tools/x86: Add a kcpuid tool to show raw CPU features
End users frequently want to know what features their processor supports, independent of what the kernel supports. /proc/cpuinfo is great. It is omnipresent and since it is provided by the kernel it is always as up to date as the kernel. But, it could be ambiguous about processor features which can be disabled by the kernel at boot-time or compile-time. There are some user space tools showing more raw features, but they are not bound with kernel, and go with distros. Many end users are still using old distros with new kernels (upgraded by themselves), and may not upgrade the distros only to get a newer tool. So here arise the need for a new tool, which * shows raw CPU features read from the CPUID instruction * will be easier to update compared to existing userspace tooling (perhaps distributed like perf) * inherits "modern" kernel development process, in contrast to some of the existing userspace CPUID tools which are still being developed without git and distributed in tarballs from non-https sites. * Can produce output consistent with /proc/cpuinfo to make comparison easier. The CPUID leaf definitions are kept in an .csv file which allows for updating only that file to add support for new feature leafs. This is based on prototype code from Borislav Petkov (http://sr71.net/~dave/intel/stupid-cpuid.c). [ bp: - Massage, add #define _GNU_SOURCE to fix implicit declaration of function ‘strcasestr' warning - remove superfluous newlines - fallback to cpuid.csv in the current dir if none found - fix typos - move comments over the lines instead of sideways. ] Originally-from: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> Suggested-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com> Suggested-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> Signed-off-by: Feng Tang <feng.tang@intel.com> Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de> Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1614928878-86075-1-git-send-email-feng.tang@intel.com
Showing
Please register or sign in to comment