B
Operating System
Programming Guidelines
The goal of the MP specification is to transfer enough information about the hardware environment to the operating system that a single,
1.
2.Self configuration.
3.Interrupt mode initialization.
4.Application processor startup.
5.Application processor shutdown.
6.Dynamic interrupt masking.
7.Support for unequal processors.
B.1 Operating System Boot-up
While all processors in an
Usually a processor is designated as the BSP because it is capable of controlling all system hardware, including AP startup and shutdown. The operating system must determine and remember the APIC ID of the designated BSP, so it can keep the BSP operating as the last running processor during system shutdown. The BSP is not necessarily the first processor, especially in
At the time that the first instruction of the operating system is executed, the APs are in the following state:
∙The APs have been restrained (either by the BIOS or by the hardware) from executing operating system code.
∙The APs are in a halted condition with interrupts disabled. This means that the AP’s local APICs are passively monitoring the APIC bus and will react only to INIT or STARTUP interprocessor interrupts (IPIs).
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