Re: MSI interrupts and disable_irq

From: Jeff Garzik
Date: Tue Oct 16 2007 - 15:45:32 EST


Yinghai Lu wrote:
On 10/16/07, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yinghai Lu wrote:
On 10/15/07, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Manfred Spraul wrote:
Jeff Garzik wrote:
I think the scenario you outline is an illustration of the approach's
fragility: disable_irq() is a heavy hammer that originated with INTx,
and it relies on a chip-specific disable method (kernel/irq/manage.c)
that practically guarantees behavior will vary across MSI/INTx/etc.

I checked the code: IRQ_DISABLE is implemented in software, i.e.
handle_level_irq() only calls handle_IRQ_event() [and then the nic irq
handler] if IRQ_DISABLE is not set.
OTHO: The last trace looks as if nv_do_nic_poll() is interrupted by an irq.

Perhaps something corrupts dev->irq? The irq is requested with
request_irq(np->pci_dev->irq, handler, IRQF_SHARED, dev->name, dev)
and disabled with
disable_irq_lockdep(dev->irq);

Someone around with a MSI capable board? The forcedeth driver does
dev->irq = pci_dev->irq
in nv_probe(), especially before pci_enable_msi().
Does pci_enable_msi() change pci_dev->irq? Then we would disable the
wrong interrupt....
Remember, fundamentally MSI-X is a one-to-many relationship, when you
consider a single PCI device might have multiple vectors.
msi-x is using other entry

if (np->msi_flags & NV_MSI_X_ENABLED)

enable_irq_lockdep(np->msi_x_entry[NV_MSI_X_VECTOR_ALL].vector);
Correct, but the overall point was that MSI-X conceptually conflicts
with the existing "lockless" disable_irq() schedule, which was written
when there was a one-one relationship between irq, PCI device, and work
to be done.

Can I use your new driver with RHEL 5 or RHEL 5.1?

Not without modification, since it depends on the napi_struct work currently in torvalds/linux-2.6.git.

But I am currently rewriting the fe-lock yet again, and most of those changes can be applied to pre-napi_struct forcedeth.

Jeff



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