Re: [PATCH 3/4] hw/i386: add facility to expose CPU topology over fw-cfg

[Laszlo Ersek]

On 10/10/19 14:48, Igor Mammedov wrote:

> it doesn't really matter if it's ACPI blob or fw_cfg,
> what firmware needs is a table of possible CPUs with APIC IDs.

To repeat my previous point:

Not necessarily taking sides between "data table" and "register block",
but *if* we opt for "data table", then it *must* be fw_cfg.

> But if we go this route (i.e. not reuse CPU hotplug interface),
> the table alone is not enough, one would need to build a protocol
> between ACPI and firmware to communicate what CPUs to (un)hotplug.

That's for sure, yes -- for finding out what CPU has been hotplugged,
the hotplug SMI handler in the firmware has to look at the register
block no matter what.

The "data table" vs "register block" question only arises *afterwards*,
for translating the CPU selector (fetched from the register block) to
the APIC-ID domain. (The generic edk2 infrastructure requires APIC-IDs).

Thanks
Laszlo