summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/x86/topology.txt
blob: 06afac252f5b5c0877746c2ac406b6aa84af8f8e (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
x86 Topology
============

This documents and clarifies the main aspects of x86 topology modelling and
representation in the kernel. Update/change when doing changes to the
respective code.

The architecture-agnostic topology definitions are in
Documentation/cputopology.txt. This file holds x86-specific
differences/specialities which must not necessarily apply to the generic
definitions. Thus, the way to read up on Linux topology on x86 is to start
with the generic one and look at this one in parallel for the x86 specifics.

Needless to say, code should use the generic functions - this file is *only*
here to *document* the inner workings of x86 topology.

Started by Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> and Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>.

The main aim of the topology facilities is to present adequate interfaces to
code which needs to know/query/use the structure of the running system wrt
threads, cores, packages, etc.

The kernel does not care about the concept of physical sockets because a
socket has no relevance to software. It's an electromechanical component. In
the past a socket always contained a single package (see below), but with the
advent of Multi Chip Modules (MCM) a socket can hold more than one package. So
there might be still references to sockets in the code, but they are of
historical nature and should be cleaned up.

The topology of a system is described in the units of:

    - packages
    - cores
    - threads

* Package:

  Packages contain a number of cores plus shared resources, e.g. DRAM
  controller, shared caches etc.

  AMD nomenclature for package is 'Node'.

  Package-related topology information in the kernel:

  - cpuinfo_x86.x86_max_cores:

    The number of cores in a package. This information is retrieved via CPUID.

  - cpuinfo_x86.phys_proc_id:

    The physical ID of the package. This information is retrieved via CPUID
    and deduced from the APIC IDs of the cores in the package.

  - cpuinfo_x86.logical_id:

    The logical ID of the package. As we do not trust BIOSes to enumerate the
    packages in a consistent way, we introduced the concept of logical package
    ID so we can sanely calculate the number of maximum possible packages in
    the system and have the packages enumerated linearly.

  - topology_max_packages():

    The maximum possible number of packages in the system. Helpful for per
    package facilities to preallocate per package information.


* Cores:

  A core consists of 1 or more threads. It does not matter whether the threads
  are SMT- or CMT-type threads.

  AMDs nomenclature for a CMT core is "Compute Unit". The kernel always uses
  "core".

  Core-related topology information in the kernel:

  - smp_num_siblings:

    The number of threads in a core. The number of threads in a package can be
    calculated by:

	threads_per_package = cpuinfo_x86.x86_max_cores * smp_num_siblings


* Threads:

  A thread is a single scheduling unit. It's the equivalent to a logical Linux
  CPU.

  AMDs nomenclature for CMT threads is "Compute Unit Core". The kernel always
  uses "thread".

  Thread-related topology information in the kernel:

  - topology_core_cpumask():

    The cpumask contains all online threads in the package to which a thread
    belongs.

    The number of online threads is also printed in /proc/cpuinfo "siblings."

  - topology_sibling_mask():

    The cpumask contains all online threads in the core to which a thread
    belongs.

   - topology_logical_package_id():

    The logical package ID to which a thread belongs.

   - topology_physical_package_id():

    The physical package ID to which a thread belongs.

   - topology_core_id();

    The ID of the core to which a thread belongs. It is also printed in /proc/cpuinfo
    "core_id."



System topology examples

Note:

The alternative Linux CPU enumeration depends on how the BIOS enumerates the
threads. Many BIOSes enumerate all threads 0 first and then all threads 1.
That has the "advantage" that the logical Linux CPU numbers of threads 0 stay
the same whether threads are enabled or not. That's merely an implementation
detail and has no practical impact.

1) Single Package, Single Core

   [package 0] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 0

2) Single Package, Dual Core

   a) One thread per core

	[package 0] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 0
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 1

   b) Two threads per core

	[package 0] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 0
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 1
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 2
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 3

      Alternative enumeration:

	[package 0] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 0
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 2
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 1
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 3

      AMD nomenclature for CMT systems:

	[node 0] -> [Compute Unit 0] -> [Compute Unit Core 0] -> Linux CPU 0
				     -> [Compute Unit Core 1] -> Linux CPU 1
		 -> [Compute Unit 1] -> [Compute Unit Core 0] -> Linux CPU 2
				     -> [Compute Unit Core 1] -> Linux CPU 3

4) Dual Package, Dual Core

   a) One thread per core

	[package 0] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 0
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 1

	[package 1] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 2
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 3

   b) Two threads per core

	[package 0] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 0
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 1
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 2
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 3

	[package 1] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 4
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 5
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 6
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 7

      Alternative enumeration:

	[package 0] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 0
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 4
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 1
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 5

	[package 1] -> [core 0] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 2
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 6
		    -> [core 1] -> [thread 0] -> Linux CPU 3
				-> [thread 1] -> Linux CPU 7

      AMD nomenclature for CMT systems:

	[node 0] -> [Compute Unit 0] -> [Compute Unit Core 0] -> Linux CPU 0
				     -> [Compute Unit Core 1] -> Linux CPU 1
		 -> [Compute Unit 1] -> [Compute Unit Core 0] -> Linux CPU 2
				     -> [Compute Unit Core 1] -> Linux CPU 3

	[node 1] -> [Compute Unit 0] -> [Compute Unit Core 0] -> Linux CPU 4
				     -> [Compute Unit Core 1] -> Linux CPU 5
		 -> [Compute Unit 1] -> [Compute Unit Core 0] -> Linux CPU 6
				     -> [Compute Unit Core 1] -> Linux CPU 7
OpenPOWER on IntegriCloud