[Discuss] How do I check cpu compatibility?

[John Abreau]

Thanks, Shankar.

On Sun, Oct 8, 2023 at 10:41 AM Shankar Viswanathan <
shankar.viswan at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/8/23 03:01, John Abreau wrote:
>
> I figure Intel  uses terminology other than "x86-64-v2", but I have no
> idea
> what their terminology is. None of my google searches have found anything
> helpful.
>
> How can I determine whether a given cpu type is "x86-64-v2" compatible?
>
>
> You have my sympathies! Intel and AMD each use a different terminology and
> for some reason the software vendors have decided to use yet other
> confusing names for the same set of features. x86-64 (aka AMD64) itself
> keeps evolving, but neither AMD nor Intel have established a versioning
> scheme on the ISA itself, so I personally do not like this "x86-64-v2"
> naming. The features being discussed here are specific to virtualization
> support, not the whole ISA. The basic HW virtualization support is called
> SVM or AMD-V by AMD, and VT-x by Intel.
>
> Broadly, there are two features that have been labeled as "v2" in this
> context:
> 1. Support for second level address translations (aka SLAT): AMD calls
> this Nested Page Tables (NPT), and Intel calls it Extended Page Tables (EPT)
> 2. Support for I/O virtualization: AMD calls this IOMMUv2 or AMD-Vi, and
> Intel refers to this as VT-d
>
> As pointed out in the previous comment, most server/workstation/desktop
> processors from Intel and AMD have supported these features for at least a
> decade. There are certain products and SKUs that may not support it
> (typically only lower end products), so it is best to read the spec summary
> from AMD or Intel to confirm.
>
> Specific to your question about Xeon E5-2690 V2, see:
>
> https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/75279/intel-xeon-processor-e52690-v2-25m-cache-3-00-ghz/specifications.html
>
> If you scroll down to the "Security and Reliability" section, you'll
> notice that both VT-d and EPT are supported. So you should be good on that
> front. Often, these features are not enabled by default in the BIOS, so
> please make sure to turn them on if you intend to run VMs on the machine.
> Once you're booted into Linux, you can check /proc/cpuinfo or run `lscpu`
> to verify that the "vmx", and "ept" flags are present (AMD equivalents will
> be "svm" and "npt").
>
> -Shankar
>
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-- 
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
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