diff mbox

powerpc: Export PIR data through sysfs

Message ID 20111108065811.GA9109@in.ibm.com (mailing list archive)
State Superseded
Headers show

Commit Message

Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli Nov. 8, 2011, 6:58 a.m. UTC
On Mon, Nov 07, 2011 at 11:18:32AM -0600, Scott Wood wrote:
> On 11/06/2011 10:47 PM, Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli wrote:
> > The Processor Identification Register (PIR) on powerpc provides
> > information to decode the processor identification tag. Decoding
> > this information platform specfic.
> > 
> > Export PIR data via sysfs.
> > 
> > (Powerpc manuals state this register is 'optional'. I am not sure
> > though if there are any Linux supported powerpc platforms that
> > don't have it. Code in the kernel referencing PIR isn't under
> > a platform ifdef).
> 
> Those references are in platform-specific files, under #ifdef
> CONFIG_SMP, often in areas that would only be executed in the presence
> of multiple CPUs (e.g. secondary release).  The reference in misc_32.S
> is inside #ifdef CONFIG_KEXEC and is fairly recent -- it may not have
> been tested on these systems.
> 
> I don't see PIR (other than in the acronym definition section) in
> manuals for UP-only cores such as e300, 8xx, and 750.

I saw that SPRN_PIR is defined for booke in reg_booke.h but wasn't sure
if it is applicable to all platforms. Thanks for the clarification.

> What use does userspace have for this?  If you want to return the
> currently executing CPU (which unless you're pinned could change as soon
> as the value is read...), why not just return smp_processor_id() or
> hard_smp_processor_id()?

Its not just the current cpu. Decoding PIR can tell you the core id,
thread id in case of SMT, and this information can be used by userspace
apps to set affinities, etc.

How does the following look?

Ananth
---

From: Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli <ananth@in.ibm.com>

The Processor Identification Register (PIR) on powerpc provides
information to decode the processor identification tag. Decoding
this information platform specfic.

Export PIR data via sysfs.

Signed-off-by: Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli <ananth@in.ibm.com>
---
 arch/powerpc/kernel/sysfs.c |   13 +++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+)

Comments

Scott Wood Nov. 8, 2011, 4:59 p.m. UTC | #1
On 11/08/2011 12:58 AM, Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 07, 2011 at 11:18:32AM -0600, Scott Wood wrote:
>> What use does userspace have for this?  If you want to return the
>> currently executing CPU (which unless you're pinned could change as soon
>> as the value is read...), why not just return smp_processor_id() or
>> hard_smp_processor_id()?
> 
> Its not just the current cpu. Decoding PIR can tell you the core id,
> thread id in case of SMT, and this information can be used by userspace
> apps to set affinities, etc.

Wouldn't it make more sense to expose the thread to core mappings in a
general way, not tied to hardware or what thread we're currently running on?

What's the use case for knowing this information only about the current
thread (or rather the state the current thread was in a few moments ago)?

> +#if defined(CONFIG_SMP) && defined(SPRN_PIR)
> +SYSFS_PMCSETUP(pir, SPRN_PIR);
> +static SYSDEV_ATTR(pir, 0400, show_pir, NULL);
> +#endif

This only helps on architectures such as 8xx where you can't build as
SMP -- and I don't think #ifdef SPRN_PIR excludes any builds.

It doesn't help on chips like 750 or e300 where you can run a normal 6xx
SMP build, you just won't have multiple CPUs, and thus won't run things
like the secondary entry code.

-Scott
Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli Nov. 9, 2011, 4:41 a.m. UTC | #2
On Tue, Nov 08, 2011 at 10:59:46AM -0600, Scott Wood wrote:
> On 11/08/2011 12:58 AM, Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 07, 2011 at 11:18:32AM -0600, Scott Wood wrote:
> >> What use does userspace have for this?  If you want to return the
> >> currently executing CPU (which unless you're pinned could change as soon
> >> as the value is read...), why not just return smp_processor_id() or
> >> hard_smp_processor_id()?
> > 
> > Its not just the current cpu. Decoding PIR can tell you the core id,
> > thread id in case of SMT, and this information can be used by userspace
> > apps to set affinities, etc.
> 
> Wouldn't it make more sense to expose the thread to core mappings in a
> general way, not tied to hardware or what thread we're currently running on?

AFAIK, the information encoding in PIR is platform dependent. There is
no general way to expose this information unless you want have a
per-platform ifdef. Even then, I am not sure if that information will
generally be available or provided.

> What's the use case for knowing this information only about the current
> thread (or rather the state the current thread was in a few moments ago)?

Its not information about the thread but about the cpu. Unless you have
a shared LPAR environment, the data will be consistent and can be used
by applications with knowledge of the platform.

> > +#if defined(CONFIG_SMP) && defined(SPRN_PIR)
> > +SYSFS_PMCSETUP(pir, SPRN_PIR);
> > +static SYSDEV_ATTR(pir, 0400, show_pir, NULL);
> > +#endif
> 
> This only helps on architectures such as 8xx where you can't build as
> SMP -- and I don't think #ifdef SPRN_PIR excludes any builds.
> 
> It doesn't help on chips like 750 or e300 where you can run a normal 6xx
> SMP build, you just won't have multiple CPUs, and thus won't run things
> like the secondary entry code.

Ugh! Booke builds seem to be fun :-)

I think this calls for a CPU_FTR_PIR. What do you suggest?

Ananth
Michael Ellerman Nov. 9, 2011, 6:51 a.m. UTC | #3
On Tue, 2011-11-08 at 10:59 -0600, Scott Wood wrote:
> On 11/08/2011 12:58 AM, Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 07, 2011 at 11:18:32AM -0600, Scott Wood wrote:
> >> What use does userspace have for this?  If you want to return the
> >> currently executing CPU (which unless you're pinned could change as soon
> >> as the value is read...), why not just return smp_processor_id() or
> >> hard_smp_processor_id()?
> > 
> > Its not just the current cpu. Decoding PIR can tell you the core id,
> > thread id in case of SMT, and this information can be used by userspace
> > apps to set affinities, etc.
> 
> Wouldn't it make more sense to expose the thread to core mappings in a
> general way, not tied to hardware or what thread we're currently running on?

AFAIK that is already available in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/topology

cheers
Scott Wood Nov. 9, 2011, 3:48 p.m. UTC | #4
On Wed, Nov 09, 2011 at 10:11:24AM +0530, Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 08, 2011 at 10:59:46AM -0600, Scott Wood wrote:
> > On 11/08/2011 12:58 AM, Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli wrote:
> > > On Mon, Nov 07, 2011 at 11:18:32AM -0600, Scott Wood wrote:
> > >> What use does userspace have for this?  If you want to return the
> > >> currently executing CPU (which unless you're pinned could change as soon
> > >> as the value is read...), why not just return smp_processor_id() or
> > >> hard_smp_processor_id()?
> > > 
> > > Its not just the current cpu. Decoding PIR can tell you the core id,
> > > thread id in case of SMT, and this information can be used by userspace
> > > apps to set affinities, etc.
> > 
> > Wouldn't it make more sense to expose the thread to core mappings in a
> > general way, not tied to hardware or what thread we're currently running on?
> 
> AFAIK, the information encoding in PIR is platform dependent. There is
> no general way to expose this information unless you want have a
> per-platform ifdef. Even then, I am not sure if that information will
> generally be available or provided.
> 
> > What's the use case for knowing this information only about the current
> > thread (or rather the state the current thread was in a few moments ago)?
> 
> Its not information about the thread but about the cpu. Unless you have
> a shared LPAR environment, the data will be consistent and can be used
> by applications with knowledge of the platform.

I'm not sure what a "shared LPAR environment" is, but unless you're
pinned there's no guarantee the CPU you're running on once the read()
syscall returns is the same as the one that PIR was read on.  Do you mean
you're expecting this to be run from inside a partition that runs only on
one CPU, and thus whichever thread you'll be migrated to will have the
other data remain the same?

> > > +#if defined(CONFIG_SMP) && defined(SPRN_PIR)
> > > +SYSFS_PMCSETUP(pir, SPRN_PIR);
> > > +static SYSDEV_ATTR(pir, 0400, show_pir, NULL);
> > > +#endif
> > 
> > This only helps on architectures such as 8xx where you can't build as
> > SMP -- and I don't think #ifdef SPRN_PIR excludes any builds.
> > 
> > It doesn't help on chips like 750 or e300 where you can run a normal 6xx
> > SMP build, you just won't have multiple CPUs, and thus won't run things
> > like the secondary entry code.
> 
> Ugh! Booke builds seem to be fun :-)

Those aren't booke.

> I think this calls for a CPU_FTR_PIR. What do you suggest?

Unless someone wants to test what actually happens when you read PIR on
all these CPUs...

What platform is this meant to be useful for?  Perhaps it could just be a
platform-specific sysfs entry?

-Scott
diff mbox

Patch

Index: linux-3.1/arch/powerpc/kernel/sysfs.c
===================================================================
--- linux-3.1.orig/arch/powerpc/kernel/sysfs.c
+++ linux-3.1/arch/powerpc/kernel/sysfs.c
@@ -330,6 +330,11 @@  static struct sysdev_attribute pa6t_attr
 #endif /* HAS_PPC_PMC_PA6T */
 #endif /* HAS_PPC_PMC_CLASSIC */
 
+#if defined(CONFIG_SMP) && defined(SPRN_PIR)
+SYSFS_PMCSETUP(pir, SPRN_PIR);
+static SYSDEV_ATTR(pir, 0400, show_pir, NULL);
+#endif
+
 static void __cpuinit register_cpu_online(unsigned int cpu)
 {
 	struct cpu *c = &per_cpu(cpu_devices, cpu);
@@ -394,6 +399,10 @@  static void __cpuinit register_cpu_onlin
 		sysdev_create_file(s, &attr_dscr);
 #endif /* CONFIG_PPC64 */
 
+#if defined(CONFIG_SMP) && defined(SPRN_PIR)
+	sysdev_create_file(s, &attr_pir);
+#endif
+
 	cacheinfo_cpu_online(cpu);
 }
 
@@ -464,6 +473,10 @@  static void unregister_cpu_online(unsign
 		sysdev_remove_file(s, &attr_dscr);
 #endif /* CONFIG_PPC64 */
 
+#if defined(CONFIG_SMP) && defined(SPRN_PIR)
+	sysdev_remove_file(s, &attr_pir);
+#endif
+
 	cacheinfo_cpu_offline(cpu);
 }