[PATCH] x86_64: Add documentation for CPU hotplug ACPI extension

Cc: len.brown@intel.com, ashok.ray@intel.com

Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

1 files changed, 21 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/x86_64/cpu-hotplug-spec b/Documentation/x86_64/cpu-hotplug-spec
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..5c0fa345e556
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/x86_64/cpu-hotplug-spec
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Firmware support for CPU hotplug under Linux/x86-64
+---------------------------------------------------
+
+Linux/x86-64 supports CPU hotplug now. For various reasons Linux wants to
+know in advance boot time the maximum number of CPUs that could be plugged
+into the system. ACPI 3.0 currently has no official way to supply
+this information from the firmware to the operating system.
+
+In ACPI each CPU needs an LAPIC object in the MADT table (5.2.11.5 in the
+ACPI 3.0 specification).  ACPI already has the concept of disabled LAPIC
+objects by setting the Enabled bit in the LAPIC object to zero.
+
+For CPU hotplug Linux/x86-64 expects now that any possible future hotpluggable
+CPU is already available in the MADT. If the CPU is not available yet
+it should have its LAPIC Enabled bit set to 0. Linux will use the number
+of disabled LAPICs to compute the maximum number of future CPUs.
+
+In the worst case the user can overwrite this choice using a command line
+option (additional_cpus=...), but it is recommended to supply the correct
+number (or a reasonable approximation of it, with erring towards more not less)
+in the MADT to avoid manual configuration.