Otavio Pontes bac2031321 x86/microcode: Check for offline CPUs before requesting new microcode
[ Upstream commit 7189b3c11903667808029ec9766a6e96de5012a5 ]

Currently, the late microcode loading mechanism checks whether any CPUs
are offlined, and, in such a case, aborts the load attempt.

However, this must be done before the kernel caches new microcode from
the filesystem. Otherwise, when offlined CPUs are onlined later, those
cores are going to be updated through the CPU hotplug notifier callback
with the new microcode, while CPUs previously onine will continue to run
with the older microcode.

For example:

Turn off one core (2 threads):

  echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/online
  echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online

Install the ucode fails because a primary SMT thread is offline:

  cp intel-ucode/06-8e-09 /lib/firmware/intel-ucode/
  echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/reload
  bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument

Turn the core back on

  echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/online
  echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
  cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep microcode
  microcode : 0x30
  microcode : 0xde
  microcode : 0x30
  microcode : 0xde

The rationale for why the update is aborted when at least one primary
thread is offline is because even if that thread is soft-offlined
and idle, it will still have to participate in broadcasted MCE's
synchronization dance or enter SMM, and in both examples it will execute
instructions so it better have the same microcode revision as the other
cores.

 [ bp: Heavily edit and extend commit message with the reasoning behind all
   this. ]

Fixes: 30ec26da9967 ("x86/microcode: Do not upload microcode if CPUs are offline")
Signed-off-by: Otavio Pontes <otavio.pontes@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
Reviewed-by: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>
Acked-by: Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@intel.com>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210319165515.9240-2-otavio.pontes@intel.com
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
2021-05-14 09:50:11 +02:00
2021-04-21 13:00:57 +02:00
2021-04-28 13:40:02 +02:00
2020-10-17 11:18:18 -07:00
2021-05-11 14:47:41 +02:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.
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