Commit 7c142bfe authored by Baoquan He's avatar Baoquan He Committed by Jonathan Corbet

docs: kernel-parameter: Improve the description of nr_cpus and maxcpus

From the old description people still can't get what's the exact
difference between nr_cpus and maxcpus. Especially in kdump kernel
nr_cpus is always suggested if it's implemented in the ARCH. The
reason is nr_cpus is used to limit the max number of possible cpu
in system, the sum of already plugged cpus and hot plug cpus can't
exceed its value. However maxcpus is used to limit how many cpus
are allowed to be brought up during bootup.
Signed-off-by: default avatarBaoquan He <bhe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarJonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
parent 6d232c80
...@@ -2161,10 +2161,13 @@ bytes respectively. Such letter suffixes can also be entirely omitted. ...@@ -2161,10 +2161,13 @@ bytes respectively. Such letter suffixes can also be entirely omitted.
than or equal to this physical address is ignored. than or equal to this physical address is ignored.
maxcpus= [SMP] Maximum number of processors that an SMP kernel maxcpus= [SMP] Maximum number of processors that an SMP kernel
should make use of. maxcpus=n : n >= 0 limits the will bring up during bootup. maxcpus=n : n >= 0 limits
kernel to using 'n' processors. n=0 is a special case, the kernel to bring up 'n' processors. Surely after
it is equivalent to "nosmp", which also disables bootup you can bring up the other plugged cpu by executing
the IO APIC. "echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/online". So maxcpus
only takes effect during system bootup.
While n=0 is a special case, it is equivalent to "nosmp",
which also disables the IO APIC.
max_loop= [LOOP] The number of loop block devices that get max_loop= [LOOP] The number of loop block devices that get
(loop.max_loop) unconditionally pre-created at init time. The default (loop.max_loop) unconditionally pre-created at init time. The default
...@@ -2773,9 +2776,12 @@ bytes respectively. Such letter suffixes can also be entirely omitted. ...@@ -2773,9 +2776,12 @@ bytes respectively. Such letter suffixes can also be entirely omitted.
nr_cpus= [SMP] Maximum number of processors that an SMP kernel nr_cpus= [SMP] Maximum number of processors that an SMP kernel
could support. nr_cpus=n : n >= 1 limits the kernel to could support. nr_cpus=n : n >= 1 limits the kernel to
supporting 'n' processors. Later in runtime you can not support 'n' processors. It could be larger than the
use hotplug cpu feature to put more cpu back to online. number of already plugged CPU during bootup, later in
just like you compile the kernel NR_CPUS=n runtime you can physically add extra cpu until it reaches
n. So during boot up some boot time memory for per-cpu
variables need be pre-allocated for later physical cpu
hot plugging.
nr_uarts= [SERIAL] maximum number of UARTs to be registered. nr_uarts= [SERIAL] maximum number of UARTs to be registered.
......
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