Re: [RFC Patch V1 00/30] Enable memoryless node on x86 platforms

Tony Luck <[email protected]> Mon, 21 Jul 2014 17:41:59 +0000
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.linux-hotplug,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel,org.kvack.linux-mm
Message-ID <CA+8MBbK+ZdisT_yXh_jkWSd4hWEMisG614s4s0EyNV3j-7YOow@mail.gmail.com>
On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Nishanth Aravamudan
<[email protected]> wrote:
> It seems like the issue is the order of onlining of resources on a
> specific x86 platform?

Yes. When we online a node the BIOS hits us with some ACPI hotplug events:

First: Here are some new cpus
Next: Here is some new memory
Last; Here are some new I/O things (PCIe root ports, PCIe devices,
IOAPICs, IOMMUs, ...)

So there is a period where the node is memoryless - although that will generally
be resolved when the memory hot plug event arrives ... that isn't guaranteed to
occur (there might not be any memory on the node, or what memory there is
may have failed self-test and been disabled).

-Tony