[PATCH] macb: Don't re-enable interrupts while in polling mode

From: Joshua Hoke
Date: Tue Oct 19 2010 - 13:08:38 EST


From: Joshua Hoke <joshua.hoke@xxxxxxxxxx>

[PATCH] macb: Don't re-enable interrupts while in polling mode

On a busy network, the macb driver could get stuck in the interrupt
handler, quickly triggering the watchdog, due to a confluence of
factors:

1. macb_poll re-enables interrupts unconditionally, even when it will
be called again because it exhausted its rx budget

2. macb_interrupt only disables interrupts after scheduling
macb_poll, but scheduling fails when macb_poll is already scheduled
because it didn't call napi_complete

3. macb_interrupt loops until the interrupt status register is clear,
which will never happen in this case if the driver doesn't disable
the RX interrupt

Since macb_interrupt runs in interrupt context, this effectively locks
up the machine, triggering the hardware watchdog.

This issue was readily reproducible on a flooded network with a
modified 2.6.27.48 kernel. The same problem appears to still be in the
2.6.36-rc8 driver code, so I am submitting this patch against that
version. I have not tested this version of the patch except to make
sure the kernel compiles.

Signed-off-by: Joshua Hoke <joshua.hoke@xxxxxxxxxx>

---

I'm submitting this at the request of Andrew Morton in this bug:

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20732

This version of the patch applies to 2.6.36-rc8 but has not been
tested. In particular I am assuming that napi_schedule_prep() behaves
the same as netif_rx_schedule_prep() did by failing when the macb_poll
callback is already scheduled.

diff --git a/drivers/net/macb.c b/drivers/net/macb.c
index ff2f158..36cf594 100644
--- a/drivers/net/macb.c
+++ b/drivers/net/macb.c
@@ -515,14 +515,15 @@ static int macb_poll(struct napi_struct *napi, int
budget)
(unsigned long)status, budget);

work_done = macb_rx(bp, budget);
- if (work_done < budget)
+ if (work_done < budget) {
napi_complete(napi);

- /*
- * We've done what we can to clean the buffers. Make sure we
- * get notified when new packets arrive.
- */
- macb_writel(bp, IER, MACB_RX_INT_FLAGS);
+ /*
+ * We've done what we can to clean the buffers. Make
sure we
+ * get notified when new packets arrive.
+ */
+ macb_writel(bp, IER, MACB_RX_INT_FLAGS);
+ }

/* TODO: Handle errors */

@@ -550,12 +551,16 @@ static irqreturn_t macb_interrupt(int irq, void
*dev_id)
}

if (status & MACB_RX_INT_FLAGS) {
+ /*
+ * There's no point taking any more interrupts
+ * until we have processed the buffers. The
+ * scheduling call may fail if the poll routine
+ * is already scheduled, so disable interrupts
+ * now.
+ */
+ macb_writel(bp, IDR, MACB_RX_INT_FLAGS);
+
if (napi_schedule_prep(&bp->napi)) {
- /*
- * There's no point taking any more
interrupts
- * until we have processed the buffers
- */
- macb_writel(bp, IDR, MACB_RX_INT_FLAGS);
dev_dbg(&bp->pdev->dev,
"scheduling RX softirq\n");
__napi_schedule(&bp->napi);
--
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