Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 1/4] CPU online/offline support in Xen

[Keir Fraser <keir.fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/9/08 15:23, "Christoph Egger" <Christoph.Egger@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>> I note that the VCPU currently running on the offlined CPU continues to run
>> there even after __cpu_disable(), and until that CPU does a final run
>> through the scheduler soon after. I hope it does not matter there is one
>> vcpu with v->processor == offlined_cpu for a short while
> 
> This is not acceptable regarding to machine check. When Dom0 offlines a
> defect cpu, nothing may continue on it or silent data corruption occurs.

It doesn't run for unbounded time. The offline CPU will immediately run
softirq work as the very next thing it does, causing a run through the
scheduler, where it will 100% definitely pick up the idle vcpu and hence
play dead in the idle loop.

This won't be guaranteed synchronous with a offline request via a hypercall
though. By which I mean, that hypercall may return but the last vcpu may not
stop running on the cpu until some tiny amount of time later.

If this is unacceptable we have to add a hook into sched_credit.c to
synchronously and forcibly deschedule the currently running VCPU from within
stop_machine context. This is probably moderately tricky, so I hope we can
avoid it.

 -- Keir



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