diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide/pm/intel_idle.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/admin-guide/pm/intel_idle.rst | 56 |
1 files changed, 50 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/intel_idle.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/intel_idle.rst index b799a43da62e..ed6f055d4b14 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/intel_idle.rst +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/intel_idle.rst @@ -38,6 +38,27 @@ instruction at all. only way to pass early-configuration-time parameters to it is via the kernel command line. +Sysfs Interface +=============== + +The ``intel_idle`` driver exposes the following ``sysfs`` attributes in +``/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuidle/``: + +``intel_c1_demotion`` + Enable or disable C1 demotion for all CPUs in the system. This file is + only exposed on platforms that support the C1 demotion feature and where + it was tested. Value 0 means that C1 demotion is disabled, value 1 means + that it is enabled. Write 0 or 1 to disable or enable C1 demotion for + all CPUs. + + The C1 demotion feature involves the platform firmware demoting deep + C-state requests from the OS (e.g., C6 requests) to C1. The idea is that + firmware monitors CPU wake-up rate, and if it is higher than a + platform-specific threshold, the firmware demotes deep C-state requests + to C1. For example, Linux requests C6, but firmware noticed too many + wake-ups per second, and it keeps the CPU in C1. When the CPU stays in + C1 long enough, the platform promotes it back to C6. This may improve + some workloads' performance, but it may also increase power consumption. .. _intel-idle-enumeration-of-states: @@ -170,7 +191,7 @@ and ``idle=nomwait``. If any of them is present in the kernel command line, the ``MWAIT`` instruction is not allowed to be used, so the initialization of ``intel_idle`` will fail. -Apart from that there are four module parameters recognized by ``intel_idle`` +Apart from that there are five module parameters recognized by ``intel_idle`` itself that can be set via the kernel command line (they cannot be updated via sysfs, so that is the only way to change their values). @@ -192,11 +213,19 @@ even if they have been enumerated (see :ref:`cpu-pm-qos` in Documentation/admin-guide/pm/cpuidle.rst). Setting ``max_cstate`` to 0 causes the ``intel_idle`` initialization to fail. -The ``no_acpi`` and ``use_acpi`` module parameters (recognized by ``intel_idle`` -if the kernel has been configured with ACPI support) can be set to make the -driver ignore the system's ACPI tables entirely or use them for all of the -recognized processor models, respectively (they both are unset by default and -``use_acpi`` has no effect if ``no_acpi`` is set). +The ``no_acpi``, ``use_acpi`` and ``no_native`` module parameters are +recognized by ``intel_idle`` if the kernel has been configured with ACPI +support. In the case that ACPI is not configured these flags have no impact +on functionality. + +``no_acpi`` - Do not use ACPI at all. Only native mode is available, no +ACPI mode. + +``use_acpi`` - No-op in ACPI mode, the driver will consult ACPI tables for +C-states on/off status in native mode. + +``no_native`` - Work only in ACPI mode, no native mode available (ignore +all custom tables). The value of the ``states_off`` module parameter (0 by default) represents a list of idle states to be disabled by default in the form of a bitmask. @@ -216,6 +245,21 @@ are ignored). The idle states disabled this way can be enabled (on a per-CPU basis) from user space via ``sysfs``. +The ``ibrs_off`` module parameter is a boolean flag (defaults to +false). If set, it is used to control if IBRS (Indirect Branch Restricted +Speculation) should be turned off when the CPU enters an idle state. +This flag does not affect CPUs that use Enhanced IBRS which can remain +on with little performance impact. + +For some CPUs, IBRS will be selected as mitigation for Spectre v2 and Retbleed +security vulnerabilities by default. Leaving the IBRS mode on while idling may +have a performance impact on its sibling CPU. The IBRS mode will be turned off +by default when the CPU enters into a deep idle state, but not in some +shallower ones. Setting the ``ibrs_off`` module parameter will force the IBRS +mode to off when the CPU is in any one of the available idle states. This may +help performance of a sibling CPU at the expense of a slightly higher wakeup +latency for the idle CPU. + .. _intel-idle-core-and-package-idle-states: |