Re: Does ARM platform produce MP protocol?

[Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@linaro.org>]

(adding Achin and Charles)

On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 10:16, Ni, Ray <ray.ni@intel.com> wrote:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: edk2-devel <edk2-devel-bounces@lists.01.org> On Behalf Of Ard
> > Biesheuvel
> > Sent: Wednesday, March 6, 2019 3:38 PM
> > To: Ni, Ray <ray.ni@intel.com>
> > Cc: edk2-devel@lists.01.org
> > Subject: Re: [edk2] Does ARM platform produce MP protocol?
> >
> > On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 06:44, Ni, Ray <ray.ni@intel.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Ard, Leif,
> > > I am a bit interested in how ARM platform supports the MP?
> > > PI Spec defines below protocol but I failed to find a driver in ARM platform
> > producing this protocol.
> > > Or did I miss anything?
> > >
> >
> > No you are right. We don't expose that on ARM, since UEFI only runs on a
> > single core. Bringing up and taking down cores is done via a protocol called
> > PSCI, which is implemented by firmware running at a higher privilege level.
> >
> > So while it would be possible to implement the MP protocol on top of PSCI,
> > we haven't identified a use case for it yet. (The OS calls PSCI directly to boot
> > the secondary cores)
>
> Is below EFI_MM_MP_PROTOCOL (added in PI spec 1.6) implemented in ARM?
> Or will it be implemented by an ARM module?

No it is currently not implemented, and I am not aware of any plans to do so.

> I am asking this because MP_SERVICES protocol exposes CPU location information
> (Package/Core/Thread) through *GetProcessorInfo*, but MM_MP protocol doesn't
> have a way to expose that information.
> If such location information isn't exposed by MM_MP, is that because ARM doesn't
> care about the location information? Or because ARM cares but forgot to add similar
> *GetProcessorInfo* interface to MM_MP when changing the PI spec?
> Or ARM doesn't use the MM_MP at all?
>

I don't know the history of this protocol and who proposed it, but
today, we don't have a need for running per-CPU initialization code in
the context of MM. Even if MM is a component of the more privileged
firmware running on an ARM system, it is running in a sandbox that was
primarily designed around exposing MM services to UEFI code running at
the same privilege level as the OS (such as the authenticated variable
store). Platform initialization code (which is more likely to require
dispatch to each core) runs in the secure world as well, but not in
the context of MM.

I will let Achin chime in here as well.


> typedef struct _EFI_MM_MP_PROTOCOL {
>         UINT32                           Revision,
>         UINT32                           Attributes,
>         EFI_MM_ GET_NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS GetNumberOfProcessors,
>         EFI_MM_DISPATCH_PROCEDURE        DispatchProcedure,
>         EFI_MM_BROADCAST_PROCEDURE       BroadcastProcedure,
>         EFI_MM_SET_STARTUP_PROCEDURE     SetStartupProcedure,
>         EFI_CHECK_FOR_PROCEDURE          CheckOnProcedure,
>         EFI_WAIT_FOR_PROCEDURE           WaitForProcedure,
> }EFI_MM_MP_PROTOCOL;
> >
> > > typedef struct _EFI_MP_SERVICES_PROTOCOL {
> > > EFI_MP_SERVICES_GET_NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS
> > GetNumberOfProcessors;
> > > EFI_MP_SERVICES_GET_PROCESSOR_INFO GetProcessorInfo;
> > > EFI_MP_SERVICES_STARTUP_ALL_APS StartupAllAPs;
> > > EFI_MP_SERVICES_STARTUP_THIS_AP StartupThisAP;
> > > EFI_MP_SERVICES_SWITCH_BSP SwitchBSP;
> > EFI_MP_SERVICES_ENABLEDISABLEAP
> > > EnableDisableAP; EFI_MP_SERVICES_WHOAMI WhoAmI; }
> > > EFI_MP_SERVICES_PROTOCOL;
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Ray
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