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docs: kernel-parameter: Improve the description of nr_cpus and maxcpus
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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: Baoquan He <bhe@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
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Baoquan He authored and Jonathan Corbet committed Aug 25, 2016
1 parent 6d232c8 commit 7c142bf
Showing 1 changed file with 13 additions and 7 deletions.
20 changes: 13 additions & 7 deletions Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -2161,10 +2161,13 @@ bytes respectively. Such letter suffixes can also be entirely omitted.
than or equal to this physical address is ignored.

maxcpus= [SMP] Maximum number of processors that an SMP kernel
should make use of. maxcpus=n : n >= 0 limits the
kernel to using 'n' processors. n=0 is a special case,
it is equivalent to "nosmp", which also disables
the IO APIC.
will bring up during bootup. maxcpus=n : n >= 0 limits
the kernel to bring up 'n' processors. Surely after
bootup you can bring up the other plugged cpu by executing
"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
(loop.max_loop) unconditionally pre-created at init time. The default
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nr_cpus= [SMP] Maximum number of processors that an SMP kernel
could support. nr_cpus=n : n >= 1 limits the kernel to
supporting 'n' processors. Later in runtime you can not
use hotplug cpu feature to put more cpu back to online.
just like you compile the kernel NR_CPUS=n
support 'n' processors. It could be larger than the
number of already plugged CPU during bootup, later in
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.

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