summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorEvan Green <evan@rivosinc.com>2023-11-07 02:24:39 +0300
committerPalmer Dabbelt <palmer@rivosinc.com>2023-11-08 02:13:09 +0300
commitd3d2cf1acab1857ae1982d431be9d96dc0e0775c (patch)
treeba7b33ea7e2ad81b1187af584b532830ee0be8d6 /Documentation
parent28ea54bade76e2d47cb8cdb96e427cfb90d3eea7 (diff)
downloadlinux-d3d2cf1acab1857ae1982d431be9d96dc0e0775c.tar.xz
RISC-V: Show accurate per-hart isa in /proc/cpuinfo
In /proc/cpuinfo, most of the information we show for each processor is specific to that hart: marchid, mvendorid, mimpid, processor, hart, compatible, and the mmu size. But the ISA string gets filtered through a lowest common denominator mask, so that if one CPU is missing an ISA extension, no CPUs will show it. Now that we track the ISA extensions for each hart, let's report ISA extension info accurately per-hart in /proc/cpuinfo. We cannot change the "isa:" line, as usermode may be relying on that line to show only the common set of extensions supported across all harts. Add a new "hart isa" line instead, which reports the true set of extensions for that hart. Signed-off-by: Evan Green <evan@rivosinc.com> Reviewed-by: Andrew Jones <ajones@ventanamicro.com> Reviewed-by: Conor Dooley <conor.dooley@microchip.com> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231106232439.3176268-1-evan@rivosinc.com Signed-off-by: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@rivosinc.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/riscv/uabi.rst20
1 files changed, 20 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/riscv/uabi.rst b/Documentation/riscv/uabi.rst
index 8960fac42c40..54d199dce78b 100644
--- a/Documentation/riscv/uabi.rst
+++ b/Documentation/riscv/uabi.rst
@@ -42,6 +42,26 @@ An example string following the order is::
rv64imadc_zifoo_zigoo_zafoo_sbar_scar_zxmbaz_xqux_xrux
+"isa" and "hart isa" lines in /proc/cpuinfo
+-------------------------------------------
+
+The "isa" line in /proc/cpuinfo describes the lowest common denominator of
+RISC-V ISA extensions recognized by the kernel and implemented on all harts. The
+"hart isa" line, in contrast, describes the set of extensions recognized by the
+kernel on the particular hart being described, even if those extensions may not
+be present on all harts in the system.
+
+In both lines, the presence of an extension guarantees only that the hardware
+has the described capability. Additional kernel support or policy changes may be
+required before an extension's capability is fully usable by userspace programs.
+Similarly, for S-mode extensions, presence in one of these lines does not
+guarantee that the kernel is taking advantage of the extension, or that the
+feature will be visible in guest VMs managed by this kernel.
+
+Inversely, the absence of an extension in these lines does not necessarily mean
+the hardware does not support that feature. The running kernel may not recognize
+the extension, or may have deliberately removed it from the listing.
+
Misaligned accesses
-------------------