Re: Recoverable MCA interrupts from NMI handlers? IPMI and RCU?

From: Corey Minyard
Date: Fri Jun 06 2008 - 16:53:45 EST


Paul E. McKenney wrote:
Hello!

A couple of questions about the x86 architecture...

1. Can recoverable machine-check exceptions occur from within
NMI handlers? If so, there is a bug in preemptable RCU's
CONFIG_NO_HZ handling that could be fixed by a patch something
like the one shown below (untested, probably does not even
compile).

2. Does the IPMI subsystem make use of RCU read-side primitives
from within SMI handlers? If so, we need the SMI handlers to
invoke rcu_irq_enter() upon entry and rcu_irq_exit() upon exit
when they are invoked from dynticks idle state. Or something
similar, depending on restrictions on code within SMI handlers.
If you mean the IPMI driver, it does not tie into any SMI. It theoretically could since there's a bit for that in the watchdog timer, but there's been no demand and I haven't looked at it. I guess it would be better than an NMI.

If it did tie in, it would most likely just panic to get useful information out before the watchdog reset the system.

-corey
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/