfig | 4 ++--
> 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> As somebody who works in "resource control", this prompt in oldconfig
> certainly had me go wtf. Can we do something more specific?

Well, since this is an interface to a hardware feature, we could call it

Hardware Resource Control

for example. I.e., HW_RESCTRL.

Linus had another suggestion - CPU_RESCTRL - which sounds ok to me too.

> Not insisting on this name, and I haven't renamed all the config
> symbols yet, but we should probably fix this before 5.0 is released.
>
> Thanks!
>
> diff --git a/arch/x86/Kconfig b/arch/x86/Kconfig
> index 26387c7bf305..426677b759c0 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/Kconfig
> +++ b/arch/x86/Kconfig
> @@ -447,11 +447,11 @@ config RETPOLINE
> support for full protection. The kernel may run slower.
>
> config X86_RESCTRL
> - bool "Resource Control support"
> + bool "x86 cache control support"

Except that it is not only cache but memory (bandwidth) control too. So I guess

bool "CPU Resource Control support"

or so.

Let the bikeshedding begin!

:-)

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

SUSE Linux GmbH, GF: Felix Imendörffer, Jane Smithard, Graham Norton, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg)