This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled x86/tsc: Provide 'tsc=unstable' boot parameter to the 4.4-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary The filename of the patch is: x86-tsc-provide-tsc-unstable-boot-parameter.patch and it can be found in the queue-4.4 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From foo@baz Tue Apr 10 10:31:53 CEST 2018 From: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 14:56:44 +0200 Subject: x86/tsc: Provide 'tsc=unstable' boot parameter From: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> [ Upstream commit 8309f86cd41e8714526867177facf7a316d9be53 ] Since the clocksource watchdog will only detect broken TSC after the fact, all TSC based clocks will likely have observed non-continuous values before/when switching away from TSC. Therefore only thing to fully avoid random clock movement when your BIOS randomly mucks with TSC values from SMI handlers is reporting the TSC as unstable at boot. Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Mike Galbraith <efault@xxxxxx> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <alexander.levin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- arch/x86/kernel/tsc.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) --- a/arch/x86/kernel/tsc.c +++ b/arch/x86/kernel/tsc.c @@ -365,6 +365,8 @@ static int __init tsc_setup(char *str) tsc_clocksource_reliable = 1; if (!strncmp(str, "noirqtime", 9)) no_sched_irq_time = 1; + if (!strcmp(str, "unstable")) + mark_tsc_unstable("boot parameter"); return 1; } Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx are queue-4.4/perf-tools-fix-copyfile_offset-update-of-output-offset.patch queue-4.4/sched-numa-use-down_read_trylock-for-the-mmap_sem.patch queue-4.4/x86-asm-don-t-use-rbp-as-a-temporary-register-in-csum_partial_copy_generic.patch queue-4.4/perf-core-correct-event-creation-with-perf_format_group.patch queue-4.4/x86-tsc-provide-tsc-unstable-boot-parameter.patch