[Sks-devel] OCaml vs hyperthreading

[Andrew Gallagher]

Since SKS is written in OCaml, this might be of interest to keyserver
operators.

OCaml appears to make (dis?)optimisations that trigger a rare Intel
hyperthreading bug with increased probability. This only happens on
Skylake and Kaby Lake processors. For Skylake (Xeon v5, Core iX-6XXX and
similar), Debian has updated microcode packages available that solve the
issue. For Kaby Lake (Xeon v6, Core iX-7XXX and similar*), the only
foolproof method appears to be to disable hyperthreading and wait for a
vendor patch to drop.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2017/06/msg00308.html

Andrew.

(*) but some i7-7XXX and i9-7XXX are Skylake; full lists at
https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/37572/Skylake and
https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/82879/Kaby-Lake

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