Bug#969443: arm64: please backport stolen time support to buster kernel (Re: src:linux: none)

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

tags 969443 + upstream fixed-upstream
severity 969443 wishlist
retitle 969443 arm64: please backport stolen time support to buster kernel
quit

Hi,

Noah Meyerhans wrote:

> Subject: src:linux: none

It looks like you forgot to include a subject line?

> When used in virtual machine environments, Linux on amd64 is able to report
> "steal time" to the guest.  This functionality has been supported by Linux
> on amd64 for years, but was only added to arm64 with Linux 5.5.
>
> As Debian and arm64 are increasingly used in virtual environments, including
> cloud environments, the ability to report steal time is increasingly
> important for system monitoring and performance analysis.  Thus, I'd like to
> request that CPU steal time accounting support for arm64 be backported to
> buster, if possible.

Thanks for reporting.

The relevant series is a4b28f5c6798 (Merge remote-tracking branch
'kvmarm/kvm-arm64/stolen-time' into kvmarm-master/next, 2019-10-24).
It may be possible to try applying it if you are interested.

That said, for this kind of issue that is about new features instead
of hardware support, my advice would be to use a more current kernel
from backports instead.

Thanks and hope that helps,
Jonathan