OpenSolaris

Flag day: Updated bfu required for performance counters on AMD

Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:25:22 -0700
From: Kuriakose Kuruvilla <Kuriakose.Kuruvilla at sun dot com>
To: onnv-gate at onnv dot eng dot sun dot com, on-all at eng dot sun dot com
Subject: Flag day: Updated bfu required for performance counters on AMD

This affects users of performance counters (libcpc(3LIB), cpustat(1M),
cputrack(1), etc.) on AMD platforms.  Others can ignore this.

The putback of
     6672329 New performance counter events in Griffin processor
     6671120 Add new performance events for Shanghai processor
     6770238 Add new performance events for Istanbul processor
introduces a change to the bfu script in order to remove obsolete pcbe
(Performance Counter BackEnd) drivers for the AMD platform.

If you use bfu to upgrade your AMD machine, the updated bfu script
should be used for performance counters to work correctly.

Alternatively, if you do not use the updated bfu script when doing a
forward BFU you can delete the following files and reboot...
     /usr/kernel/pcbe/pcbe.AuthenticAMD.15
     /usr/kernel/pcbe/pcbe.AuthenticAMD.16
     /usr/kernel/pcbe/amd64/pcbe.AuthenticAMD.15
     /usr/kernel/pcbe/amd64/pcbe.AuthenticAMD.16
Similarly, if you do not use the updated bfu script when doing a BFU to
an earlier version, remove the following files and reboot...
     /usr/kernel/pcbe/pcbe.AuthenticAMD
     /usr/kernel/pcbe/amd64/pcbe.AuthenticAMD

Thanks
/kuriakose