From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
To: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@amd64.org>,
Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@goop.org>,
the arch/x86 maintainers <x86@kernel.org>,
Tigran Aivazian <tigran@aivazian.fsnet.co.uk>,
Xen Devel <xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>,
Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy.fitzhardinge@citrix.com>,
Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] x86/microcode: support for microcode update in Xen dom0
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:31:50 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <4E960746.90805@zytor.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20111012204048.GA22260@phenom.oracle.com>
On 10/12/2011 01:40 PM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> Why is it paramount to do it as early as possible? As in, even doing
> it before Linux kernel is invoked is preferred than during initrd runtime?
It is paramount to do it as early as possible *because the CPU is
broken*. That's why there is a microcode update at all. It is
*supposed* to be installed by BIOS, but for whatever reason it wasn't
(including user doesn't want to update the BIOS), so the very fact that
this is done in the OS at all is a bit of a fail.
Doing it in the bootloader is messy because bootloaders typically aren't
SMP-aware (and really shouldn't need to be), which leaves the OS. On
native hardware it should ideally be done as early in the processor
bringup as possible.
-hpa
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-10-12 21:31 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 41+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-09-26 18:17 [PATCH 0/3] x86/microcode: support for microcode update in Xen dom0 Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-09-26 18:18 ` [PATCH 1/3] xen/acpi: Domain0 acpi parser related platform hypercall Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-09-26 18:18 ` [PATCH 2/3] xen: add dom0_op hypercall Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-09-26 18:18 ` [PATCH 3/3] xen: add CPU microcode update driver Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-12 0:40 ` [PATCH 0/3] x86/microcode: support for microcode update in Xen dom0 Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-12 10:16 ` Borislav Petkov
2011-10-12 15:39 ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-12 18:18 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-12 19:18 ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-12 19:45 ` Borislav Petkov
2011-10-12 20:40 ` Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2011-10-12 21:31 ` H. Peter Anvin [this message]
2011-10-12 21:40 ` Borislav Petkov
2011-10-12 22:49 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-12 23:40 ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-12 23:55 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-13 0:00 ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-13 0:03 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-13 7:00 ` Borislav Petkov
2012-01-04 0:49 ` Sven Köhler
2011-10-13 7:33 ` Borislav Petkov
2011-10-13 9:57 ` Borislav Petkov
2011-10-13 16:44 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-17 17:08 ` [Xen-devel] " Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk
2011-10-17 17:40 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-18 1:11 ` Henrique de Moraes Holschuh
2011-10-18 8:56 ` Christoph Egger
2011-10-18 9:35 ` Borislav Petkov
2011-10-18 9:49 ` Christoph Egger
[not found] ` <m2n.s.1RGYF2-136675@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
2011-10-25 16:53 ` Ian Jackson
2011-10-12 22:27 ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-12 22:29 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-12 22:33 ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-12 22:34 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-12 22:38 ` Borislav Petkov
2011-10-12 20:22 ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-10-12 22:34 ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2011-10-12 22:36 ` H. Peter Anvin
[not found] ` <m2n.s.1RE5NW-151309@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
2011-10-17 13:47 ` [Xen-devel] " Ian Jackson
2011-11-03 15:06 ` Ben Guthro
2011-11-03 16:47 ` [Xen-devel] " Jeremy Fitzhardinge
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