powerpc-utils package is missing in RHCOS, which makes it little tedious to set SMT and other processor settings via Machine Config Operator (MCO). powerpc-utils ships the ppc64_cpu binary which makes it very easy to set SMT mode (2,4,8) or online/offlining of CPUs or setting CPU frequency. This package is already part of RHEL and is an opensource project hosted at - https://github.com/ibm-power-utilities/powerpc-utils The processor setting binary code is the following - https://github.com/ibm-power-utilities/powerpc-utils/blob/master/src/ppc64_cpu.c The alternate mechanism to set SMT is via direct modification of the sys entries as described here - https://access.redhat.com/solutions/rhel-smt However please note that /sys/devices/system/cpu/smt/control is an Intel only setting. Additionally the script method can be used but it's less than obvious for different SMT and other processor specific settings. Including powerpc-utils will ensure suitable processor settings can be performed via MCO based on workload requirements.
Inclusion of powerpc-utils is being handled via the following two related bugzillas - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1814335 - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1819566 *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1814335 ***