linux-kernel - Re: [tip:x86/apic] x86/apic: Try to spread IRQ vectors to different priority levels

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Date:	Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:46:07 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Suresh Siddha <suresh.b.siddha@...el.com>
CC:	mingo@...nel.org, agordeev@...hat.com,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, yinghai@...nel.org,
	tglx@...utronix.de, linux-tip-commits@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [tip:x86/apic] x86/apic: Try to spread IRQ vectors to different
 priority levels

On 06/20/2012 02:41 PM, Suresh Siddha wrote:
>>
>> OK, stupid question: WHY?
>>
>> In general, in Linux the random prioritization is actually a negative.
> 
> Thinking loud in the context of your e-mail. With the relatively recent
> changes like the commit mentioned below, window of higher priority class
> preempting the lower priority class is minimized to the point at which
> the cpu decides which interrupt to be serviced next. And in this case,
> it doesn't matter if the two vectors are in two different priority
> classes or the same class. Higher the vector number higher the priority
> for the cpu to service next.
>  
> commit e58aa3d2d0cc01ad8d6f7f640a0670433f794922
> Author: Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
> Date:   Fri Mar 26 00:06:51 2010 +0000
> 
>     genirq: Run irq handlers with interrupts disabled
> 
> 
>> The only reason for the spreading by 8 is because of bugs/misfeatures in
>> old APIC implementations which made them handle more than two interrupts
>> per priority level rather inefficiently.
> 
> Peter, Is it just inefficiency or a functional bug in those old apic's?
> Just wondering if it is just inefficiency and given the above linux
> behavior does the inefficiency matter?
> 
> Anyways, these are old platforms that we probably don't want to mess
> with. Perhaps we should go back to '8' and add a comment with all this
> info, that the real intention is not to spread them across different
> priority class but to avoid running into some old apic bugs.
> 

I think it's just an inefficiency, in the sense that the interrupt will
be held at the IOAPIC until the LAPIC frees up a slot, but I could be
wrong.  xAPIC implementations can queue an interrupt per vector, and so
are unaffected; arguably we might not even want to do the "spread by 8"
at all on those implementations.

Overall, I think there is no real upside or downside, but the poster
seemed to assume that there would be an automatic upside, and I don't
think there is.

	-hpa


-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

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